As my step-parent's southern-based family was so fond of saying...

If a frog had wings his a** wouldn't hit the ground...

No, but, for myself, the inverse has occurred; intelligent application of logic & reason (combined with 30 yrs of study and research) has resulted in the conclusion that the 'Bible' is so mistranslated, misinterpreted, misaligned, and misassembled that it is ludicrous to base one's spiritual faith on it, much less expect to glean any accurate knowledge of pre/history.

As for the flaming letters spelling out the text of the 'Bible' on a distant planet, my first thought would be that it was a practical joke by some aliens with way too much time on their hands.

Science does not attempt to disprove God's existence; Scientific Method does not work that way. If anything, it would merely acknowledge that, at this time, insufficient evidence exists to draw an intelligent conclusion regarding the issue. Remember, in order for the scientific method to answer a question it must be about something that you can measure (observe) & test, preferably with a numerical value (but not necessarily).

Abra,

Okay now we are getting somewhere. I have a nice surprise for you. It doesn't say anywhere in the Original (old) testament that your definition of fornication is prohibited. In fact the Bible very explicitly lists the type of sexual relationships that are forbidden and two unmarried people who love each other is not one of them.

Issue #1 - resolved.

Next your issue with the concept that all men are sinners. Once again to the best of my knowledge it does not say anywhere in the Original (old) testament that all men are sinners.

Issue #2 - resolved.

I would be happy to tackle your next two issues. But before we do that will you look at how much anger you had at the notion of G-d saying things in the BIBLE which HE NEVER actually said?

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to reexamine the things you were taught growing up and weed out things that are erroneous, before concluding that the Bible (5 books of Moses) were man-made.

I was taught a lot of things that did not feel "true" at all. It bothered me for a long time so I decided to study directly from the source rather then take people's word for what it says. I was thrilled to discover that most things I was taught is actually not true and the Bible is full of love and caring for all of G-d's creations.

Very wise words. I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment here. Absolutely.



Either that, or the misguided efforts of a cynical intervening God that could have put that effort into answering the prayers of his genuinely sincere devoted followers instead of running around the universe playing the kind of stupid egotistical games that certain Internet posters would do just to prove that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

Yep if we found a distant planet with gigantic flaming letters spelling out the text of the Bible and believed them to have truly been put there by God, we could only conclude the deity is genuinely mentally ill. The book wasn’t written very well in the first place, and then he wants to go show it off in oversized flaming print? He would do much better spending his time taking introductory courses on “Instructional Writing 101”, and “Introduction to Writing Clearly for Raw Beginners”.



This is true also. Science is concerned with that which can be observed repeatability or exhibit a nature of dependably. If God wants science to recognize him he’ll have to start exhibiting more dependability. All that Science is really saying is that, thus far, God hasn’t been observed to exhibit any faithful dependability, which is what science investigates. Until God becomes more dependable, there’s just no way to measure him with repeatability required to show that he can be depended upon to always be there. If an intervening God exists he’s undependable. That’s really all that Science can say.

He’s probably out somewhere carving flaming letters in stone tablets or on planets or something.

Ok, first off I don’t understand why you are restricting yourself just to the Old Testament. I thought we were talking about the whole Bible?



Ok, then maybe it’s not the Bible that is at fault here. I guess it must be the religious institutions that lie about what’s in the Bible then.



Well again, I don’t understand why you are restricting yourself to just the Old Testament. I’m talking about the Bible as a whole. After all, Christian ‘religions’ can hardly ignore the New Testament or they wouldn’t be Christiantity.



First off, let me remind you that I never had any anger directed at God. My ‘anger’ was directed at the humans who lied to me about God.

So your saying that premarital intercourse is OK? According to Christianity? I wish I had been taught that when I was growing up!!!



Well, I have tons of reasons to reject the Bible. You only asked for ONE.

If you want to talk about something that you can’t deny is in the Bible let’s talk about Noah’s flood. Although, if you’d like to suggest that Noah’s flood is just a parable and never actually happened I’ll be the first to agree with you. However, MOST religious institutions don’t teach it that way.



Hey, I’m with you all the way on this one!

When I read the Bible I see Jesus as a Pantheist and he never said anywhere that he was going to die for the sins of man!!! Jesus simply NEVER SAID that! Period!!!

So why do 99.9% of Christian religions teach that he died for our sins????

Answer me that. Or do you believe that he did indeed die for our sins????

I will agree with you that there is a huge difference between what is actually written in the Bible and what is not. But then again, I’ll also put to you that the bible is TOTALLY AMBIGUOUS and it all depends on who is doing the interpreting.

Take the Gay issue for one. I’m not gay myself, but it still bothers me that people claim that the Bible denounces a loving Gay relationship. I don’t believe it says that in the Bible. Yet the vast majority of Christian institutions will denounce being Gay as being sinful and against the will of God.

What’s your take on what the Bible has to say about same-gender love?

It just sounds to me like you’re going to another one of those people who claim to believe in the Bible but denounce all the interpretations of the popular religions that use it as their basis.

I’ve actually tried going down that road, but every time I go down that road religious fundamentalists point out versus and chapters where the Bible does indeed support their radical views. I look it up and sure enough they are right. So I’m left with having to denounce the book if it actually says that.

And, as I already pointed out, I don’t understand why you are limiting this to just the Old Testament. I know that Romans in the New Testament says that all men are sinners. And to the best of my knowledge the New Testament is part of the Bible.

~~~

So you’re saying that fornication is not a sin.

Hmmm???? I’ll be damned!!!! I was lied to!!!!

Here I was being TOO GOOD for NOTHING!!!

Why didn’t God intervene and let me KNOW????

See, religions can suck even if they’re true just because they aren’t taught correctly!

PreciousLife,

Let’s pretend for a moment that the Bible is true.
Let’s also pretend for a moment that I’ve satisfied all the laws of God.

Now let’s ask the following questions,….

Does it matter whether I believe the Bible is True?
Does it matter whether I believe that Jesus died for my sins?

I say that the answer has to be, no, it’s doesn’t matter one iota.

Why?

Because if God is so picky that he would reject people who satisfy all that he asks, but merely didn’t believe in ‘his book’ then what kind of a God would he be?

Not a very compassionate one to be sure.

If he’s so picky that he would reject all good people just because they didn’t believe in an ambiguous misinterpreted book, he would have to be seriously uncompassionate.

Therefore, once again, reason wins the day.

It can’t possibly be important to God that people believe in an ambiguous grossly misinterpreted book. All that God can possibly care about is how people behave. We can’t have God turning people away from his heaven and sending them to hell on stupid insensitive technicalities because that would mean that God is stupid and insensitive.

God would have to look at me and say, “Whoa! You were way too good! I never meant for you to be that good, you misunderstood my laws!”

And then in the next breath he’d have to say, “Oh by the way, even though you were way better than I had actually requested I’m still going to have to send you to hell on a technically because you didn’t believe my book was actually written by me. Sorry. Better luck in the next time.”

Does anyone seriously believe that God would be like that?

A belief in the Bible simply can’t be important. That’s all there is to it. Any God requesting such a petty technicality would be seriously uncompassionate and totally unreasonable.

In short, it can’t be a requirement to believe in the Bible to win God’s favor. That’s out.

Clearly that kind of rhetoric can only be a ‘brainwashing scheme’ by authoritarian churches who are trying to force the masses to worship only under their rule. And back in the biblical days churches were indeed at the center of the ruling powers.

That kind of demand can only be brainwashing tactic of human controlling authoritarians. It couldn’t possibly be a tactic used by a genuinely compassionate loving God. Such a God would be neither compassionate nor loving.

As I wrote earlier, this is why I differentiate between the two. If you look at the Bible (5 books of Moses) you won’t find anything that is hateful or mean to humans. Like I said it’s all about love on a deeper level.

It’s important to differentiate the different criticisms of the Bible. The last few threads you have been talking about the negative attributes you attributed to G-d in the Bible. The blame for those attitudes rest more with the people who taught you growing up rather then what it actually states in the ONLY directly G-d given Bible.

If you want to tackle the issues whether or not the events in the Bible happened, we can do that as well. Why is it hard to believe that there was Noah’s flood? We have seen Tsunamis and floods destroy cities and kill thousands of people. Why is it so hard to believe that it happened on a larger scale?

Abra,

G-d loves truth. Truth is one of the highest values in the Bible and for mankind. Worshiping idols is a falsehood. Bowing down and believing that a stone or a cow has some type of power is foolishness. G-d wants us to grow as humans. We can only do that if we are in tune with the truth.

The vast majority of laws in the Bible deal with the concept of truth. G-d gave humans the Bible so believing that is true is a truth and can help us understand ourselves and the world better. Ergo G-d does want you to believe that the Bible is true. (All my current and future references to the Bible are referring to the Original (old) testament.)

It does not say anywhere in the Bible that one must believe that Jesus died for your sins or that it’s okay to worship a human.

In fact as I have pointed out before G-d requires very little from you. Believing in Monotheism and not worshiping Idols is one requirement.

As I have posted before in response to you:

There really isn't a "wrong" religion. Most religions encompass the seven Noahide laws which are incumbent upon every human being.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah

They are as follows:

1 Prohibition against idolatry
2 Prohibition against blasphemy
3 Prohibition against murder
4 Prohibition against theft
5 Prohibition against sexual immorality
6 Prohibition against eating the limb of a living animal
7 Establish courts of justice

I don't think that you would have a problem with these Abra. That's all G-d asks of you regardless which religion, if any, that you follow.

The more you work on yourself to elevate yourself by doing kindness and loving others while improving your character is really all you have to do.

If you recall we went through this once before.

I cool with all of the requirements that's you've listed. And therefore based on what you are saying I'm satisfying all of God's requirments.

I already know that.

I do think that #5 is a bit murky though,...

5 Prohibition against sexual immorality

Simply because it might be a bit questionable about precisely what constitutes 'sexual immorality'.

I mean, I don't personally have a problem with what's sexual moral and what isn't. At least not now. When I was young (back when it was more important to have a clear picture is when I was torn between what I felt was moral and what I was taught was immoral).

But as far as my relationship with God today, I have no feelings of guilt. I now know that God speaks to use via our emotions and inner feelings. And God is perfectly happy with me, or I wouldn't feel as good as I do.

So I'm not worried about my own personal relationship with God. That's pretty much a done deal.

When I post on the forums I'm just sharing my views with others for whatever they are worth. I'm not searching for answers for myself. I found all my answers several decades ago.

When I ask questions about the Bible on the forums I'm asking them rhetorically to spark food for thought. I'm not asking because I don't know the answers.

If I can prevent someone else from falling into the dogamtic trap that I fell into when I was younger I will have done something good.

I'm not seeking answers for myself.

The question itself seems to misunderstand what the scientific method is, namely, a way to understand that which we have observed. Science is fully capable of rejecting "accepted science" in favor of new evidence (see: Newtonian gravity). Personal observation is a part of science. So, if someone can personally observe evidence that god exists in a way that can be reproduced, then that would be scientific evidence for god. That would be an acceptance of god, but I'm not sure how that's a rejection of "accepted science". There is no scientific law that states that god doesn't exist.

I think you nailed it right there.



Precisely.

Atheism is not a prerequisite of Science. Science is not pitted against religion.

Religious fundamentalist and Bible verbatimists pit themselves against science. Not the other way around.

Science simply isn’t concerned with religion. Although, individual scientists may be personally religion.

Religion is a personal spiritual thing, that is based of faith, if it could be proven by evidence it would no longer be faith-based. It would be scientific fact!

Science is all about showing that things must be true via rigorously observed evidence.

If God can be shown to be true via rigorously observable evidence then God’s existence would be a scientific fact.



Just for the record, Newtonian gravity wasn’t exactly ‘rejected’. It was simply improved upon. There were elements of it that weren’t true. For example it doesn’t act instantaneously as Newton believed. Instead, gravity propagates at the speed of light. But other than this, the fundamental mathematics of Newtonian Gravity were correct within the realm of their application. They were just expanded upon to include more extreme situations.

I point this out because in the case of God there are two significantly differnet views of God. Both of which cannot be true. One view is the idea that God is a separate deity from the physical universe and from human beings. The other view is that the physical universe and human beings are a direct manifestation of God. In other words, god is the universe, or the universe is a manifestation of God.

Actually, if science is making any progress toward ‘observing’ God I would say that it is making progress toward realizing that the universe itself is a direct manifestation of God.

And that’s a question for Spider,…

You ask if your ‘external magician’ type of God were true would science accept him?

How about if science where able to show that the universe itself is a direct manifestation of God?

Would you then accept that pantheism was right all along???

Actually this has already happened! When quantum physics made it’s profound discoveries that nothing is truly separate the Easter Mystics (whom are pantheists), all said, “We told you so!”.

So in a very real sense modern science is confirming the pantheistic nature of God.

Yet you still cling to the idea that God is like the Wizard of Oz.

You’re so concerned with trying to prove your version of the Wizard of Oz God to science that you can’t even see that science is already observing that God is pantheistic. At least according to quantum physics and Eastern Mysticism. They are in full agreement. Whilst the Wizard of Oz picture of God is in total disagreement with observations made by science.

Yep, if you want to talk about Scientific observation and God, science is currently in harmony with Pantheism and not in harmony with the biblical picture.

That’s where we stand today.

I am not a bible expert by any means, but your comments leave me perplexed. Not in a bad way, but peplexed nonetheless.

On a good day, you'll find numerous posters, claiming that their God most definitely said (bible) that pre-marrital sex is a sin, and that all humans were sinners.

Can you please confirm without doubt, that there are NO scriptures (new or old T) supporting such claims. That the claims are simply 'false'?

Thank you.

Watch out for this PreciousLife guy!



He may be able to convince you!

(sits back and munches popcorn for a while....)

This is still your interpretation of a very ambiguous book or books written by men of old. I have read the bible cover to cover and it is stories/parables of old placed in a book, given form of instruction by the converters of the information ie King James for the most popular.

Science is based on naturalism, supernatural causation is not accepted. I find it incredible that anyone would want to argue this. Okay...How would a scientist prove that Jesus is our savior? How would you prove that God is God? Even if God stood before you and agreed to all of your tests, how would you prove that God is God? How would you know the difference between an all-powerful God and a powerful god? IT CAN'T BE TESTED. We aren't qualified to test the supernatural.

I have never ONCE suggested that science disproves or proves the supernatural, what I have said over and over is that science must reject any answer that requires supernatural causation.

If God stood before the UN and said "I AM", science COULD NOT accept that God exists. A scientist could, but science is based on naturalism and therefore cannot accept supernatural causation.

You claim "The question itself seems to misunderstand what the scientific method is". Okay, show me how the scientific method covers testing the supernatural. What tests would you do to deterime if Jesus died for our sins?

And abra, you are right as usual, that science does not have an issue with god. Science cannot prove a negative. God or the concept of god is a negative in the world of science, there is no physical point of measure so it cannot be proven or disproven. The fight comes from the religious who feel threatened by the study of science but that is only those who want to prove the bible is scientifically correct. For one the people who wrote the bible were not scientists, they were at best philanthropists, theologists or just plain average folks and they could not conceive of scientifically proving their ponderings of life and their image of a god and his relationship to man.

Hey voileazur,

If you scroll up you will see that I explicitly stated this was based on the original (old) testament - which is the only testament given directly by G-d (to Moses in front of over 2,000,000 people who witnessed it). The New Testament was written by men about 1,000 years later.

I don't speak for Christians and I respectfully differ from some of their theology.

As far as pre-marital sex there is no Biblical prohibition (if both parties are not married). However there is the issue of not being selfish to the detriment of another's emotional and physical well being. Only focusing on our own pleasure and disregarding the effect it will have on others is a Biblical sin of love your neighbor as you love yourself.

The vast majority of people who are not married and sleep together end up deeply hurt when they break up. I can site numerous studies and statistics how this has left many women feeling jaded and used. Heck, ask some of the women here.

Just because someone gets married doesn't mean they won't hurt their partner. If you cheat on your spouse or do other things to harm him or her - that's even worse.

To sum up - Pre-marital sex is not a Biblical prohibition but it most likely will lead to hurting others which is a Biblical prohibition.

Hey S1owhand,

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Enjoy the show and the popcorn! ;-)

Dragoness,

Actually its not my interpretation. The Bible is very explicit about the seven Noahide laws. Which one of the seven would you say is ambiguous? (Abra asked about sexual immorality. The Bible lists which types of sexual relationships are forbidden. If you like I can look up the list but its pretty standard, adultery, incest, etc.)

Obviously the Bible contains incredible wisdom and the more we delve into it the deeper our understanding of life and G-d becomes. But the basics are pretty explicit for all to understand.

On what are you basing the notion that the original (old) testament was written by men?

He’d be seriously hard-pressed to conivince me unless he comes up with something radically new that I haven’t heard before AND it makes SENSE.

He’s getting off on the wrong foot with the following though. It may be something I never heard before, but it makes no sense because it’s not what I read nor was I taught this from the Bible!!!



Where do you get off saying that 2,000,000 people witnessed this????

The way I read the story is that Moses when up into the mountain ALONE and was gone from the people for quite some time (I thought it might have been a whole month but I don’t remember exactly). Then he came back with his stone tablets. No one but Moses witnessed the burning bush or the carving of the tablets.

For all we know Moses carved the tablets himself. If he was up there for a whole month that would have been more than enough time to carve some stone tablets. In fact, we don’t even know if they actually were "stone". They could have be clay tablets and he could have carved the text in while they were soft and then baked them.

We don’t know what actually happened (assuming the story is even true to begin with!) . For all we know, it could have been a completely made up parable. We just don’t know. We weren’t there! But even the story doesn't say that the people witnessed this, on the contary it says that they didn't!



Like Dragoness said, the Bible is ambiguous and you’re certainly free to your interpretation, it might even be correct! But this isn’t the way most religious institutions teach it, or fundamentalists interpret it. To the best of my knowledge they always teach that pre-marital sex is a sin. That was certainly what I was taught.

Furthermore, I was taught that any sexual advances or activity are considered to be wrong, NOT just intercourse. That would include mutual masturbation or any activity leading to sexual arousal, climax and organism with a partner.

I may have been taught wrong on that, but I was taught this non-the-less! I was taught that any desire to be having sex with a partner outside of holy matrimony was wrong. I personally wasn’t all that concerned about pure intercourse, I would have been glad to have non-intercourse sex without being made to feel that that was wrong. But that’s not what I was taught.

As to your connection with premarital sex leading to hurting others I say hogwash. Married people hurt each other just as easily. So that part of it doesn’t even wash with me. (i.e. it’s has nothing to do with whether the sex is pre-marital or within wedlock).



I would answer it this way,… Why should I believe otherwise without good reason?

Moreover, On what are you basing the notion that the Old Testament was written by God??? Just because it claims to have been??? That’s not a valid reason.

Do you believe everything you read???

If you do then read my next sentence,….

“You own me ten million dollars due immediately”

~~~

By the way,… If you think that 2,000,000 people witnessed God giving Moses his law, then you’re probably wrong about what constitutes fornication too.

Where’s S1owhand? I thought you said this guy was good? Gimmie some of that popcorn!