«

[Hkizzle]

Sebatianos, in my own personal beliefs I share the same view as you. I am not Christian.

What I was saying is that if you do truly believe then religion cannot change, and does not have to be argued from a scientific perspective, because if you do believe in a all powerful God then he can make anything happen.

[Stroggy]

Originally posted by Dreadlord@Apr 4 2005, 08:32 PM

Cause God made her magically pregnant in a non-sexual way, it was a miracle or some divine feat of some sort.

heh, I can't help but feels sorry for Josef, he's totally clueless, isn't he?

[Sebatianos]

I think what Lizard is trying to say is - the hyman - the skin that is inside the vagina - prooving a woman is a virgin (spelling) might not have broken while she got pregnent, but when a baby came out there is no way she could still have it intact.

The answer to that is simple. When she was pregnant it could have been established that she was still a virgin - and still pregnant.

But - YES - the birth of Jesus itself is debatable.
@Stroggy - didn't see your reply, but this answers that too... I have a good joke about it... (I just added it to the jokes thread).
At the theological facutly in Maribor (chatolic) I attended some lectures on the subject (the lecture was given by a preist). He said this: "The birth of Christ by a holy virgin is a metaphore. It's not so importaint that she was a virgin, but it's more importaint what Joseph - her husband did! At that time she would have been stoned to death if they accused her of adoultery. Joseph loved her and even though he knew the child was not his he rather have everybody believe she was 'clean' then to accuse her of cheating on him. This was an act of mercy on from him, that fought agains the attitude towards women at this time. Mary might have been raped - but would still be stoned to death if Joseph would accuse her. He did not want that to happen. The same attitude is shown by Jesus - when he was defending prostitutes. The claim that she was a virgin probably came latter on, when christianity started settleing in Europe where there was a tradition of Virgins being the ones who lived in temples and were comunicating with gods."

[Stroggy]

I don't think i'll ever get my mind around the Holy Trinity.
Its just plain weird and wrong in a strange sort of way.

I'll stick to the old testament, thank you very much.
A bit OT here but one of the things I've always liked in the Old testament is that the characters are human, not some devine being who is always just.
You've got smart people but even they make mistakes or succumb to desire or whatnot.
David was wise and powerfull, but succumbed to lust.
Mozes, the only man that comes close to being an actual holy man in the old testament became impatient with Israel and the Lord.
Saul was a wise man but he succumbed to greed and power.

[DeathDude]

Yeah the old testament indeed had some good stories like the one's you mentioned, I found them to be a very interesting read.

[Havell]

@Hkizzle, I still do not understand why you think you have to take every word of the bible as absolute truth to be a christian. The bible was written by people (the new testament by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and the information in them was gathered a few generations after the happening in the bible, they travelled around looking for people who witnessed miracles and speechs by Jesus and wrote down what they found out. That is how the new testament was written, there is much space for exaggeration and mistakes, especially during translation (I don't understand what you meant by your "Hell no" comment), it was written by people and people, by their nature make mistakes.

Ask any theologian and they will tell you the miracles of Christ are meant to be taken literally.

This is just plain not true.

ALSO:

But according to what you say, it seems that Chrisitanity is evolving as science and society changes. Strange, because I thought the basis of the arguement is that evolution is rubbish, and the word of God is the truth!

The word of god doesn't change but people's interpretation of it does.

[Yobor]

I don't see why the bible is needed at all. Religions SHOULD not exist. But they do. I believe that is a human failing. The point of religions is to make people feel good. No matter what it is. People get strength and support from their house of worship, and it helps them pull through troubles.
But that is the problem.
People shouldn't need that support. We should be able to pull strength from ourselves.
But alas, it is not to be so. This quandry of religion is a purely dependant thing. Religions depend on faith. Facts depend on evidence. The bible should not be taken literally, for there is no evidence. No evidence, no certain facts. Now faith, on the other hand, can inspire greatness, and should not be short-handed. With faitth, siper-human events, willpower, and determination can arise. Some call it fanatasism, others God-strength. Whatever the case, Religions have upsides and Downsides.

[Hkizzle]

Originally posted by R Havell@Apr 4 2005, 09:38 PM
@Hkizzle, I still do not understand why you think you have to take every word of the bible as absolute truth to be a christian.* The bible was written by people (the new testament by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and the information in them was gathered a few generations after the happening in the bible, they travelled around looking for people who witnessed miracles and speechs by Jesus and wrote down what they found out.* That is how the new testament was written, there is much space for exaggeration and mistakes, especially during translation (I don't understand what you meant by your "Hell no" comment), it was written by people and people, by their nature make mistakes.

@R Havell

I agree with you totally from my own personal belief. I think the bible was just written by a group of men that followed a guru called Jesus around, and there have been tons of translation and exaggeration that over the years made him God.

But if we follow the real belief that the bible is the Word of God, inspired by God through these prophets, then he is an all powerful being and the word cannot be flawed. Some topics are up for interpretation. But core themes like the miracles of Christ, or the flood (which covered the entire earth), the creation of the World (6000 years ago) are not meant to be changed as we like.

As all of you have mentioned, religion changed with the times, it is not the same as 2000 years ago, and even within Christianity there are Catholics and Protestants (Baptists, Methodists, etc) and they practice many beliefs that are often completely different.
Then there are Mormons with their book, The Book of Mormon, so if we can keep "developing" religion, where does the truth go?

[Sly]

Originally posted by Hkizzle@Apr 4 2005, 02:59 PM
Certainly I think God is more powerful than David Hasselhoff

What a great line!

Can I put that in my sig line kizzle?

[a1s]

there's that thing about words of g-d... have any of you ever heard g-d talking to you? No? thought so. (yes?!? you're scisafrenic. go see a doctor. NOW!)The best you could claim is that g-d inspires ideas. Now this would seem quite peachy, execpt there are things for which you just don't have a readlily avalable concept. since I don't have any concepts none of you would have, I'll illustarte that by saying that an ancient man had no concepts for nuclear submarines or alternative dimensions. you could then replace theese with compositions of avalable concepts: a gigant whale of unknown metal and a place beyond the sky. the same way certain concepts couldn't be inserted into the heads of the biblical authors, or were screwed up a lot.
Then there's the misinterpretation bit. as science (and more importantly education) evolves pople will take biblical ideas differently, because they relate differently to the different enviroment and view of the world, even if the basis (The word of g-d) is still taken literaly. Resistance (as they say in those action movies) is futile! every time the people were presed to view the bible "the way it was meant to be" it provoked a crisis of faith, resulting in major changes through which could apear new groups who chalanged the faith (hiretics) who then could be sucseseful and progressive (like the protestants or the atheists in their respective times).

now as a home exercise try the folowing Creative scenasrio:

1)you are a supreme being, from panet 3 of the 2nd brightest star in the constalation of the dipper, you have three leg-arms, and a tail (with no fingers), you are allso green in color.
2)you have a set of high moral standards you want your pepole to abide
3)your herd are total neandertals and can hardly understand the concept of arithmetics, allthough they are adept at hunting/foraging
4)you cannot say anything, only make "concepts"- things similar to pictures, but with any kind of sence/emotion attached.
5)you can only contact a specialy receptive 1% of the population, but with training (on your herds part) 10% can be made recepient.
6)you are capble of performing miricles (let's say you have the might of the american science of the 21 century with a billion $/year to spend) to back your ideas or prophets (the guys from p.5)
7)there will be curious people, so include something about youself, your origins and such.

Now your task is to submit a set of concepts (p.4) which you can describe for us. make as many as you want and add instructions for aplying them. be aware that the next exercise will be for someone else to write a short (1-4 pages) "holy book" as one of the prophets.
have fun