The 10 Commandments

[top gun]

If a person studied every religion in the world (thousands), one would not have time to do anything else, like make a living, eat, sleep.
Almost every person who is adamant that their religion is the one handed down by God, has inherited that belief from their parents and/or culture. A nomadic tribesman living in the midst of Muslims with be Muslim. A person born of Catholic parents, raised in that tradition, will almost always be Catholic. An Eskimo born of Eskimos... It has nothing to do with which religion, "...contain something of what god requires then it would be wise to examine them to determine which do and which don't..." First comes the indoctrination, then comes the "research" to prove that my religion is the one that represents the true instructions from God.

So logical it makes ya wonder why more people haven't thought about it this way huh?

And you know there are a lot of good rules & values in probably every religion.

It's a shame each sect seems to just have to go off the tracks and take it to a WE ARE THE CHOSEN ONES place. It's the whole holier than thou (no pun intended) and the relentless need to try and convert people to their particular dogma that causes a lot of the good in religion to be tainted and basically just not all that appealing.

But on the bright side dahermit... I can get you a good deal on some religious soap, watch...

 

[top gun]

I have read the Bible several times in my life, yet find my knowledge of its contents insufficient to satisfy most Christians, although they themselves have many deep disagreements over what it means, as their numerous denominations and sects demonstrate conclusively. So I am substantially in agreement with you about this.

Kinda makes ya wonder... if they can't even agree with themselves and they have to have so many different branches... what's the problem?

Looks to me like the Catholics wanted total religious control through their own particular priestly hierarchy, some King in England needed an easier way to get divorced hence Protestants were born, then you get the Baptists that had to carve out their own little niche so they decided to say it's not enough to just be a practicing Christian... you have to do a whole other ritual and be "born again".

And that's just a tiny fraction of all the many different Christian sects.

Then you have the other religions... Muslims were willing to do anything & everything to convert people over to Muhammad even if by brute force and the Jews were left feeling kinda guilty about that whole killing of Christ thing so they went their own way as well. I'm sure Hindus and Buddhists all have their own special own "we're the ones" requirements as well.

It's pretty silly.

And then they created TV OMG!!! Jesus is not going to be happy about this!

 

[samsara15]

Yep, there are more denominations and sects within Hinduism and Buddhism than you can count, and each sect or denomination claims that they and only they are right and that the rest of them are deluded and won't acheive Enlightenment. Sometimes I think no two people can agree on much of anything involving religion.

 

[dahermit]

It's a shame each sect seems to just have to go off the tracks and take it to a WE ARE THE CHOSEN ONES place. It's the whole holier than thou (no pun intended) and the relentless need to try and convert people to their particular dogma that causes a lot of the good in religion to be tainted and basically just not all that appealing.

Some religious denominations do not have much of a choice. I was raised Baptist, they and others(Jehovah's Witnesses, et. al.) believe that they are following God's word to be "fishers of men", and lead others to salvation. Some go so far as to ignore the sign I have at the end of my drive way that states "No Solicitation, No Salesmen".

 

[top gun]

Some religious denominations do not have much of a choice. I was raised Baptist, they and others(Jehovah's Witnesses, et. al.) believe that they are following God's word to be "fishers of men", and lead others to salvation. Some go so far as to ignore the sign I have at the end of my drive way that states "No Solicitation, No Salesmen".

OK do you want to hear a really politically incorrect joke my friend?

I'm guessing you'll say sure...

Now you have to imagine when I'm telling the last line of this joke I'm repeatedly pushing my arms & hands out in front of me at the same time.

OK here goes...


Do you know why Jehovah's Witnesses women are so flat chested?


(arms & hands movement here) GET OFF OF MY PORCH!!!

 

[Dr.Who]

There is no original. The oldest complere old and new testament in existence is the Codex Sinaiticus which is dramatically different from the King James or any of the other Bibles in use today. THE SECRETS OF MT. SINAI is an excellent work detailing the discovery and the history of the Codex.

The Codex Sinaiticus does not contain the OT.

How does it matter that it is the oldest "complete" NT when we have millions of partial pieces dating back to a few years after the letters were penned and they tell us exactly what was in the original letters?

How in the world would it matter at all if the Codex Sinaiticus which is a copy of the NT differs from the KJV which is a copy and a translation of the old and NT? You might as well be saying that the copy of the constitution at Walgreens is different than the copy of the constitution available at Wal-mart while ignoring that we have the original in the museum.

The history of the Codex Sinaiticus is insignificant compared the the dead sea scrolls and other documents.

Even before we had the dead sea scrolls we had letters from early church fathers who quoted extensively from the original NT letters. Taking all of the quotes we could have re-created just about the entire NT.

If you have fallen for the misdirection of pointing to errors in documents like Codex Sinaiticus by people who fail to account for the useful information available in many many sources besides then you just have to start over at square one in your personal research.

 

[Dr.Who]

Self-referencing is the term, the Bible is true because the Bible says the Bible is true. The Book of Mormon is too. Self-referencing is not very dependable.

If I had said that the bible was true because it says that it is true you would have a point.

However I was not clear enough.

Samsara said that the OT was an oral history before it was written down.

There is zero good evidence that it was an oral history first and since it says that it was written first the only evidence we have is that it was not an oral history first.

Obviously self referencing evidence when it is all there is gives is the best evidence that we have.

Self referencing does not prove that a document is true but it in no way proves that it is false either. If you want to know whether or not it is true then you can examine it in other ways.

 

[Dr.Who]

With NOTHING to go on, it's going to be difficult to decide which holy text is the real one. Due diligence comes down to "I guess I'll believe this one," since there is no proof of any of it.

Quite a number of the details in the bible have been proven to be true. Others are not confirmed but no others are false. The bible that was written by multiple authors across large tracts of time and geography is completely self consistent and does not contradict science or logic. No book that had its origins in oral history could aspire to such a claim.

A substantial amount of prophesies and wisdom and consistency defies the notion that mere men could have written it.

If you ever approached it without having a predetermined will to discredit it you might actually discover something worthwhile in it. In the mean time you can continue to claim that the Codex Sinaiticus contains the OT and that differences between modern translations and old ones are meaningful and basically just reject it, not for analytical reasons, but because you don't like the other people who like the book.

 

[Dr.Who]

Evidence is not proof, you can have a mountain of contradictory evidence that proves nothing. That's what Christianity is based on. I don't care if you believe it, I personally think that many of the things Jesus is reported to have said are very good concepts on which to base one's life, but you will never hear me say that I have God's Truth or that I speak for God, nor will I ever condemn someone in God's name. Nor will I take rights away from others that I claim for my own and justify it with religious sophistry or idle semantics.

It is not contradictory.
You do care.
Jesus did say many good things including that He was God and spoke the truth.
I doubt I will hear you say that you have God's truth because you don't.
Nor will you speak for God because you don't.
You pronounce others to be guilty or worthy of disapproval all the time, like when you object to what you perceive to be bigotry or intolerance.
You want to take away the rights of gays to not be required to have a marriage license while you yourself are married.
Your views on the world are just as much a religion as anyone else's.

 

[samsara15]

If I had said that the bible was true because it says that it is true you would have a point.

However I was not clear enough.

Samsara said that the OT was an oral history before it was written down.

There is zero good evidence that it was an oral history first and since it says that it was written first the only evidence we have is that it was not an oral history first.

Obviously self referencing evidence when it is all there is gives is the best evidence that we have.

Self referencing does not prove that a document is true but it in no way proves that it is false either. If you want to know whether or not it is true then you can examine it in other ways.

What are the oldest texts existing for the OT? 600-700 BC? What existed before then? If it was not an oral history before then, why are there no texts? What are the earliest texts we have from what is recognizable as the early Jewish nation / tribes, of any sort?

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I doubt I will hear you say that you have God's truth because you don't.

No one does, so I'm hardly an example of any sort.

Nor will you speak for God because you don't.

So, got a point here?

You pronounce others to be guilty or worthy of disapproval all the time, like when you object to what you perceive to be bigotry or intolerance.

Again, so what? I'm not doing as the Bible-beaters are doing and condemning in God's name, nor am I trying to take any right from anyone else that I claim for my own.

You want to take away the rights of gays to not be required to have a marriage license while you yourself are married.

You have too many negatives in this sentence for it to make sense. All consenting adults should have access to marry the consenting adult of their choice. What's your problem with my position?

Your views on the world are just as much a religion as anyone else's.

Equality is a religion? Okay, if you say so. Too bad more Christrians aren't members.

 

[Dr.Who]

What are the oldest texts existing for the OT? 600-700 BC? What existed before then? If it was not an oral history before then, why are there no texts? What are the earliest texts we have from what is recognizable as the early Jewish nation / tribes, of any sort?

Unlike the NT which was written on paper or vellum the OT was written on papyrus which is very unstable. The OT scrolls were copied and a copy was kept in every single synagogue no matter how small. When the copy became damaged in even the slightest way it was ceromonially destroyed. But if there were a million synagogues and each one was copying the scrolls before they destroyed them then we would have a million lines of descent going back to the original. Any errors that crept into a copy would be noticed soon since it could easily be compared to the copy at any other synagogue. The process of copying them was painstaking and if a scribe made a single error during the process he would then destroy the damaged copy ceromonially again.

We actually have older parts of the NT than we have of the Hebrew OT.

But not knowing the amount of time that has elapsed since the penning of the first copy and the penning of the last copy in no way makes it more or less likely that the first copy is the result of an oral tradition. Moses could have written the book and then it was copied many times resulting in todays copies. Or Moses could have written the book and then it was copied less times resulting in the copy that we have today.

What we would expect if the OT were a result of an oral tradition is that there would be different versions that were written down in different places based on errors that crept into the oral stories.

If you want to say that Moses wrote down what he heard then we need some evidence of that. (other than him saying when he wrote it that he was writing down what was told to him by God. THAT certainly was an oral origin. If you can prove there is no God then you can prove that it was not written as it claims to be. If you are going to assume there is no God then the proof is circular)

The greatest evidence we have is that when one looks at the words used in the OT the stories seem to contain four different narratives that are intertwined together as if there were once four different text that were combined. (still not oral but some would say that maybe those alleged narratives were oral first). The problem is that the alleged existence of four narratives is completely hypothetical based on interpretations of stylistic differences. Having looked into the matter I could easily see a bias in the desire for some to want their to be four different narratives and absolutely no reason to presume that the four narratives were not the result of Moses writing four different narratives himself. If there were four narratives (that is a pretty big "if") and if they were not all penned by Moses then we still need some evidence that they were the result of an oral tradition before they were written down.

 

[Abranches]

Moses gave 10 commandments to Israelite because they did not have common sense. The person who has common sense does not need them. Please read the 10 commandment again and you would know what I mean.

 

[numinus]

Jesus spoke Elizabethian English.

Aren't there 600 some commandments, here and there? Where does it say not to eat pork, for example?

Your talking about judaic law. Clearly, most of them were dispensed with by christianity. Otherwise, it would be judaism, not christianity, no?

 

[numinus]

What are the oldest texts existing for the OT? 600-700 BC? What existed before then? If it was not an oral history before then, why are there no texts? What are the earliest texts we have from what is recognizable as the early Jewish nation / tribes, of any sort?

I believe the pentatuech, the first 5 books of the ot, was estimated to have been written some 1,200-1,500 BCE. The fact is, nobody knows when it was written or by whom.