The Bible; The Unabridged-Version

[Andy]

I thought that you were refering to Christianity--you didn't specify. I've seen nothing to prove one way or the other about man made global warming. I know it's silly, but I think I'll wait till I have some proof before I start abusing people who seem to feel differently than I do. Not that you have to do that, I don't require others to live as I choose to live.

Funny to hear you say that. I mentioned something related to homosexuality once, and you started on a 10 post rant about homosexuality which wasn't even my main point in the thread.

You sure seem to want me to follow your feelings then, and you even started abusing me for not buying your position.

Now you want to claim you don't abuse or require people follow your beliefs? Ok... well that wasn't my experience with you, and it was the first time we exchanged posts. Left a lasting first impression. Which is why I find your statements a bit... odd.

 

[Andy]

How can the gospel of Judas be dangerous? If it wasn't for Judas Jesus would not have been able to fulfill His mission here. Judas was absolutely essential to God's plan. Judas may have been one of the best people who ever lived in that he sacrificed himself to make Jesus' mission a success and he got only hatred and villification for his efforts. If God had asked you to play the part of Judas would you have had the courage?

huh? Are you joking? G-d is not limited by humans. If there wasn't a Judas, there would have been someone else. And even if there wasn't someone else, G-d could fulfill his purposes without any specific individual.

The prophesies of Jesus being born in Bethlehem.
Do you think King Herod knew that imposing a tax, the required families to go to their home towns, in this case Joseph's town was Bethlehem, was going to cause that prophesy to be fulfilled?

The prophesies of Jesus being called out of Egypt.
Do you think King Herod, when he ordered the children in Bethlehem to be killed, would cause Joseph and Mary to flee into Egypt, so that later G-d would send a dream to Joseph to call him out of Egypt?

Do you think that the prophecy that the Gospel would be preached throughout the world, would be caused by the persecution of Christians under Nero? You think Nero was a Christian? Or thought he was helping G-d by putting tar on Christians and lighting them on fire for his night parties?

Don't be fooled. G-d does not need you, or me, or anyone to complete his purposes. He can use you if he so chooses whether you agree to it or not. And even if perchance you figure out his purposes for your life, and find a way to thwart it, He will not be held back for even a moment. He will simply find another way to accomplish whatever goal he has.

Judas was a betrayer, and nothing more. G-d may have used him to accomplish His will, but that doesn't change what evil he did.

 

[Andy]

Conquering our own ignorance and fear are quite enough, we've simply no need for a Devil.

Let's not go from the sublime to the ridiculous. There is not a shred of proof of the existence of a cosmic evil being. Look around, do you see any evil that is supernatural? I don't see anything that humans aren't quite capable of doing all by themselves--there's no Stephen King evil visible, never has been.

I was postulating within the framework of the Christian religion to make a point, but was in no way advocating or endorsing the Christian fable. Dr. Who was bad-mouthing Judas when in truth Judas' testament would be a good thing to have in the Bible--certainly better than the crap about God endorsing slavery and genocide.

Right the creation always defines what is right and wrong to the creator. I'm sure that will work.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Funny to hear you say that. I mentioned something related to homosexuality once, and you started on a 10 post rant about homosexuality which wasn't even my main point in the thread.

You sure seem to want me to follow your feelings then, and you even started abusing me for not buying your position.

Now you want to claim you don't abuse or require people follow your beliefs? Ok... well that wasn't my experience with you, and it was the first time we exchanged posts. Left a lasting first impression. Which is why I find your statements a bit... odd.

I speak out against the abuses I see, you don't? Many times the main point of the thread isn't what gets discussed the most. My experience is that self-identified Christians don't want to talk about the abuses of their religion, they want the people they abuse to be silent victims accepting the abuse as if the crap in the Bible really was the Word of God and they deserved the abuse heaped upon them by the self-identified followers of Jesus.

What do you want from me? My silence? My admiration for your committment to religious dogma at the expense of others? Don't sugar-coat it, tell what it is you want from me.

I fail to see what's odd, that I object to the abuses? What's odd about that? Are you really trying to say that my verbal objections to the persecution and killing of gay and transgendered people is somehow trying to force my viewpoint onto others? My speech needs to silenced, that the persecution of others is more acceptable than my words?

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Right the creation always defines what is right and wrong to the creator. I'm sure that will work.

Why is it that Christians always use and defend the violence and cruelty in the Old Testament? Why don't any of you post the things that Jesus said that people should do? I think it's because the things that Jesus commanded are far more difficult than the very human failings endorsed by "God" in the Old Testament. It's easier to hate and judge and punish like the Old Testament "God" than to grit your teeth and love others as yourself, return good for evil, or bless those that curse you, that's difficult stuff.

The Old Testament "God" isn't even a Christian, He was portrayed as an angry, vengeful, monstrous, child-murdering bastard who slaughtered millions and endorsed slavery, misogyny, genocide, and threatened to smear people's feces on their faces. You actually believe that? Why? Have you no faith in the goodness of your own Heavenly Father?

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

huh? Are you joking? G-d is not limited by humans. If there wasn't a Judas, there would have been someone else. And even if there wasn't someone else, G-d could fulfill his purposes without any specific individual.

The prophesies of Jesus being born in Bethlehem.
Do you think King Herod knew that imposing a tax, the required families to go to their home towns, in this case Joseph's town was Bethlehem, was going to cause that prophesy to be fulfilled?

The prophesies of Jesus being called out of Egypt.
Do you think King Herod, when he ordered the children in Bethlehem to be killed, would cause Joseph and Mary to flee into Egypt, so that later G-d would send a dream to Joseph to call him out of Egypt?

Do you think that the prophecy that the Gospel would be preached throughout the world, would be caused by the persecution of Christians under Nero? You think Nero was a Christian? Or thought he was helping G-d by putting tar on Christians and lighting them on fire for his night parties?

Don't be fooled. G-d does not need you, or me, or anyone to complete his purposes. He can use you if he so chooses whether you agree to it or not. And even if perchance you figure out his purposes for your life, and find a way to thwart it, He will not be held back for even a moment. He will simply find another way to accomplish whatever goal he has.

Judas was a betrayer, and nothing more. G-d may have used him to accomplish His will, but that doesn't change what evil he did.

Twaddle! As you so eloquently point out, if it hadn't been Judas it would have been someone else. Judas was necessary in God's eyes or He would not have used him, would He? Don't be so quick to judge, Judas may have been an angel chosen for a difficult task, you don't know.

You give me grief for talking about the abuses I see around me every day, but yet you judge a man you never met, whose own story you have not read and yet you judge him to be a betrayer. You are the one claiming loudly to be a Christian, why can't you love Judas as yourself, why can't you forgive him for what YOU have judged to be his transgressions? Why can't you return good for what you see as his evil? Isn't that exactly what Jesus commanded you to do?

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Twaddle! As you so eloquently point out, if it hadn't been Judas it would have been someone else. Judas was necessary in God's eyes or He would not have used him, would He? Don't be so quick to judge, Judas may have been an angel chosen for a difficult task, you don't know.

.....And, he could have been some local-drunk, that was spurned by the Jesus-entourage....those same folks who kept insisting: "No..no..no..he said THE Son-of-God!!" (Even-though the dude merely said "A Son-of-God.")

You don't know.

 

[Dr.Who]

How can the gospel of Judas be dangerous? If it wasn't for Judas Jesus would not have been able to fulfill His mission here. Judas was absolutely essential to God's plan. Judas may have been one of the best people who ever lived in that he sacrificed himself to make Jesus' mission a success and he got only hatred and villification for his efforts. If God had asked you to play the part of Judas would you have had the courage?

The gospel of Judas was not written by Judas Iscariot and is not even a gospel but is a compilation of sayings put together a couple of hundred years later. It is in contradiction to the earlier gospels written by actual disciples to such an extent that we can safely say that logically it or them must be false.

The interesting thing about the part that Judas played in history is that he did not know his role and he did not willingly made a sacrifice. He acted out of his own motives and yet God used them for good anyway.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

The gospel of Judas was not written by Judas Iscariot and is not even a gospel but is a compilation of sayings put together a couple of hundred years later. It is in contradiction to the earlier gospels written by actual disciples to such an extent that we can safely say that logically it or them must be false.

The interesting thing about the part that Judas played in history is that he did not know his role and he did not willingly made a sacrifice. He acted out of his own motives and yet God used them for good anyway.

There is little proof that any of the apostles wrote the books attributed to them, Paul may have the best case, but you can't prove any of it.

Nor can you prove that Judas didn't know the role he was to play. All you can do is make it up as you go along, "fine tuning" the story to smooth out the wrinkles. Word of God, my ass! It's a made up story voted on by a council of people trying to make it acceptable to the great mass of humanity.

The weird thing for me is that you never quote the good things that Jesus said, you never advocate those things either. We need a word, a name, for the people who actually trying to do the difficult things that Jesus commanded His followers to do--the term "Christian" has been so degraded by the actions of self-identified "Christians" as to be useless.

 

[Dr.Who]

There is little proof that any of the apostles wrote the books attributed to them, Paul may have the best case, but you can't prove any of it.

I am quite sure that you would always demand a higher standard of proof than what has been offered. After all the writings themselves often declare who the author was.

Nor can you prove that Judas didn't know the role he was to play.

The handwritten accounts are a pretty good description of what happened compared to wild conjecture.

All you can do is make it up as you go along, "fine tuning" the story to smooth out the wrinkles. Word of God, my ass! It's a made up story voted on by a council of people trying to make it acceptable to the great mass of humanity.

No vote created new documents or changed existing ones. What was written was written and if you don't like it then you are free to accept the ones you like and reject the ones you don't. Which is exactly what you do. I however choose to accept or reject based in part on the reasonable efforts of scholars and other leaders including those at Nicea.

The weird thing for me is that you never quote the good things that Jesus said, you never advocate those things either.

If you say so.

 

[bododie]

Why don't you try addressing the fact that the Bible is not much more than a hoax, perpetrated by those who wanted the masses to believe a certain way. How foolish one must be to take such nonsense word for word...

Popeye, I doubt that anyone today, with a higher education and a desire to learn throughout ones life takes the Bible as truth word for word. The Bible was/is a tool. All the Bible does, aside from all the ancient dribble, is send a message of kindness toward one's fellow man. Did it ever occur to you that maybe those who call themselves Christian, for the most part are drawing from that message, and not from a story about a sea that supposedly parted? Could it be that "God's word" has always been considered simply a message of love, and that aside from the rest of the words, people even way back when could understand that? Do you think that anyone's concept of "God", regardless of whether they attend the same church, is the same? What I call God, gives me strength the way I NEED IT, not the way someone else may need it.


Anyone who has been a lifelong student of History, "His...story", meaning mankind's story, knows that what Christianity evolved into was the work of man, and his never ending need to create structure and power over his fellow man. That is the definition of religion. All religions have rules of some sort.

Religion has always been a way to keep the masses in line, because civilization is a facade. Mankind is not civilized. History shows that, and those incidents can be proven.

I am no fan of organized religion. However, to replace religion with manmade government rules of teaching, and science isn't much less oppressive is it?

No one has the right in any way shape or form to tell me what I can't believe, or talk about, or judge it if they can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am wrong. Faith is different than religion.

I'm not afraid or disdainful of science, even though a lot of it is conjecture still. Why do you feel a need to discredit a book? It's a book y'know.

You take the word of mankind, a entity proven to be untrustworthy, and malicious since the dawn of time, as truth, because of the facts that you are allowed to see, which you assume are all of them.

As for the kids being prodded by their parents, maybe they believe the way their parents do. Maybe later on in life they won't. But now today, if they do, then they had every right to stand up, and be given credit for it themselves, not "blaming" it on parents.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I am quite sure that you would always demand a higher standard of proof than what has been offered. After all the writings themselves often declare who the author was.
The handwritten accounts are a pretty good description of what happened compared to wild conjecture.
No vote created new documents or changed existing ones. What was written was written and if you don't like it then you are free to accept the ones you like and reject the ones you don't. Which is exactly what you do. I however choose to accept or reject based in part on the reasonable efforts of scholars and other leaders including those at Nicea.If you say so.

I think an examination of the original post on this thread would add substantially to the discussion, Who, especially the references to "hand written" notes and additions made 800 years after the originals and the refernces to the way that the Bible has DEVELOPED AND CHANGED.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I'm curious, Who, about why you would be so quick to defend the Bible's blasphemous claims that God ordered genocide, rape, slavery, selling of children, and all the rest. Do you really think the Creator of the Universe is so incompetent that He needs to resort to that kind of thing?

 

[Dr.Who]

I think an examination of the original post on this thread would add substantially to the discussion, Who, especially the references to "hand written" notes and additions made 800 years after the originals and the refernces to the way that the Bible has DEVELOPED AND CHANGED.

I already addressed that in my first post on this thread.

There have been no significant changes to the originals. What changes there have been we almost certain have already identified. And in fact we know with a high degree of certainty exactly what was in the original letters based on the various copies.

But you are welcome to point out one, just one, change that has changed our ability to know what is in the original.

 

[Dr.Who]

I'm curious, Who, about why you would be so quick to defend the Bible's blasphemous claims that God ordered genocide, rape, slavery, selling of children, and all the rest. Do you really think the Creator of the Universe is so incompetent that He needs to resort to that kind of thing?

Because if your ridiculous claims go un-opposed people will believe the crazy stuff you say.

God is not the author of evil. He may use it for good when someone else is the author and he may even do things that you like to spin as evil but he does not Himself author it.