Thanks Keith,

I understand your POV now.

 

Habibi, you never answered my shnuts question.

 

You ever watch SouthPark Stealth?
You know how Cartman says "I'm gonna kick you in the nuts!"

So one day my wife was half drunk, and she said it to me while trying to mock Cartman, but she accidentally said "Shnuts"

It just sounded funny at the time.

 

I bet that was a pretty good laugh! I also bet she smacked you while you were laughing at her. That's how mine would have done it.

 

That is true, and is one more reason why Intelligent Design should be taught in church, not in a science class.


I'm really not sure how you can say such a thing. I can understand why you would want to; the Old Testament is a bloody massacre with very little moral rectitude, especially when compared to the New Testament, but you just can't do that. The two are very deeply intertwined, trying to ignore the Old Testament invalidates the New Testament.

In the New Testament Jesus makes constant references to "scripture". In Matthew 22:29 Jesus says: "You are in error, because you do not know the scriptures, or the power of God." Now, just what were these scriptures that Jesus was making reference to? The New Testament? At the time there was no such thing as a New Testament. Every reference to "scripture" in the New Testament establishes one more link to the Old Testament. How many times does the New Testament refer to Old Testament "scriptures"? 52 times.

In the New Testament, Abraham is referred to 68 times, the ancient Israelites are mentioned 73 times, Jacob 26 times, Issac 20 times, Elijah 29 times, Isiah 22 times, Noah 8 times, King David is mentioned 58 times, and the name Moses appears 80 times. You think these numbers don't establish an important connection? You don't think that Jesus held that the teachings of Moses were important? Jesus gives an absolute endorsement of the teachings and laws of Moses. "If you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" John 5:45

You can't sit there and tell me that the New Testament is not inexorably linked in the deepest ways to the Old Testament.

In John 1:1, we read "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In verse 14, we read: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." We are told explicitly that Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament. Most Christians, in particular the Catholics, already accept this. But, by logical extension, you must also accept therefore that it was Jesus Christ who ordered the Israelites to slaughter millions of defenseless men, women and children in the conquest of Canaan; it was Jesus Christ who killed every firstborn child in Egypt; it was Jesus Christ who ordered king Saul to butcher thousands of children and babies in the genocide of the Amalakites; it was Jesus Christ who ordered the Israelites to capture and mass-rape 32,000 young girls of the Midianite tribe after killing their families; it was Jesus Christ who struck dead 50,000 innocent people at Beshemish for merely looking into the ark of the covenant; it was Jesus Christ who caused the painful asphyxiation of every man, woman, child and animal on the face of the earth during the flood of Noah (with the exception of 8 people and 2 of each animal species); and it was Jesus Christ who condemned every person ever born to a state of eternal suffering, all because 6000 years ago a curious and naive woman ate a piece of fruit. And, of course, it was Jesus Christ who sent 2 bears to chase down 42 little kids and disembowel them for just acting like kids. 2 Kings, 2:23-24

 

Genesis 1:26-27
Then God said, "Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness. Let them rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the domestic animals all over the earth, and all the animals that crawl on the earth." So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female.


You have just proven my point. Genesis 1:1 through 2:3 says God made the rest of the world, and then made man and woman together, last. Genesis 2:4-25 tells a completely different story, the one you are referring to.



Perhaps your God created your morals, but you can't possibly say he/she/it created the morals for everyone else.

 

When it comes to religion, I'm a true believer in the concept that every person is different from everyone else, and what works for them is fantastic, whatever it may be. I also believe that it's wrong to pass judgement on whatever it is that works for someone else, because if it works for them, then for them it isn't wrong, no matter how much someone else may find fault with it. It is only when someone tries to force what works for them on someone else as fact for all that right or wrong enter the picture.

For me personally, religion was one area of my life where I really struggled as I got older. Growing up, I never felt pressured to follow the Bible verbatim, and really saw it as more of a guide. When I started learning more about Catholicism, where things went from gray to black and white, it all started to fall apart. A true Catholic, and some would argue a true Christian, believes that God is infallible, which means that if he believes one part of the bible, he must believe the whole thing, not just select bits and pieces. But the Bible is so full of contradictions and inaccuracies, it almost single handedly invalidated Christianity for me.

The way that God in the Old Testament is the diametrical opposite of the God in the New Testament just didn't wash if he was infallible. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says that we should stone to death disobedient children, and Exodus 21:7 says it's okay to sell your daughter into slavery. But Jesus tells us to 'do violence to no man', to 'turn the other cheek', and to 'love our enemies.' Then I found out that in the Bible, God takes the lives of 2,270,365 people. Satan is only responsible for 10 deaths; those of Job's seven sons and three daughters. And he's the bad guy? I finally came to the conclusion that the Bible advocates prejudice, superstition, cruelty, and murder, and I have no interest in believing in something like that. The God I grew up believing in would be appalled by much of what is written on those pages.

It was then that I accepted myself as being agnostic. I believed in God enough to ask for his help in the past, and I dont believe in hypocrisy or being a fairweather friend, so I still believed in God, I just felt that none of the organized religions that I was aware of knew any better than I did what he wanted, or expected of me.

That's where I was a few years ago, maybe 10. Then things like science and logic crept into the picture. If left to my own devices, I would often find myself questioning the logic of believing in God. At first, all it took to snap me out of it was hearing some other yahoo going on about how he knew there was no God, and I'd be in his face arguing in a heartbeat, and would eventually walk away feeling like someone was looking down on me approvingly.

As time went on, though, and I became more honest with myself, I found the idea of an actual God, as I understood him, more and more difficult to accept. I always thought of atheists as sad, depressing pessimists, and felt sorry for them, which is probably why I struggled for so long before openly admitting that I had become one. I hung on to the term 'agnostic' for a long time because it was like an atheist, but not as depressing. lol. Or at least that's how I perceived them.

But I'm not sad and depressed. And even if I was, being an atheist would have had nothing to do with it. As strange as this may sound to you, I actually felt better, and happier, after "coming out of the atheist closet." It's not for any of the reasons I thought it would be, either. I don't suddenly feel like I can now get away with things I shouldn't do, or like it's no longer wrong to do immoral things. I don't do bad things because I know they're wrong, not because I fear being punished by God. I am the source of my morals, not someone or something else, and I guess it took becoming an atheist for me to fully realize that. All those years I gave God the credit, and I was doing it myself, dammit! lol.

I mistook my conscience as being God giving me advice. When I made a decision that worked well for me, it was my own intelligence that subconsciously guided me, and not some greater being that I was following blindly.

But that's just me.

 

PKROOD:mind taking my post apart ? Couple pages back, but truly interested in what you have to say ......

 

to make it easier to anyone believing my interpridation of the book,speak now:

Anyone disagree with me ??

 

If you are referring to the post of yours that you again quoted in the post following this one, I think it was very well written by someone that was able to stand back and take in all of the many details which explain why it has to be a matter of faith, and will never be a matter of science. If those are your words, then I agree with your observations. I would not say the Bible is a great book of morals, it has some pretty hideous rules in it. But I do believe that overall it makes a good guide for those that need one.



You sound to me like a spiritual person, rather than a religious person (like many others in this thread).

 

Actually, let me add one more point; Both of my parents are ordained ministers, and I was raised in a loving, Protestant Christian home. I have seen some wonderful things done that were attributed to religion, so I wouldn't say that it is entirely evil, but it is an extremely powerful weapon for those that are evil.

 

I did not say that the New Testament was a stand alone, of course it refers to events in the Old Testament. I said we were discussing the Chistian way of life and Christian beliefs which is found only in the New Testament. As for the rest of what you have to say, I am so glad that the Bible speaks to me differently than it does to you. That is just astonishing!

 

Thanks for the laugh!

 

[QUOTE=PKRWUD;3341344]Actually, let me add one more point; Both of my parents are ordained ministers, and I was raised in a loving, Protestant Christian home. I have seen some wonderful things done that were attributed to religion, so I wouldn't say that it is entirely evil, but it is an extremely powerful weapon for those that are evil.[/QUOTE]

Now to that I can totally agree! Religeon or a faith in God is not the problem. The problem is man's perversion of these things for his on benefit and greed. That has been going on since the beginning of man.

 

Ok, where is the man who started this thread?
There has been some pretty fascinating "answers" put out there and as we can see, just about everybody has their own interpretation of the Bible to suit their needs.
Not only have contradictions been pointed out in the Bible, people have then denied those and then contradicted themselves and each other.
How is a good, honest Agnostic like me supposed to make sense of this?

Now that Pandora's Box has been opened, Shines, what's your take on some of the later replies?