Disney Duster wrote:Goliath, you don't quit understand these religions, which makes sense as it seems you don't believe in at least any that use the Bible.
That reasoning is false. I don't have to believe in the Bible to 'know' or 'understand' religions. I don't have to believe in the Qu'ran to learn about the originis of Islam, either. There is much we don't know about the origins of the Bible. But we do know a great deal about how it came into being. It seems like you don't want to know. Because knowing how the Bible came into being would ruïn your conception of 'a book that is the one true word of God'. Which it isn't. It's a collection of very loosely related stories, written over a span of centuries.
Disney Duster wrote:But basically these men were inspired by God, he spoke to them, in dreams or subconsciously or in their minds or whatever, but they had human flaws. It's not like he had them record things word for word. He divinely let them know what they should write. And of course, when you right things from any person, if you write it a day or a few hours or even a few minutes after you talked to them, it won't be exact, you may make mistakes.
Also, these men were indeed writing down what they had heard orally before. They weren't all witnesses to all of the events, in fact most of them weren't. God inspired them. He guided them, but it wasn't perfect, as humans aren't perfect. They weren't made to be.
But how do you know? How do you know God spoke to them, or inspired them? You don't know. Did God tell you? If not, you don't know. The explanation that God spoke through the authors of the Bible was conceived by *humans*. Humans just like you and me, and why would you take their word for it? Also note that the FACT that the Bible was authored by more than one writer was long denied by both the church and the Jewish community. Spinoza even got ex-communicated from the Jewish community for saying out loud there was no single author.
And isn't it awful convenient to say that God 'spoke through these authors' and they didn't quite get it right because they had flaws etc. etc.? If God really wants his messages to reach the people, why doesn't he just appear and say to the people: "yo, listen up, here's the deal, 'kay?" Why does he have to find human writers to interpret his messages in stories which end up contradicting one another? The answer is, again, that men (humans!) made the stories up. The earliest stories in the Old Testament are believed to have been written during the time the Jews were in exile in Babylon (under the reign of Nebudchadnezzar). They needed an explanation for the dire situation they found themselves in, and they invented a stories about their people not listening to God, and the exile was supposed to be a punishment. While they were at it, they also thought up an entire history for their people.
Disney Duster wrote:As for tales they wrote that sound similar to other tales, it could be possible some of the authors wrote stories that had been changed, but they only wrote them the way they heard them. What's important is that what God absolutely needed to say got in.
You miss the point. The Bible is the basis of the biggest religion in the world. There are, unfortunately, millions of people who believe in it LITERALLY. And it contains, as I've explained, stories which are rehashes from earlier Sumerian and Greek texts. Which means that the stories are not true, nor are they "inspired from God". The story of Noah is a rehash of the Gilgamesj and the Deucalion stories, in which God (or actually the most important one, since they believed in many gods) visits the earth, is disappointed in mankind, and wipes it off the earth with a big flood... except for one man, who was good, and who would repopulate the earth.
Early parts of Genesis mention multiple Gods existing. They roam the earth and have interaction and relations with humans. How can religious people read past this? It's nothing more but an ancient Greek myth. Multiple Gods having relations with humans is characteristic of Greek mythology... and it's in Genesis. So how you could either claim all of this was inspired by the Jewish/Christian God, or that none of this matters, is beyond me.
Disney Duster wrote:Also, maybe you haven't realized that every "new" television show, movie, or book, still uses events and dialogue that has been heard before. If we really look at them, we can find them quite similar to things we've heard before, just rearranged or slightly changed. That is because these new stories still need to contain things that are familiar to us, that will resonate with human beings.
Really? You want to compare a worldwide religion, over which millions of people have waged wars and slaughtered each other, and which still inspires political action even today... to a TV SHOW? Are you kidding me??!
Disney Duster wrote:And you still can't pinpoint exactly when and how those legends were made. Perhaps they actually stole from an event the Bible authors got right.
Er... the Gilgamesj stories are written down on clay tablets from seventh century BC. They are much older than the Noah story.
Disney Duster wrote:I guess you haven't heard "Ignorance is bliss?"
I've heard it, and it's a false saying. It's invented to keep people uninformed and ingnorant of the truth. People in positions of power, like religious leaders, count on it.
Disney Duster wrote:But the only ignorance here is if you ignore something, as you ignore religion, and information others know.
Oh no, make no mistake: I don't ignore religion. Had I ignored it, I wouldn't know so much about it. That is, the Christian religion. I know little of Islam or Hinduïsm, for example. One doesn't have to believe in religion to study it.
Disney Duster wrote:But scientists are always finding new information that changes everything. Everything you think is the truth, is knowledge, gets changed as each day goes by. At least scientific truth. But even what we know as history gets changed as we find new things, or that people covered up things. History is decided by those who write it. Do what makes you happy, avoid what makes you unhappy. You cannot find out everything about the world. You cannot find all the answers. And no one can.
But that is exaclty the great thing about science: it DOES get updated whenever new information is found. Your argument only strenghtens my believe in science, because science is never a 'finished' project, as religion is. Religion is finished: there's a 2000 year old book that you haver to read, that never gets revised anymore. No matter how many evidence there may be found to contradict what's in the book, the book stays unedited and people keep believing in it. It's not informed by current developments. It's the belief-system of men who lived thousands of years ago in an under-developed society with little knowledge of the world.
Disney Duster wrote:You don't want to follow religious leaders, but you follow whatever scientists say? You follow what some other people say. Alrighty then. Scientists only see what is in front of them, that's all they can study, and that's what they use to declare what's what on this earth for everybody else. Thankfully many more are free enough to decide for themselves.
No, no. Science and religion are not equal, nor are they to be compared. Religious leaders tell me what to believe because "that's how it is", or because "it says so in this old book". Science offers me explanations of the world which get updated and revised on a daily basis. Science is open to debate, religion is not. Science is based upon peer review and evidence, religion is not. Science welcomes falsification to gain new insights, religion does not. You can question science, but not religion. You are "free to decide for yourself" that gravity doesn't exist. But it makes you look pretty stupid if you can't back it up. Whereas you can make the wildest religious claims, like a man walked on water, or he raised from the death, without ever having to give any plausible evidence. Is that "thinking for yourself"?
Disney Duster wrote:As I said, they classified homosexuality as a mental illness.
Yes, once they did. But decades ago, they found out that they were wrong. And they admitted it. And now they don't call it that anymore. Because they're wiser now. Whereas religion still uses the Bible and the Thora and the Qu'ran to oppress and harrass homosexuals.
Disney Duster wrote:But you decide for yourself, what makes you happy.
It can make you happy, but it has nothing to do with the truth.
Disney Duster wrote:You know you are no animal. You are typing on this computer and you can feel you are more than an animal. You are so much more.
What does any of that have to do with me not being an animal? Ever heard of evolution?
By the way, I do not think "humans" are 'more' than "animals". I've never seen animals wage war against each other over religious beliefs, over natural resources, over money. Animals don't pollute the air, or destory nature and the environment. Animals are a lot more civilized than "humans".