Welcome back ladys and gents,
since the school year has kicked off i decided to stick to a topic that caught my attention in my Western civ. class. (for those of you who dont know my professer is an athiest as well)One thing he often does is bing his religous views into his lectures.Some times everyone can tell that what he's saying is complete crap, other times though he makes everyone question things. One thing he asked us the other day was this:
The bible has been rewritten into many different languages, copied, rewritten into different versions and passed down through so many generations, how do you prove that no one has tampered with it, which would make ur bible faulse even if its origanal message was true?
any thoughts?
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This is Charlee, my own measures blocked out my profile, so I'm using 1 Tim. 4:12 for now.
ReplyDeleteI have a whole book that deals with this and more, "Evidense that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell, and I'd rather just give you that but oh well. The fact is the Bible has far, far more copies, written closer to the original time it as written than any other historical work by a long shot. This doesn't fully prove it though and I haven't given the exact numbers, but the book I mentioned has them. No one questions the writings of Plato or even Homer (to my knowledge at least) but their isn't half the amount of copies and they aren't half as close to the time written as the original. They aren't nearly as influential in history as well though.
We live in a time that is so protected from the dangers faced by the people of that time. The book you mention is an excellent book. I believe the back story on that book, was McDowell (the author) was a lawyer who did NOT believe in the Bible or Jesus. He set out to prove the Bible and Jesus were complete fraudulent make believe works of the imagination. He figured the best way to do that was collect FACTUAL EVIDENCE as he does for court cases andhe thought he find the Bible and Jesus Guilty of being a complete and total myth , through the rules of evidence and legal proceedings. To Josh McDoewlls surprise he found out the evidence actually indicates the EXACT opposite of his personal beliefs, so he takes the reader through those blatant undeniable historical facts...complete with footnotes...this is NOT an easy read, it is however 100% substantiated by real and undeniable evidence. To the point it took him from absolute atheist to believer by trying the case...another book very similar backstoryis Lee Strobles "The Case For Christ", Stroble sets up an imaginar court case using the rules of evidence and legal precedence to try Christianity for fraud...he too finds the exact opposite from the evidence...much easier read. The last one I personally found interesting, I don't remember the authors name anymore...it was a nice short book, and it was a GREAT and interesting read...I think it was called "Letters to My Father", and that's exactly what is in the book. The author was an atheist and his Father was a devout believer. He set out to prove to his father that his fathers faith was false using real evidence, but by the last letters, he become a believer as well... and I have to tell you, if you follow the letters back and forth, it will definitely intellectually happen to you as well, I found that very interesting because you ride the same ride of either the aetheist son or the believer father depending on your own personal belief....if your an atheist, you wont be at the end, unless your a dishonest person. If you a believer , your faith in God increases dramatically and when the son comes to the realization he has been a fool, just from the evidence he managed to dig up, and he commits himself t serving the God of us all. The relief of the father is also experienced as any father who is a believer can tell you, the thought of their childs eternal damnation by their poor choices is a heavy weight akin to learning that child has been killed in a car accident...its horrible feeling and any parent who struggles with that will probably cry when they see the transition occur in the course of the letters being exchanged...I must be honest , I read it about 15 years ago, and just as I was remembering it here to write this, I felt those emotions come back...very good book, a real journey, yet it is a quick read.
DeleteSo... I have a problem people are complaining about how civilization is like god... Wheres god? Point anywhere theres god... Smae with civilization. Im an atheist so i see it as "if u talk shit about him then youll be electrocuted," but if i destroy a building in a civilization, the cops will arrest me but god wont punish me before the "afterlife". I would literally be destroying part of him... I mean no offense honestly... Also if God can do all things he can create the world wothout needing a day of rest, making muslims the most accurate, but some... NOT ALL... Make very poor decisions making it hard to see all of them as correct. Then the bible has the exact same "plot" as a book written 400 years later that was a biography of someone meeting someone else who claimed to have done those things. Overall we may be a theory as a civilization, but where is the government? I kill someone the police will arrest me but i wont be electrocuted. Please never pull the bullshit move of *point* there's god. And if someone does say it, say go destroy or steal something... Who will get u in trouble? God or the police?
DeleteAnd if god gives u blessings (too many to hold for opening a door) then u will have enough blessings to make it to heaven. Lets say you can hold 100000 blessings, (i know u cant count them) and u get 150000 blessings for opening a door then they wont fade away so opening a door at 9 years old got u into heaven... WTF
Delete"Some times everyone can tell that what he's saying is complete crap, other times though he makes everyone question things." I love there are still teachers out there that MAKE YOU THINK.
ReplyDeleteThis might surprise you but the text of the new testament was not as important to early Christians as you might think. Books (i.e. scrolls), in general, were a hassle and took lots of time to copy. Most of the early church relied on word of mouth, but, they practiced memorization far more than we do today. Much of the Greek New Testament has sing-songy phrases designed to help you remember. When the text was finally widespread enough it was compared to what Christians already believed, and certain things were left out, on purpose. That text was copied meticulously and compared over and over again. Mistakes would have been immediately corrected. This was very important later on, when books became easier to produce.
ReplyDeleteYou can tell him it's very possible it was changed aroun a lot, but it doens't matter, because space time and matter cannot have created itself.Space time and matter cam into being at the same time, so it coudln't have created itself,you must exist in order to create.Scientists know for a fact it all started , thusly, something outside of space time and matter created.And if you put measuring tape across universe and move an inch in either direction, the universe would not exist,being that finely tuned is impossible on its own.The same probability exists for saying you take ink, paper, a stick of dynamite and explode it, and you would get the library of Congress, it IMPOSSIBLE.It would NEVER happen.Same for the atomic weak force, same for many other constants that have been set in the universe.Give him a go at that HA HA HA HA HA.
ReplyDeleteYou should check out the "m" theory. If your going to envoke the god of the gaps theory you should do more research, maybe check out real web sites instead of just going to Christian web sites that only tell you half the truth and lie about the rest.
DeleteYou said that "You must exist in order to create". My question to you is, how did God come into existence. He must have been created somehow in order to then create the world right? How did the infinitely complex deity come into existence?
DeleteI know this is old but last anon to talk we can prove how the big bang is self-sustainable.
ReplyDeletesecondly we can prove the bible is man-made.
thirdly god couldn't have just come out of nowhere either, so who made your watchmaker?
you are in error with respect to the Big Bang theory. And I might as well add...its really obvious where and how it is flwed (I will tell you), but first I have to say, I am amazed at how many people miss the obvious error. Ok here it is.
DeleteThe big Bang theory starts at an imaginary time t=0 (this is normal scientific approach to hypothesize about a theory, so this isn't the obvious part), it states that dense dark mass (nondescript), imploded upon itself and the resulting cause effect is everything you see in the sky at night and on the planet. Nice right?
Ok so here is the obvious...who made the deep dark dense mass before time t=0? hmmm? Oh wait there is a second obvious question; ready? At time t=0, the darke dense mass is at a condition known as "steady" state. At some point the object implodes...hmmm...what was the force and the source of the force that caused it to "implode"? WOW...not a single answer exists to these questions...umm which means the entire theory cant be proved, its still a hypothesis dependent upon "unanswered questions and unmentioned conditions for it to have occurred"...in other words, its a total make believe story itself. Come on people you are all smarter than this. It is sooooo obvious what is wrong with Big Bang...and you bought it? lol.
I would argue people have undoubtedly tampered with it... I mean first of all their were thousands of texts that were considered religious doctrine of Christianity, then some catholic men decided to make a book including a very small number of them to get the message they wanted across.. and just look at it, read it. there are two different stories about the creation that contradict each other. and many more examples of that, included when Jesus lived, what he did in certain situations, when he died and who ordered the kill. They even contradict if he was the son of god or god himself.. So either they are stories meant as a metaphoric just nice fiction writings, or someone has been messing with ur holy book. More over with all the conflicting translations and rewrites of the bible you should be able to see for yourself that people have changed it and continue to do so today. No one translation or interpretation of that translation is the same.. Something to think about.
ReplyDeleteHave you taken a biblical interpretation class or done any in depth study on the transmission of the Bible through time? (that wasnt a blog on the internet) what are your sources on your claim "people have undoubtedly tampered with it" an what are these two different stories about creation? and you should also do a word study on son of God and what that actually meant back then. you claim people have changed it and still do so,where are your sources there? this post if full of claims that sound like they came from an biblical scholar, now im not trying to be pushy or anything, sources are necessary and research for your self (outside of the internet is necessary). now there have been people who tampered with the Bible but thats a couple compared to the 5000 early copies from the 1st century we have and of those the only contradictions are mostly mispelled words. and its important to mention the Bible is translated from Greek to he desired language and thats it, not english to spanish to french... etc. but from original to the desired language, ask any doctural historian on historical texts and across the board, whether chritian or athiest agree that the Bible has not been tampered with. the ones who object are unqualified people on blogs. search for the truth from people who spent years and years in universities for this exact purpose, they dont do blogs but right books!...something to think about
DeleteBTW my sources are from many books in theological section in the library but you can also visit str.org and reasonablefaith.org for answers from people with degrees in these areas, happy hunting
DeleteYou'd have to know the 'Message' before all of the translations, to know if it is still prevalent. Honestly, you do not know. So it is highly likely that what you are reading (In the bible) is completely false, and not at all in line with what the original work wanted to express. This is why you have 'faith', which is setting belief in something without evidence. The logical flaw you are making, is that since you can 'consider it possible' that the message is still there, you skip over trying to find evidence that it is actually accurate... That is the problem.
ReplyDeleteIn ancient times, books were copied by hand onto manuscripts made from parchment. Ancient books are available today only because someone made copies of the originals to preserve them. Example, the original writings of Julius Caesar are no longer around. Only 10 copies exist, and they were 1,000 years after he died. No other book has as many copies of the ancient manuscripts as the Bible. In fact, there are over 24,000 copies of the NT manuscripts, some made within 35 years of the writer's death. Also, the Dead Sea scrolls prove OT manuscripts were not altered.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very correct answer...but you missed one detail, and it is a very important and serious detail.
DeleteThe job of writing the manuscripts or scrolls were the job of priests fulfilling the role of scribe. The penalty for errantly transcribing the scripture was death. In addition, the Jewshad something called the oral law. The entire scripture was memorized by these scribes, and most priests...the reason was simple, they lived before the printing press was invented and that is hence most people didn't "read" the bible, they had the bible "read" to them or recited from memory. It was a far different world then we live in today. Today we cry if we have memorize 10 vocabulary words. We have become a rather pathetic lot.
It's been driving me crazy...It popped in my head a few days ago
ReplyDeleteI need someone who cares enough to help me with it
(I'm an American, Catholic raised to the age of 10, Agnostic)
(i'm also not a strong writer)
Its kinda general..in my head its not though
My logic behind religion...and Why the world is the way it is nowadays
at first I figured Fear is the root of all evil
if you look back on history to the Great Depression in America...President Roosevelt explained there was nothing to fear but fear itself
we are going through a similar situation in the world now..
wars...terrorists...people are afraid...regardless if they want to admit it...or if they have accepted their fears
(People fear the unknown)
in religions it explains that you shouldn't fear anything.... not even death
the 7 deadly sins = which can also be considered as The roots of all evil
(which originates from the 8 temptations of man (apparently))
some of them(and maybe all considering fear of death alone can cause people to sacrifice someone elses life (saw movies)) I believe stem from fear
for example
greed/gluttony - that we won't have enough for ourselves
sloth -afraid that if you try hard you'll fail/that your not good enough
etc.
or maybe its those "7 deadly sins" that cause fear
(Fear seems like a Temptation to meeeeee)
basically in a logical sense
No Evil=Peace&Happiness
Love=Complete Trust
Complete Trust=No fears
Love=Peace&Happiness
7 deadly sins=RootS of all evil + Fear
Evil = animalistic behavior
7 Virtues + faith = allowed us to work together by defying evil
over time different types of religions that were secluded from each other meet..a long with technology advances.. confllict
more then one type of religion + science = loss of faith
loss of faith leads to loss of virtues
loss of virtues + loss of faith = evil = fear + 7 deadly sins....
How can you make everyone work together for a greater good?
Religion...until someone comes along and says wait a second...I don't believe that
if you believe in a deity...It's a personal opinion, Since its not able to be scientifically proven or dis-proven
Faith opposes Fear...and its usually a logical how-to on how people can get along with each other and make the world better
Idk if anyone else has already said this...I kept hearing the word fear the other day...and bam! its just there in my head now...idk if its wrong...idk...its bothering me...I had to see what other peoples opinions were...there's a lot more to it but I don't want to write a book.
God says, the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom....now that's in English...the original Hebrew indicates its actually talking about the fear of the wrath of God. So in a way , its sort of the opposite of what you are talking about. I have to frank here, the reason we are the way we are today, and the world is the way it is, is very very simple, as time moves forward, and we humans gain more and more knowledge, our inclination is to replace God with ourselves...because we think of ourselves as God. Believe it or not that is almost the entire story of the Bible in nutshell. Adam and Eve ate of what tree? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil (or you could call it the tree of knowledge of all things). Imediately after partaking of the fruit, the gain knowledge...and that was that they were both naked. Prior to that they had no offspring, after that they saw the difference in each others nakedness and "knew" what to do, and had Cain and Abel...you see their disobedience gave them the beginning of human "knowledge" and the tendency of man to disobey God. The more we learn, the more our tendency to replace our creator God withourselves...rhe real problem with the world is PRIDE/EGO, we literally , as created beings want to replace our CREATOR with ourselves. One day our knowledge will become so vast, that we will turn our backs on God, but "God will not be mocked" and he will come and destroy all we see, defeating the evil and all sinful mankind as he did in the days of Noah...but this time both the heaven and earth will be destroyed along with disobedient mankind. A new Earth and new heaven will replace what is destroyed and the faithful called out ones (the ELECT) will serve God in obedience and perfection for eternity...in reality that's where all the questions we have should focus...what will that place be like? What will I do there? etc. etc. but instead we are so screwed up our focus is on ourselves ...here and now. What a shame. Its like in the movie the matrix...you can choose the red or the blue pill...one pill you just continue to live your life as it is now (fat dumb and happy, or maybe not so happy), the other pill you see the world as it really is..a temporary stepping stone in a much bigger picture NOT CONTROLLED BY US!
DeleteHow exactly did you get to speak for god? Hmmm? Did god send you a telegram, an email, or do you hear voices in your head when you wear that tin foil hat. No, you are not special, you do not speak for god, you are simply insane and an arrogant, narcissistic fool.
Deletethe bible,that seems to be a lot of people's defense that the bible was first, written by men,and it has been re-written many,many,times,(so on and so forth)though I agree it has been re-written,the one FACT remains that ALL(religions)do not understand nor do they know anything about is, there is a PATTERN to go by,that was given to moses on top of mt.Sinia,and that pattern gonverns the whole entire universe,that's one and 2nd-the supernal nature of the creator which some will call the (godhead).I will say this,unless those two things are understood,there can be no true understanding nor reconciliation in mans mind and heart.thank you
ReplyDeletebobbyv92,FAITH IS A SUBSTANCE,it is a part of you,please understand,that there is proof and evidence of that,and that is a key word proof,for someone to answer your questions they must go into the bible,and prove by the law ans prophets,and fulfillment,also take your body,and creation,those three things if they cannot do that than DON'T EXCEPT IT.
ReplyDeleteFaith is not a substance. It is a delusion, what exists in your imagination of what you would like something to be. To have faith, means you are willing to lie and claim something is true without any proof. To have faith and declare something is true...with no proof, is immoral, dishonest, and unethical. Faith is the Big Lie told by the church to get your money and keep you in line. Faith is the same as a 5 year old who thinks her Barbie doll is real. Grow up.
DeleteI like to start with the obvious. Sort of like when someone is running around asking everybody who took my pen, who took my pen...and the dang thing is propped up in his own ear...anyway...the most obvious truth about the bible, is the people of the bible are absolutely real.
ReplyDelete1. The Bible is THE HISTORY of the Jewish people, so..if you think the Bible is a fraud, you CREATE one heck of a HUGE problem, you also must also erase an entire race of people who live to this day.
2. The people of the Bible are a literal people who many of their tombs and grave sites exist to this day. The Tomb of Joseph, Abraham, Sarah are all tourist sites to this day, there are many many others.
3. The science of Archeology, Israel is one of the leading regions for Archeology Digs. One of the most prestigious Archeological Studies Universities is right there in Israel. There is a specialized field of Archeology called Biblical Archeology, they even have a journal/magazine, called Biblical Archeology Review or BAR. Very fascinating magazine, want to know more, they are also on the internet.
4. Secular History. The History of the Jewish people is fraught with wars of both victory and defeat. One of the most significant ransacking of Jeruselum was about 40 years after Jesus (Yeshua) death and resurrection, amazingly Jesus foretold this disaster just hours before he was murdered. 30- 40 years later the conquering army of Cyrus moved in and completely destroyed the temple, not leaving even one stone upon the other as Jesus foretold...how do we know that? Josephus wrote of the account of that attack in great detail, and he also speaks about "Jesus" and why the Jews were so upset with Jesus and why they had him murdered! See folks even the non-religious historians of the time give testimony of Biblical characters...
The bottom line: is always start with the obvious, and then move into the factual as I have shown here. Everything I have written, you can know for yourself, very easily. It is this same method of why we know the scripture we read today is extremely accurate to the "best" manuscripts... simply because so much outside "secular" commentary from contemporaries of the time period quote the scriptures...so over hundreds of years, modern man has been piecemeal assembling source material to validate the scripture...and folks what we have today is the real deal.
I am a Christian, but I completely see where the Athesits are coming from and seeing how all of this "bible shit" is complete bs. So, I guss I just Don't give a shit -shrugs-. People have thier own beliefs. If you say "I saw Johnny ate my fucking apple (bible jokes=lame)" and everyone saw that shit for reall happen, Johnny can be like "fuck I didn't eat that apple". This is what he BELIEVES, so no matte how much of a fucking lie it is, someone is going to believe differently. You can't change they way people think, you may change thier PERSPECTIVE, but not the way the are accustomed to think. I am probs on wrong debate but fuck it, I BELIEVE I am on the right one, so if you BELIEVE that I should stop using it in caps and I'm on the wrong page, what can you change. NOTHING. because I think and believe the way that I want., you can't change my wants, unless you blackmail or rape me or something. THE END OF MY RANT, THE END.
ReplyDeleteThere is not one single Christian document, writing, or artifact in existence before the 4th century AD. This means that Christians and the concept of Jesus were not known until much later, and that all the writings about Jesus are a massive forgery and a fraud. By the way, the Egyptians and Babylonians have writings going back 6000 years.... cave wall paintings go back 35,000 years. But for Christianity in the first and second century...nothing exists. Christianity is a fraud.
ReplyDelete