Is the bible literally the word of God and if so why don't Christians...

[Mortos]

follow all of the strange commandments of the Lord?

Many fundamentalist Christians believe the bible is the word of God and should be taken literally. Not like the often misused use of the word literally (Dude, I literally shit my pants!) but the actual dictionary definition of literal (in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical: the literal meaning of a word).

Fundamentalist Christians (FC’s-thanks Bill O’reilly) use the literal interpretation when they say homosexuality is an abomination to the lord. It is not up for debate. It is the word of God and no interpretation, equivocation or quantification will change that fact. As a result of this biblical doctrine, FC’s have spent an unbelievable amount of time, money and energy to try and make sure that particulary religious bias becomes the law of the land. The issue of homosexuality, according to many FC leaders is the number one probem facing the United States today.


Continued here...

www.conservativefighter.wordpress.com

[zbdent]

1. What gets me is that all the "Christians" (read: New Testamenters)

in America tend to hold an "Old Testament" view on a lot of things ...

[phylny]

87. All of them? n/t

[Selatius]

2. I should hope they NOT follow the literal interpretation of the Bible.

Do you know how many concentration camps would have to be constructed to liquidate all those guilty of working on the Sabbath?

[Mortos]

4. There goes your patriotic shopping spree on Sunday

[kestrel91316]

22. Particularly all those Christian men of the cloth who EARN THEIR

LIVINGS on Sunday, lol.

[bryant69]

3. Gosh - how original. Nobody's ever thought of taking this particular

tack before.

But are you talking to Christians? Or fundamentalist Christians here?

Bryant
CHeck it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Mortos]

6. If you read the entire article at the linked site

you will see it refers to fundamentalist Christians (89% of whom believe the Bible is the literal word of God).

Don't get bent out of shape if it doesn't apply to you personally.

[bryant69]

13. That does seem a common line of attack these days

But whatever.

And the article mentions 89% of Evangelical Christians believe the Bible to be the literal word of God, not fundamentalist.

Bryant

[Mortos]

16. I honestly don't know the difference

but the 89% figure represents evangelical Christians.

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. That suggests an even greater level of delusion.

You don't need to be a literalist to be evangelical, nor do you need to be conservative or fundamentalist. Literalism is a basic tenet of fundamentalism.

That would imply that 89% of evangelicals are fundamentalist. Kind of puts the lie to the notion that there is a great, silent majority of moderate and liberal evangelicals.

[bryant69]

19. It also depends on how you interpret literal word of God

Which is a somewhat loaded phrase. I believe the Bible to be literally the word of God in the sense that it is a holy book, inspired of God and contains his commandments.

I get the sense that a lot of DU liberals are keen on Christians who don't actually believe all that nonsense about Christianity.

Bryant

[kestrel91316]

25. If the bible is literally the word of God, then he's a very confused and

conflicted god, because there are a heck of a lot of contradictions and utter nonsense contained therein.

I happen to believe the bible was thought up and written by men, SOME of whom were possibly divinely inspired, and some of whom were smoking crack.

[bryant69]

28. Convienent. Let's you toss out the bits you don't like, I guess.

Did they have crack in ancient days? I thought that was a recent development.

Bryant

[kestrel91316]

32. Well, since I have never CLAIMED to be a "bible-believing Christian"

I get to pick and choose which parts of the bible I like and want to follow. If you have a problem with this, sorry. It's MY conscience we're talking about. You believe what you want.

I rather like the ending of The Mists of Avalon, where Morgan concludes that "all gods are one god", and how you go about worshipping is not so important.

It's the search for wisdom and the striving for self-improvement that matters to ME.

[Beer Snob-50]

34. The bible is not the literal word of God IMHO

it is inspired my God, but it is being whored by those who have some kind of agenda (as it has since the time of Paul)

[yardwork]

51. Do you follow all of God's commandments as outlined in the Bible?

Do you follow each and every commandment, even the ones about not working on the Sabbath, not wearing clothes made with mixed fibers, not cutting your hair, not allowing women to speak in church or teach men? Are you careful to never eat dairy and meat during the same meal, much less ever eating pork or shellfish?

Do you believe that it is ok to have more than one wife and to beat your wives as long as you don't use a rod thicker than your thumb? Do you stone to death anyone you know to be divorced and remarried, especially if they are your own relatives?

Do you believe that it is ok to have slaves?

If you aren't following each and every one of the directions found in the the Old Testament and the New Testament, then how can you criticize others for "picking and choosing?"

I'm not criticizing you. I'm genuinely interested in knowing how you handle this.

[bryant69]

57. I don't work on the Sabbath, although I have had to.

But again it depends on what you mean by literally the word of God. If you mean that one has to follow every commandment in it robotically, well no I don't believe that. I have never stoned anybody to death for example, and I don't own any slaves.

On the other hand I do believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and I believe I have to hold myself accountable to it.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[yardwork]

88. So, in that case, you understand that there is no literal opposition to being gay in the Bible?

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and you try to hold yourself accountable to it, but not in a robotic sense. Is that right? So, for instance, you don't obey all the directions - like the parts about stoning people, not being allowed to wear cotton-polyester blends, or not eating a cheeseburger or drinking a glass of milk with a bologna sandwich sometimes?

Therefore, there's no reason to take the few passages in the Old Testament about homosexuals as literal commandments, right? Therefore, there is no biblical condemnation of being gay, any more than there is biblical condemnation for a steak and cheese sandwich, correct?

[Bridget Burke]

58. The "literal word of God"?

Or--the Divinely Inspired words that make up the Old & New Testaments? Which were written by humans. (Sorry, I'm a bit "literal" about using the word "literal.")

I'm definitely put off by Biblical Inerrancy. Especially when its proponents ignore the bits they find inconvenient.

But, even in the days when I Believed--I was Roman Catholic. Which quite a few of the Bible Thumpers here in Texas don't regard as "Christian."

[kestrel91316]

23. The term evangelical is thrown around a lot without being clearly

defined. I also note that nobody ever mentions Protestants anymore. There seems to be a tendency to divide Christians into Catholics and "Christians" or "evangelical Christians".

The vast majority of fundies are Protestants, usually of Baptist or Pentecostal persuasion. Evangelicals, IIRC, are Protestants who evangelize, or proselytize. Fundamentalists are biblical literalists. So there is some overlapping.

That's fine with me. I still know a fundie when I see one. He's the one yelling the loudest about obeying the bible, while keeping his fingers crossed behind his back.

[AndyA]

5. This is where the hypocrisy kicks in.

It's OK for them, because they are blessed. But the rest of us are sinners, and must suffer.

They can get divorced and remarried multiple times, have adulterous affairs, homosexual affairs, and it's OK. We can't get married and are not entitled to the same rights as others.

They can judge us and condemn us to hell, despite the fact this goes against the Ten Commandments.

They can cast the first stone, despite the fact that they too have sinned, they just don't feel they have.

Hypocrisy is what will send the majority of these people straight to hell.

[Mortos]

8. If hell were a real place and not a boogeyman of ancient times

invented to keep people in line.

Just my opinion.

[Leopolds Ghost]

38. One of the earliest popes (Origen? Gregory?) was excommunicated for saying there is no hell

He preached the doctrine of universal salvation.

[waiting for hope]

7. This argument has gone on with

the FC's for a while......deny and deflect are their best tools in this. It does, however, make for some great visuals:

"If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched." (Mark 9:43)

I wonder if Ted Haggert would have taken this one to heart?

[Mortos]

9. If that Biblical rule were followed

every man in the world would only have one hand, at best, and probably two stumps as a result of bopping the bologna.

[lizerdbits]

65. LOL!

:rofl:

[napi21]

10. I think you will find FC's pick & choose which biblical statements

they believe literaly and which they "interpret"! To me, that's always been hypocracy!

[kestrel91316]

26. Of course they do. Hence the common use of cotton/poly blends

by those fundie ladies.

[xchrom]

11. they are condemned by their own literal interpretation.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

12. Fundies interpret the Bible to their advantage

example is divorce - it is a sin but no big deal for the fundies. Southern Baptists have over 30% divorce rate so of course they aren't going to go after 1/3 of their base. Also, the sins the fundies commit are easily forgiven or explained - demons made me do it - but sins of the non-believers are never forgiven & used against them at every turn.

another example is - Thou shall not kill - guess that means nothing for the death penalty or for war. You can kill the enemy as long as you pray a lot you still get to go to heaven or mecca, etc.

For all religious view points the 'good books' are interpreted to favor their views and are more of a menu where you pick & choose what you like.

[solara]

14. Which Bible are "Fundamentalist Christians" taking literally I wonder.....

The New International Version?
The Amplified Bible?
The New American Bible?
The New International Version? (NIV)
The New American Standard Version?
The Updated New American Standard Version?
The Dynamic?
The Revised Standard Version? (RSV)
The New Revised Standard Version? (NRSV)
The English Standard Version? ( ESV)
The New English Bible?
The Free Bible? (paraphrased)
The Good News Bible?
The Phillips Modern English Bible?
The Living Bible? (LB)
The New Living Bible? (NLB)
The Jerusalem Bible?
The King James Version? (KJV)
The New King James Version? (NKJV)
The Latin Bible?
The Ormulum?
John Wycliff's first translation into English?
The Vulgate? ( aka The Mazarin, Guttenberg's first printed book)
Or Emperor Constantine's Version, edited and pieced together by the Nicene Council in 4th Century AD?


Seriously.. which one of these is the TRUE and ACCURATE word of God? I have read the King James Version and I don't remember ANY reference to homosexuality.. but maybe I wasn't reading it correctly..who knows.

:crazy:

[samq79]

20. Not only that, but..

These are interpretations and translations of the bible. The word of God has been translated by men of power for so long that it is hard to tell what is true and what is interpreted to serve those who did the translation. Excepting an indellible word of god being brought down from the heavens, with literal translations to every language, there is no way to know the true words that we should be following. We have to either take on faith that the true messages survived translation or buck the trend. That is for everyone to decide...

[solara]

47. Exactly my point.....n/t

[yardwork]

53. Well, James I himself was openly gay, so....

Of all the commandments in the Bible, the ones supposedly against homosexuality are extremely ambiguous. Many biblical scholars believe that the sins of Sodom were actually lack of hospitality. The cities were destroyed because they robbed and murdered visitors, not because of their sexual practices (whatever they may have been - it's not at all clear what is intended by the phrases).

Likewise, the various translations of "men lying with men" have been nipped and tucked over the ages to appear to be specifically against homosexuality (although lesbians are certainly not mentioned - and why wouldn't that be, if the message that homosexuality is wrong was so important? Why not specifically mention women as well?)

It's a house of cards that is easily toppled by the most casual inquiry.

If Jesus believed that homosexuality was a sin He would have mentioned it. He didn't. He mentioned a lot of other sins.

[Frank Cannon]

63. Jesus particularly rants on the sin of hypocrisy

In fact, "hypocrite" is about the worst insult that he calls anyone, and he uses it repeatedly.

[yardwork]

86. Food for thought. Food for thought....

[Frank Cannon]

62. I think Leviticus discusses homosexuality as a sin

But then it also declares handling the skin of a cloven-hoofed animal and touching a woman who is menstruating as sins too, along with a host of other bizarre laws that the fundies conveniently ignore.

[Fire Walk With Me]

15. As today's "Why can't I own a Canadian?" thread relates, there are inconsistencies in the bible.

Repeatability is a good determination that something is worth having in your life, especially in regard to spiritual and religious teaching. An open mind is essential in life. Discrimination is important.

I've seen the miracle of surrender in some 12-step groups. If you've seen an addict in the throes of powerlessness against their vices, down to the point of the edge of death in spite of their best efforts and intentions, you would be likely to consider the repeatable, documented effects of surrender to a higher power to be in the realm of the inexplicable and miraculous.

The concept of an invisible friend that can actually save your very life when you can do nothing is interesting at minimum. Is there some vast placebo effect in our minds that answers this, something we have tapped but not qualified in ourselves, or is it indeed something external that is able to intervene when allowed?

The important thing would be to see if anyone is turned away from this process, by the judgement of said higher power. The individual knows if surrender is accomplished, and observers will as well, if the promised changes occur. Are any truly surrendered, and turned away? I have not seen anything of the sort, and have heard nothing of the sort.

The bottom line would be that "all are welcome". In spite of human judgement of difference, all are welcome.

The concept of God is certainly updated as we learn more about ourselves, even to the point of not needing God. How nice to have repeatable, qualifiable experiences from an extremely wide range of individuals repainting the portrait of God into one of acceptance and support.

People are still people and will always and eventually make mistakes; it's our nature. If an individual fails to maintain connection to this process, blame the individual, not God. I certainly fuck up, and will fuck up again, in spite of seeking.

If Christians try to live decent lives and help others in need, it's a good start.

[Leopolds Ghost]

39. The lord helps those who help themselves.

If a human being take a course of action, it is not the result of divine
intervention, it is because that person was inspired by his/her beliefs.

Our whole civilization is based on the epistemology of things that cannot
be experienced directly (consciousness, truth, what life is like in other
parts of the planet, etc.)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

18. Because they are not real Christians. Christians should follow Christ, not the OT.

Christ never said anything about homosexuality. The only mention of homosexuality in the NT is by Paul, and he went off preaching his own weird stuff.

[kestrel91316]

30. I call the fundies Paulians (when I'm not calling them Leviticans or

Christofascists, of course).

[saltpoint]

21. The Bible is an interesting, provocative, sometimes lovely account of

the history of the faith of a people, and not the literal word of any Deity, whether or not there even ARE deities. It's both tender and terrifying. Not everybody on the planet believes in it, or has even seen it. Those who have vary in their applications of the texts from inspired pilgrims to responsible scholars to hellfire nutbags.

William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES is richer and makes more sense if one has already read the Bible, but stands as a great adventure tale on its own.

The fundie literalists stumble when they claim that the earth is not that old, and that God chose one people over all others to bless especially. Doesn't that just have the ring of exclusional bullshit? If their God is that cliqueish I'm not sure He's worth much. If I'm paying upwards of ten bucks for a ticket, I want the big screen.

The fundies are always around. Jefferson had to wade through them. So did Michelangelo. Sam Brownback will pander to them -- or, in the worst case, he's so insane he isn't pandering but actually believes what he's saying -- and they'll show up to vote for him or whichever other Republican panders most and best.

Meanwhile our side moves on with a more evolved agenda.

[slackmaster]

24. My church taught that the Bible was not the infallible, literal word of God

The internal inconsistencies and significant discrepancies between all the various versions are too obvious.

[Czolgosz]

27. I've often wondered why Bible literalists don't study Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. If I literally

believed that the Bible was the inerrant word of God, why would I settle for a translation? If I literally thought my very sole and salvation were at state, I'd think the least I'd do would be to educate myself so I could read the Bible for myself in the languages that are nearest to the original source languages.

Yet very few fundamentalists see the issue this way. I guess they are just not predisposed to critically evaluating the underpinnings of a way of life based on faith.

[Leopolds Ghost]

40. Because they're afraid of being proven wrong about the Bible's inerrancy.

And they'll hurt Jesus (again) when they find they're wrong.

Not to mention that they don't want to be reminded
Jesus was an olive-skinned Mediterranean Jew, not a
golden-haired European.

[Bridget Burke]

60. Serious Biblical scholars study all those languages.

But they don't tend to believe in "Inerrancy."

Here's a piece from the Society of Biblical Literature that deplores "faith based scholarship."

There is an atmosphere abroad in academia (loosely associated with postmodernisms) that tolerates and even encourages ideological scholarship and advocacy instruction. Some conservative religionists have picked this up. I have heard students, and read authors, who justify their biases by the rhetoric of postmodern self-indulgence. Since no one is viewpoint neutral and every one has presuppositions, why exclude Christian presuppositions? Why allow the premise of errancy but not of inerrancy? Such sophistry can be picked apart, but the climate does favor it....

Trained scholars quickly learn to recognize which authors and publications are governed by faith and tend to set them aside, not out of prejudice but out of an awareness that they are irrelevant to the scholarly enterprise. Sometimes it is worthwhile to go through a faith-motivated publication and pick out the wheat from the chaff, but time is limited.

www.sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=490

The writer tars Fundamentalists with the brush of Postmodernism. Which surely caused some Fundamentalist heads to explode.

[formerrepuke]

29. God doesn't write books any more than he produces TV shows..

..IMHO. The Bible is an interpretation of the Word- as filtered through the sensibiliies and prejudices of the mere mortals (all men, I believe) who wrote & compiled it.. and they did so in the only communications medium of the time- writing. The book of Leviticus, in particular, reads like the rantings of an deranged mysogynist- to say the least.

[yardwork]

54. There were some women authors of some sections of the Bible

Their writings are included as "Apocrypha" in some versions of the English translations. Most of the female writings have been expunged over the centuries. Gee, I wonder why.

[Az]

31. Some problems and observations

Science and Christianity have had a tempestuous relationship for some time now. Science used to be one of Christianities most promising tools. Seeing as how the Church believed itself to be the messenger of truth and science promised to be the means by which to reveal the truth it was thought that it would simply make clear what the Church had been saying all along.

But things didn't turn out quite right. Science started noticing things like the earth was not the center of the universe. And the nature of science is that once something is discovered its kind of difficult to undiscover it. They tried to stuff the genie back in the bottle by stuffing various scientists into nasty devices. But the truth was soon blossoming all over the place and it wasn't the truth the Church insisted upon. Next it was that humans were not a special creation but instead descended from other species. And a host of other issues just kept coming.

But the thing about all this was that while science disagreed with what the Church was insisting was true it kept clear of the Church's core. And that was morality. Science by its nature tended to stay clear of moral issues. It could hold forth on matters of physics and biology. But right and wrong remained in the realm of Church and Society.

To be sure the Church took issue with what Society was doing with moral values. But it at least didn't have to worry about science and its methodologies wading into the fray. And then the gays happened.

For a long time it was socially acceptable to reject homosexuality as unnatural. Even the world of science agreed that there was something wrong with it as psychology declared it a disorder. But then social progress began to come to terms with its own biases on this issue and homosexuals began to be seen as different rather than abnormal. Science even woke up on this one and removed it from the roster of disorders.

But then it started doing research (which is what it does). And evidence started turning up that homosexuality was perfectly natural. If homosexuality can occur in penguins and squirrels then it must have something to do with the wiring or brains. Further evidence started cropping up and eventually science came to the conclusion that sexual attraction was something other than a choice. You could not choose to be attracted to one gender or the other. You simply were attracted to which ever gender you were attracted to (with some even being attracted to both).

This was a big problem for those who claim to be fundamentalists. Because their interpretation of three bible verses insisted that homosexuality was unnatural and a sin. Because they believe that a sin must be the result of a choice it logically follows that homosexuality must be the result of a choice. But here was science insisting that it was not a choice. Science was weighing in on an issue of morality. It was like a spear to the chest of the Church's position of authority on all things moral. There has never been as great a threat to the Church's authority and science pronouncing homosexuality perfectly normal.

The Church survived previous encounters with science because it had toppled tangential issues such as how was the earth formed, where did life come from,etc. But the primary function of the Church has been presenting codes of how to live and what was moral. And now here was science saying "Excuse me, I think you got something wrong".

To understand how this hits the fundamentalist community realize that their claims of infallibility of the bible have been driven back to claims that only matters of moral behavior and intent are infallible. No longer able to proclaim the entire book was absolutely infallible due to science the fact that it was now assailing their last claim of perfection is a final ultimate threat. If the bible's moral teachings about homosexuality are wrong then what else is wrong? If its not perfect then what is it? It is reduced to nothing more than some groups guidelines. Flawed and human. No longer divine. There is no threat to the fundamentalist point of view like the threat of homosexuality being found natural.

[Leopolds Ghost]

43. What does homosexuality have to do with the moral teachings of Christianity?

You seem to assume that the ancients had a particular hang-up about homosexuality that was not reserved for other things.

Besides, most religions clearly state that your earthly desires are not important. The fundies, with their gold-plated Baptist churches run on a business model (each church competing for money and parishioners), ignore that.

[Az]

45. Agreed, it is the fundamentalists hang up

and not Christianities. There are in fact some arguments that suggest the three verses in question may even be misinterpreted and mistranslated.

[yardwork]

55. Very interesting observations

As others have responded, those who wrote the original stories that became what we call the Bible didn't seem to consider homosexuality a very important issue one way or the other. It's the folks who came later - the ones trying to boss everybody else around - who took it on as such a supposedly "moral" issue. In fact, Jesus's teachings on morality are plain. Love your enemies as yourself. When somebody hits you in the face, turn and let them hit you again on the other side. That was Jesus's message.

My personal belief is that capitalism, and the consequent need to entice millions of people into living approximately the same way and therefore wanting to buy exactly the same things, is what led to the hatred against homosexuality. Keep people constrained in their suburban homes and you can make them buy the same cars, lawn movers, and gas grills that keep the economy humming.

Allow people to love - really love! - with the freedom of their hearts and minds, and pretty soon you've got people starting to think for themselves, and then who knows what might happen?

That's my opinion. I think that homophobia is a tool of capitalism.

[foo_bar]

84. FTR, Christian same-sex marriages predate the DSM

For a very long period, formal amatory unions, conjugal, elective and indissoluble, between two members of the same sex were made in Europe, publicly recognised and consecrated in churches through Christian ritual.

They were never identical to heterosexual marriages – in societies in which gender differences were so significant, how could they have been? – but were often implicitly or explicitly compared to and contrasted with heterosexual marriages, and were by no means considered to come off the worse for the comparison. Indeed, as partnerships entered into by individuals acting as autonomous agents out of love for each other, same-sex weddings are much closer to modern companionate marriages than the heir-centred, family-allying and often family-arranged marriages of former times.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/davi02_.html

The term "same-sex union" used in the title of this book is a translation of a Greek phrase (adelphopoiia) which if translated literally would be rendered "making into a brother" or "adopting as a brother." The term is used in medieval Christian manuscripts written in Greek and Slavonic to identify an ecclesiastical rite. A representative prayer in such a rite reads as follows:

Merciful and loving Lord, who has made man according to your image and likeness, who willed that your holy Apostles Philip and Bartholomew become brothers, bound to each other not by nature but by faith and spiritually; as your holy martyrs Sergius and Bachus were worthy to become brothers, bless these your servants N. and N.; being bound together not by nature but by faith and spiritually, give them peace and love and oneness of mind. Remove from their minds all stain and impurity and bring it about that they love one another without hate and without offense all the days of their lives. May the Mother of God and all the saints intercede for them. All glory is yours alone, O God.

This prayer was accompanied by ritual actions in which the persons to be joined placed their right hands on the Gospel book and held candles in their left hands. At the conclusion of the rite they kissed the Gospel book, the priest, and one another.

Such rituals are found, in the main, in liturgical books written in Greece or the Balkans between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. They are familiar to scholars of Eastern Christian liturgy and to legal historians, but are largely unknown to Western readers. This new study by John Boswell, a historian at Yale University, provides transcriptions as well as English translations (for the first time) of a representative group of these rituals and an interpretation of their meaning and historical significance. In Boswell's view these rituals for the binding of two males are equivalent to "heterosexual" marriage ceremonies and were used by Christian clergy in medieval Eastern Christendom to bless "gay marriages."

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-15822984.html

[michael_1166]

33. It's simple...

First of all, God created the cosmos and the galaxies. Next thing he did was focusing his attention onto planet Earth, one of the three billion trillion inhabitable planets he created. Then he hurried to tell Homo sapiens, one of the species living on that planet, who to have sex with...

[Leopolds Ghost]

44. You seem to view God as an entity with a narrow attention span. n/t

[michael_1166]

46. To be honest, I don't believe in the Christian concept of God

[porphyrian]

35. God didn't write a single word of the Bible, people did.

And the only people I hear saying God is speaking through them are either con-men or mentally ill. People should be allowed to believe whatever they want, as far as I'm concerned, as long as they aren't infringing on the rights and freedoms of others in doing so. My problem with fundies is that they spend half their time doing just that.

[sakabatou]

36. Where's your Passover sacrifice?

[SammyWinstonJack]

37. I wish it would all go away. Religion that is. nt

[Tyo]

42. me 2 n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. "The bible is a book with some beatiful poetry, a blood stained history..

a wealth of obscenity and upwards of 10,000 lies." - Mark Twain

[Tyo]

48. As an outsider looking in...

it seems to me that being a Christian means that you use the Bible to support and justify what you already believe.

[WinkyDink]

49. Christians, by definition, are to view Christ's teachings as superceding the OT's

more vengeful passages. Thus, e.g., to forgive one's enemies, rather than take an eye for an eye.

[RebelOne]

50. As my atheist father said, the Bible was a collection

of contemporary novels of those times. So it's like reading a modern fictional novel and believing that it is the truth.

[derby378]

52. The Bible itself never claims that it's the Word of God

The closest it gets is when Paul declared that "All scripture is breathed by God..." but there was no such thing as Revelation (among other books) at that point.

[Beelzebud]

56. When did god write the bible? Did he use an ink pen, or a typewriter?

[Tyo]

59. IBM Selectric, Courier type....

...in a motel in Carol Stream, IL in 1971. Up until this time no one had ever heard of the Bible or Christ or Christianity or anything. Most people worshiped butterflies until they were 18 and then they graduated to rabbits. Golf was considered a sacrement.

But God was bored so he wrote the thing and then went back in time stopping here and there on the way to drop a book or two off. Mark here, Romans over there, Kings back here. This got the ball rolling on the reality we know now.

[Beelzebud]

61. LOL

[opihimoimoi]

64. Worldy MEN wrote this collection with the intent of subjugating us Humans

so they can DOMINATE and CONTROL our asses

Religion is a DEVIOUS means of control under the guise of doing good....

Can I sell you Heaven? Can I buy into Paradise???

There only a few religions out there which qualies as BENEVOLENT and truly doing good for the rest of Society...the Cathars were such a group but the Pope issued orders to kill them off....remember the Inquisition?

[Name removed]

66. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LostinVA]

67. You really are an uneducated embarrassing ass

The best part of you hit the sheets.

[swimboy]

71. Way to be thin-skinned, LVA

How many elections are you gonna lose us?










and just to remove all doubt:
:sarcasm:

[LostinVA]

74. I am too sensitive towards sociopathic freeper trolls, Swimboy

I'm sorry.

[PVnRT]

68. OOH OOH OOH

I get to respond to a troll before it's deleted! Yes! Finally!

[mainegreen]

70. Think he'll make to ten posts?

Or will this be the one that gets him nuked?

:rofl:

[JackBeck]

73. Yup. He did.

[mainegreen]

69. Who let you in, you nasty little thing?

Troll.

[JackBeck]

72. Seriously. You're giving me a hardon. Can we just make out already?

[PVnRT]

75. That's hot

n/t

[LostinVA]

77. God, that's turning ME on, and I'm a lesbian

Haruka's gonna kick my ass, Jack.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[JackBeck]

81. ....

:spank:

[LostinVA]

82. Come kiss me, baby

[JackBeck]

83. ...

:*

[LostinVA]

85. OOOOOOOO

:*

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

76. Oh yea, a total choice, thats why we never see a gay kid born to a straight family

:eyes:

[LostinVA]

78. he's trolling this all over GD

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

79. Oh, i've already become farmiliar

...:puke:

:hi:

[myrna minx]

80. I didn't know Bill O'Reilly could type.

You are really embarrassing yourself, you know. :eyes: I would like a link for you to back up your "assertions." :rofl:

[NMMNG]

89. Conservatives don't use the Bible to guide their own lives.

They use it to run the lives of others.