Peachy. But you’re witnessing to us, not you. And you cited your pastor’s cure to respond to a request for something which “rationally justifies the existential claim of God’s existence.” So share the answer you got, please. Why did God cure your pastor but not the one in my link? Why did He listen to one set of church-goers who were requesting a cure for a bladder infection and not another set of church-goers who simply wanted Him to arrange for mountain lions not to eat a toddler ? Did the others not pray as hard or enough or properly? Did the toddler sin? Is God an asshole? Or is it more likely that God did not intervene in your pastor’s recovery – indeed, that He does not intervene in the physical world much at all, and that your “proof” was incorrect?
18 and a part cubits?
The Bible is fine, but it is folly to insist it is free of eror and contradictions.
Genesis 1:6-8 The Firmament. Maybe that’s why Challenger crashed.
Genesis 3:14- Snakes cursed to eat dust. I feed mine dead mice.
Etc.
The point is that the bible IS full of errros but that one who wishes to believe otherwise CAN explain away these errors to his/her own satisfaction via incredible rationalizations and logic twisting.
This will not suffice of course for those who have no such presuppositions concerning the Bible’s accuracy.
BTW, insects have SIX legs… period.That they can use some of them for purposes other than walking does not make the assertion that they have only FOUR accurate.
The thing is that if this IS the divine word of God and he wishes you to adhere to it as if it is without error then it should not require such extensive reinterpretation and straw-grasping rationalizations.There should not be two different and contradictory accounts of creation in Genesis.There should be no need to create fusion light makers after he creates light!
It should possess the objectivity of gravity and be permanent and readable by all, regardless of geographic location without need for translators/interpretors!
Nomadic_One:
Which is more important to you, Nomadic One – continuing to judge Polycarp or following the Bible’s admonition to avoid judging others?
Now you are a hypocrite too. Welcome to the world of imperfect Christians!
And where does the bible say insects have ONLY four legs? And pray tell me how many legs does a bonobo have?
Because Joseph’s mother was Rachel.
Well, there’s the problem that Jesus’ genealogy as given in Matthew is completely different than that given by Luke.
Something like that can’t be easily ignored.
Mistranslations of the bible are a whole different can of worms entirely.
When dealing wil insects, legs are legs. They may be multifunctional appendages, but they’re still called legs. Would you seriously talk about the arms on a locust or beetle?
Tell that to all the fundies who believe that every word in the bible is literal truth.
Also, if a book is supposed to be divinely inspired by God, don’t you think He’d do a better job of inspiring people to, you know, write down the truth? Religious works of literature (holy texts in particular) make some of the most extraordinary claims possible, so they have to be held up to higher standards of scrutiny than most other things.
I’m afraid that the Holy Bible doesn’t hold up very well under scrutiny. The errors, contradictions, mistakes in translation, etc. may all be small, buy they add up. “No single raindrop believes that it is to blame for the flood”.
Polycarp:
What I said, nomadic one, was in no way hypocritical. I love the Bible, I read it fairly regularly, I study it as I have time. I rely on it for most of the information about my Lord. But I do not think it is totally without error, and God as known in Christ, not the Bible, is what my faith is founded on.
We have been here before but this info you have on Christ comes from no place other than the bible. If Christ came and physically spoke to you then you might have an argument but if I recall correctly your “mystical experience” was a lot less detailed.
That concept doesn’t seem that hard to grasp. But I seem to have a truly terrible time bringing it across.
You’re too hard on yourself. The flaw is in the concept not your communication skills, IMO.
Oh, and badchad? I’m a Christian humanist – I’ve never denied that; I glory in it. Because that’s what Jesus told us to do.
When Jesus tells you to do something other than what your humanism tells you, you side with humanism, though still try to call it Christianity. Would you like me to again make an example of how you won’t “give to he who asks.” I think I made a list of other of Christ’s concepts that I didn’t think you would endorse and I don’t recall you disputing it. I could do so again if you want.
Zoe:
*Which is more important to you, Nomadic One – continuing to judge Polycarp or following the Bible’s admonition to avoid judging others?
Now you are a hypocrite too. Welcome to the world of imperfect Christians!*
That’s kind of harsh Zoe. Know ye not the bible and it’s endorsement of judgement?
Lev.19:15
“In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.”
Jn.7:24
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
1 Cor.2:15
“But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.”
1 Cor.5:12-13
“For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”
1 Cor.6:2-3
“Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?.”
your very thoughtful badchad, good. and Zoe im just telling it like i see it.
As for the origional thought to this post it was sort of a “preach to the choir” where it was dealing with people that already had a base in christianity just mislead. Im glad those who are not a part of christianity have had a chance to look and see what it has to offer. If you have any more questions please ask 
Yeah, I’d never heard about your petty small brand of christianity before.
:rolleyes:
Consider the following:
“Badchad, the purpose of this board is to fight ignorance – one’s own included! Therefore, I will expect you to take all my posts, analyze them, and point out and correct the errors in them, right here in this thread.”
Reasonable request, right? Except that I’m closing in on 9,000 posts, and it would be a near-impossibility for badchad to fulfill that request in anything short of a year or so’s steady posting.
While it is truly annoying for people to be told that they are sinners, when one considers the literal meaning of hamartia, the Greek word for sin used throughout the New Testament and Septuagint, which is “falling short,” nearly everyone is willing to admit that he or she is not perfect. But most people feel that they’re “not as good” as a few saintly folks, but far better than those _____ [fill in the blank] who are completely disgusting in what they do.
A great deal of what Jesus taught was on the focus that yes, you’re not perfect, and therefore you’re sinners – all of you – in need of God’s grace – which He, being a loving Father, is prepared to give you. But He needs you to recognize where it is that you do stand, and that’s not on your own righteousness. Sure, you do good, but so does everybody – and you know full well that you fall short of perfection in a number of ways.
So Jesus hands down a bunch of commands that are quite literally impossible to fulfill without divine help – as illustrations of our own imperfection, and as ideals towards which we should strive. And yes, badchad illustrated my imperfection with a set of these ideal commands.
As for the rest of it, I’ll tell you what, I take Jesus as my ideal, my Savior, and my Lord, and I claim His promises as the means to sustain and guide my life, and try to follow His commands, including that little one about “eschewing judgment and rendering mercy as you yourself, being a sinner, would seek mercy rather than harsh judgment, for with the measure you judge will you too be judged.”
You are welcome to take the Bible, read uncritically as a handbook, as your guide, and to quote Moses and Paul to justify judging others. And to reject any of Jesus’s teachings that doesn’t fit into what gets called “Biblical morality” but which is really the kind of Pharasaism Jesus condemned updated with a selection of Pauline teachings added into the Law and the Prophets read as a code of conduct that distinguishes between the righteous churchgoers and the evil sinners whom they’re instructed to avoid.
And we’ll see who gets it right. If Czarcasm has the right of it, it won’t matter, because when we die, the neuroelectrical network that comes up with all this stuff will shut down, and we’ll be nothing whatsoever except a memory. If the way that I understand Jesus’s teachings is right, there are a lot of “good churchgoers” who are going to find themselves classified as Ovis capra rather than Ovis ammon on the basis of what they didn’t do for “one of the least of these” and because they decided they were righteous enough to sit in judgment over others. And if the “Biblical morality” folks are right, then we end up with a god who meets the typical freshman-atheist list of scathing condemnations, and I’m not sure that I have any respect for such a god. He sure isn’t the God that I know.
And, of course, in the last scenario I’m personally doomed, like gobear and the rest of the International Conspiracy of Evil-Agenda-Bearing Fags – I fell in love with a boy once.
But, badchad, I did not make you the keeper of my conscience, and I will try to live the life I believe I have been called to, to the best of my ability. And that includes preaching God’s mercy to all, and in particular to my gay friends, who have been told by the Neopharisees that they’re among the outcasts whom He hates, for reasons they’re powerless to change – and in point of fact what He feels does not have anything to do with that bit of judgment, but rather their own inability to stretch their idea of God’s love to include people that different from themselves.
Which is sad.
badchad - has it ever occured to you that some Christians may place a higher value on what their own consciences tell them (especially given that they believe them to be guided by God’s spirit) than the advice or commands ascribed to Jesus that he may or may not have truly said?
It seems to me like you are just out to criticize Poly - and I’m not sure what your motivation is there, though I have my opinions, which I will keep to myself.
Ignoring for the moment that reading the Bible is the leading cause of atheism adn that most atheists are not atheists simply because they have not heard of christianity, but rather they have heard all of this same crap before and did not find it amusing the first time, what in the hell makes you think that what YOU have said in this thread is going to convince ANYONE that christianity has something worthwhile to offer(even if I could somehow make myself believe God existed)?!?
I have heard of delusions of grandeur before but this is ridiculous!
Do you seriously think that anyone reading this messageboard has zero knowledge of Christianity?! It has been my experience that most atheists have a greater understanding of Christianity than most Christains do. In fact, that’s usually why they don’t believe in Christainity.
I mean, you yourself stated that there were no historical faults in the Bible, which is definitely not true. The problem is, when you’re a Christian, you don’t tend to actually examine the Bible too closely. You go to church, listen to the sermon, and come away with whatever interpretation of whichever passages that the preacher decided to give to you. Few Christians actually sit down and read the Bible with a critical eye.
To be fair, Godless, GD is offered up as the forum for witnessing. As such, (I don’t think) it’s required that the witnessing to be framed in terms of a debate. It can just be offered up for what it is, to be enjoyed or ignored by other dopers. This kind of witnessing might seem to make more sense in MPSIMS, but since GD is specified as the forum for witnessing I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to attack someone for doing it (unless they actually ask for a rebuttal…then it’s game on).
I’m an agnostic myself, btw, and I pretty much agree with the content of your post, I just don’t think Nomadic_One was looking for a fight. He saw that he could witness here, so he did. Let him witness. It’s not going to hurt anyone…it’s not going to convert anyone, but it’s not going to hurt them.
I prefer to think of myself as a militant agnostic, actually. My motto is “I don’t know and you don’t either.”
Oh I am not denying his right to winess here.However, I AM presuming I have similar rights(to counter-witness?) as well.In the course of all of this witnessing and counter-witnessing a debate HAS emerged adn Nomadic_One HAS participated and when he makes bone-headed remarks like the one about us “getting a chance to hear what christianity has to offer” he is inviting critique.
If I come posting “I am just glad I allowed christians an oppurtunity to hear something sensible that had some critical thought behind it” I would expect a whole lot of people(atheist adn theist alike) to call me on it.
I am an agnostic atheist-“Even if the claim were true, neither of us could know it and I see no reason to think it true.”
badchad, are you saying that Polycarp does not seriously follow the teachings of Christ?
On the contrary! He’s probably the expert on Christianity on the board, and he takes his faith VERY seriously.
The problem comes when people stop worshipping God-and start to worship the BIBLE instead.