If you are saying I’m forcing anything on anyone, you’re mistaken. I’m simply suggesting things.
The proverb was simply pointing out the obvious… just as churning milk turns it into butter, forcing wrath (great anger) will cause strife (conflict, contention).
I’m not angry with anyone, nor am I forcing my anger upon anyone… there may still be conflict and contention throughout this thread, but it is simply heated debate… like SteveG1 said, “no one here hates you”.
It’s my understanding that nobody with an education believes this. Aside from the fact that the Qur’an has been read continuously since the seventh century.
But these ideas (which were mingled in with a whole lot of other ideas that turned out to be useless and were thus discarded and forgotten, so you’ve already operating from selection bias) led to a demonstrable improvements in navigation, astronomy and social justice. You’re not arguing, though, for an advancement, but for a regression, to a time when people were guided by religion because they didn’t know any better.
Nonsense. The box you’re actually claiming as home is a very old one, shot full of holes and long abandoned by many people who have found other, better boxes. It’s not radical in the slightest to propose a fundamentalist viewpoint and abandonment of critical thought - such ideas have been encouraged for as long as organized religion has existed and it’s only in the ~250 years (roughly the beginning of the Enlightenment) that a viable alternative has existed. I find it odd that you can try to claim to have an unconventional way of thinking while quoting a 2,000 year-old text. You didn’t get ahead of society - you’re being left behind by it.
Yes, and it’s a moral duty of thinking men to resist such efforts being used to guide public policy.
I can’t suggest any such thing because I didn’t understand the point of the quote in the first place, hence my question. Who’s “great anger” is being forced? Yours? Mine? If it turns out to be nobody’s, what’s the relevance to this discussion? “Getting people angry causes problems” is self-evident, no bible was needed to know this.
The distinction between the ideas that were mocked and accepted, and ideas like yours that just deserve to be mocks is that the former were RIGHT. They had evidence, they matched reality. Yours are just made up; pure fiction.
Writing fiction that you admit to be fiction isn’t the same as making up fiction and demanding it be regarded as truth. And IMHO, Christianity is not only fictional, but extremely evil and destructive. It’s not some harmless quirk; it’s the greatest single evil that has ever existed. A mind plague that has spent 2000 years grinding away at everything that makes life worth living, and has corrupted humanity probably beyond repair.
No, you like to wallow in self delusion and ignorance. And then demand that people respect you for it, and pretend that your delusions and reality deserve equal respect.
Have you ever heard the saying “Lost in Translation”? There is a lot that is lost in translation. To fully understand the Qur’an, for instance, you would have to know Arabic and read it how it was written. I only took two years of Spanish, but in those two years I learned that things written in Spanish, when translated literally, don’t always make sense in English. I would assume that for all languages, even more so for the more ancient languages.
for example…
Spanish-- Soy el capitan guapo de la casa de taco.
Literal English Translation-- I am the captain handsome of the house of taco.
Proper English Translation-- I am the handsome captain of the taco house.
I’m sorry this example is so vague… but it’s the best I could do. Play around on Babble Fish for a little while. No language can literally be translated into English. You have to reword the translation and make it work for the English language.
This is just a justification for the Book of Mormon to exist. It’s saying that the Bible is not the end of the Word of God, not that there are sections of the Bible that are less correct than others. Otherwise this would just be a license to cherry pick.
So then also the Gospel of Judas? The one that confesses the power and authority of Jesus but denies that Judas betrayed him?
And what would the difference be between precision and accuracy, exactly? If there is a mistranslation, I would think it would be an imprecise translation, wouldn’t you?
I would also like to bring Exhibit A to your attention. As you can see, Michelangelo chiseled a marble statue of Moses with horns on his head due to a mistranslation. To you, it may seem that horns are a minor detail and that it doesn’t make it any less precise. To me, it ruins the Christian argument that the authors and the translators are working directly with the Holy Spirit to bring the true Word of God to us. Was the Bible back in Michelangelo’s time the Bible he was supposed to have? If a mistranslation is allowed to exist for 1500 years, why would I believe the Bible now is any more free of error?
See, I spent some time translating in my day. Modern language, not dead languages. I can tell you from firsthand experience that mistranslations happen all the time. And I’m not talking about missing nuances, although this does occur more frequently. I’m saying mistranslation where you inadvertently change the spirit of the entire sentence happens all the time. And this is just from modern language to modern language; it’s an even more astoundingly difficult task to convert an ancient language into a modern one. And if you accept that there is at least one error in the Bible, you must accept that it is subject to the same challenges that face translators on any work; the Holy Spirit doesn’t go halvsies.
I get what you’re saying about meanings or just subtle nuances being lost in translation. THAT is why I have heartburn with the “literalist” people and the “fire and brimstone” people. Take any holy book you want - Bible, Koran, Hindu scriptures, any one of them or countless others. Over time, the meanings and shadings of words will change. Then when it gets translated into a whole different language, you get more change. This happens even if you didn’t do it deliberately.
And Then there are those who deliberately take that, pull things out of context and cherry pick, and twist and pervert it all to support their own screwed up idea.
That is “my problem”.
Take any of the holy books, any of the religions and what do they ALL say, once you strip away the details, once you peel away the prejudices and take off the blinders?
I feel compelled to point out the English is not special in any particular way - that translating a phrase in any language into any other language has the same risks of lost information.
I haven’t made any claim that my independent thoughts (beliefs outside of what the Bible says) are the truth.
Is all written material older than n years false? If the Bible is considered delusion because it was written 2000 years ago, shouldn’t anything written before then be equally thought of as garbage and delusion?
I don’t demand people respect me for what I believe… I ask people respect the fact that what I believe is what I choose to believe. If you want to believe in the flying spaghetti monster, I’m not going to ridicule you for it. I don’t pretend my “delusions of reality” deserve respect… I am asking that I not be ridiculed for my imagination. If you want to ridicule me because I believe in God… that’s understandable… but to me He exists and to others He exists. If He exists for us and not you, why should you be so hateful towards those who believe?
I am not the type of Christian who will judge and condemn because you don’t believe. I am not intending harm on anyone. I will speak of God and the great things He has done, but if you don’t want to believe that is your choice… it doesn’t make it untrue for those who do believe. Yes, I admit, some “Christians” have corrupted people and used the Bible and God as a means of gain and extortion and violence… but a true Christian isn’t like that, and all we mean is peace and love to anyone.
What I was going on about was you saying that the Qur’an was written Aramaic. It was written in Arabic.
There are some few who are claiming that it was written in Aramaic and that the Arabs are misinterpreting it. I’m pretty sure those guys are pretty far from the mainstream.
But what is “the right thing” ? According to those books, it’s the very prejudices and errors you want to remove. And maintaining those blinders. “Do the right thing” is meaningless by itself; what you and a Nazi ( to use the obvious example ) define as “right” are going to be very different.
Oh, please. You keep on making unsupported statements, and declaring them to be true. And whining about how “hateful” people are when they ask for evidence and point out you have none.
It’s not it’s age that makes it wrong, but the fact that it’s full of errors, contradictions and impossibilities.
Because of millenia of evil done by those who believe. And God either exists for both of us, or neither.
Garbage. Christianity is a ruthless, life-hating religion that has spread as far as it has by coercion, mass murder, and destruction. A true Christian is one who, say, disowns, abuses, or murders his child when the kid converts to Islam or says he’s an atheist. Or someone who looks the other way while the more personally ruthless believers do the dirty work, and makes speeches about how a religion that hates pleasure and spreads by force is all about love and peace. Or someone who tries to ban unChristian books and force Christian propaganda upon people. And so on.
A true Christian is nothing more than the extension of the religion which has consumed him. Christianity is about spreading and maintaining itself, AND NOTHING ELSE. Just like every other religion.
I completely understand. I believe all religions teach the basis of Good and Evil and that to earn good you should do good, and if you do evil you will have evil returned to you. Pretty much, the gist of a lot of religion is “don’t be a dick. come on, you’re human like anyone else, so love people and do them good. you will be rewarded for how you treat others”.
as the Bible says…
1 Corinthians 13:1-8
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
and according to I John 4:8…
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
so very simply put… anyone who willingly lives a life according to I Corinthians 13:1-8 because they genuinely love and care for other people, and for the sake of goodness, knows God. In fact, according to those two passages, anyone who loves is of God and is a child of God… whether you believe in Jesus or not. This is why I said in another thread that God alone is the Righteous Judge of the souls and hearts of men.
Personally, the Bible gives me a lot of answers to the questions about life. The Bible wasn’t intended to cause hatred and contention or condemnation… it was intended as guidance for those desiring to live a righteous and holy life and telling the basics.
Hypothetically, if someone could find the same concepts expressed in the scripture of a non-JudeoChristian faith, would you switch teams? If not, why not?
Some people are delusional about what the “right thing” is. The Nazi’s thought they were doing the right thing by slaying the Jews… but murder is wrong. It should never, EVER, be considered right to harm another human. I never even supported the war Bush started. I thought that was wrong. Sure, the OT is filled with Holy War and “eye for an eye”… but that was before Jesus came and taught “turn the other cheek”.
Today we should “live and let live”. It is not the right of any human to take another person’s life. Whether they said “God told me to” or not… truth is… God doesn’t promote violence… God doesn’t ask or tell anyone to kill anyone else. Love is patient, love is kind… love DOES NOT delight in evil. God is love. Taking the life of someone else is evil. For this reason I believe the death penalty should be abolished… beside the fact that innocent men who were wrongly accused suffered the punishment of the guilty.
Jesus didn’t come to take life, but to give life.
I forget where I heard this but… “true strength is being able to take a life, but instead sparing that life”. (or something along those lines)
Then you do not understand the true teachings of Christianity. Those who disowned, abused, or murdered their child because s/he was homosexual completely missed the point of Christianity. The Bible teaches about these sorts of people… the “wolves in sheep’s clothing”… the “blind leading the blind”. Many people (and I specifically am referring to many of the leaders of the Catholic church but NOT those individuals who are Catholic) have distorted and twisted the true meaning of Christianity for worldly gain. I do not doubt this, Der. However, for you to say all Christians are like that and that true Christianity is evil is very presumptuous.
It’s like… one person will look at a cow and see the cow for what it is, while another looks at a cow and sees a nice juicy steak. While the one person let’s the cow be a cow, the other person wants the satisfaction and pleasure the cow can give by being slaughtered and cooked into a steak. Christianity (and most other religions) work the same way. Some people see it for what it is, and others butcher what it really is for personal satisfaction.
Which, like many of Jesus’s teachings is impossible or suicidal to try to live by. It’s one of the things that makes Christianity worthless as a moral guide. And like it or not, plenty of Christians have thought Holy Wars were just peachy.
A meaningless statement. God doesn’t exist; and love is just an emotion, not something a creature can “be”. Nor is love as purely good as you claim; killing is quite compatible with it.
He was either a lunatic, or a fraud. And regardless of his motivations, he created a monster that has killed a great many people, and inflicted vast suffering.
I would possibly agree with what was said or quoted… but Jesus is my Lord… so no, I would not switch sides because I truly believe with my heart that Jesus is my Saviour, and even though something may be true it won’t change the fact the Jesus was the only man to live a sinless life, offered His life on the cross for the sins of all men, died and was buried and was resurrected by the power of God.