biblical contradictions: hit me

[couch-potato]

What about ancient Aztecs? Incas? Completely isolated from Christianity for a vast majority of their empire's existence (but fucked over due to Cortez and Pizarro) , yet they created their own systems of beliefs with their own gods. To them, it was truth. Think about why their gods were imaginary, then apply those same standards to whichever god you may or may not believe in. Open your eyes, the only difference between religion and a cult is a few million followers.

[Stoner Shadow Wolf]

something that could be taken into consideration are false gods, or people proclaiming hte word of god, from their own beliefs and not from any words of any gods. truly, the bible is the work of man, not jesus, not god, not even a prophet, just silly little men who think they know something about god.

[hazetwostep]

Oneir.....

this would be exactly the same thing as capital punishment. governments differentiate murder and killing. murder is an unjust taking of a life. killing (capital punishment) is considered payment for a crime.

now whether or not you consider the punishment fitting of the crime is another story, but it is not a contradiction anymore than the death penalty today is a contradiction of US law that prohibits murder.

[Oneironaut]

as far as the killing, the hebrew word "you shall not KILL" means to "murder", so there is no contradiction; it's not prohibiting all killing, but murder. as far as the penalities for sin in the tribe, i can't argue that it was right for god to enact those penalties; it was to keep the tribe holy and pure, but again this is a question of personal opinion of morality.

Well, I think most civilized people would say that killing people to keep your tribe pure is a morally disgusting act. The Germans tried that once. Didn't go over so well.

These are not people who did anything morally objectionable. They had premarital sex or male homosexual sex, they worked on the Sabbath or disobeyed their parents. Such people do not deserve the death penalty, no matter what tribe you come from. As far as I'm concerned, this is not a matter of debate. If I killed someone for doing any of these things, I would be punished, and rightly so, because that would be a case of senseless murder.

as far as the first question, i don't think the reading is supposed to indicate that that is a 1-2 sequence of events, like:

1.they come to the tomb
2.the stone gets rolled away

i'm trying to parse "descended" (katabas) but having some trouble

this is the sort of thing where the original languages are essential, but as far as i can see, the folks coming to the tomb, and the earthquake could have very well been simultaneous

I don't really see how the two can really be reconciled. It's just mythology. When stories are told and retold about mythological figures, details change. Whether it's Osiris or Mithra or Hercules or Jesus, no two accounts of a worshipped figure are exactly the same story, and that's exactly what we should expect from any ancient mythological scriptures, be they Hindu or Jewish or Zoroastrian or whatever.

These aren't real stories of shit that actually happened. People don't really walk on water, rise from the dead, and cure people by exorcising demons out of them. Why should the Bible be considered literally true but not the Bhagavad Gita or the works of Homer? There is no objective reason to prefer one over the others.

[onequickmove]

What about ancient Aztecs? Incas? Completely isolated from Christianity for a vast majority of their empire's existence (but fucked over due to Cortez and Pizarro) , yet they created their own systems of beliefs with their own gods. To them, it was truth. Think about why their gods were imaginary, then apply those same standards to whichever god you may or may not believe in. Open your eyes, the only difference between religion and a cult is a few million followers.

i'm not sure what you're saying with this; unless god is whatever we make him to be, then most religions (or all) have to be wrong, cuz they don't agree one with another

[onequickmove]

Well, I think most civilized people would say that killing people to keep your tribe pure is a morally disgusting act. The Germans tried that once. Didn't go over so well.

These are not people who did anything morally objectionable. They had premarital sex or male homosexual sex, they worked on the Sabbath or disobeyed their parents. Such people do not deserve the death penalty, no matter what tribe you come from. As far as I'm concerned, this is not a matter of debate. If I killed someone for doing any of these things, I would be punished, and rightly so, because that would be a case of senseless murder.

I don't really see how the two can really be reconciled. It's just mythology. When stories are told and retold about mythological figures, details change. Whether it's Osiris or Mithra or Hercules or Jesus, no two accounts of a worshipped figure are exactly the same story, and that's exactly what we should expect from any ancient mythological scriptures, be they Hindu or Jewish or Zoroastrian or whatever.

These aren't real stories of shit that actually happened. People don't really walk on water, rise from the dead, and cure people by exorcising demons out of them. Why should the Bible be considered literally true but not the Bhagavad Gita or the works of Homer? There is no objective reason to prefer one over the others.

well then clearly you came into the question with an enormous weight of preconception, and weren't really open to an answer in the first place; i'm not sure about everything bobby is saying, but you can't apply your preconceptions to this question first, and then ask for an answer; you assume that from the first that these things are impossible, so what kind of argument could be made to dissuade that view?

i hope you're wise enough to understand this; your preconceptions are blocking the objective searching for an answer. of course this could easily be said for the christians too; their preconceptions that the bible is from god and true, could block their searching for an objective answer

it's hard, but taking a step back and looking at the whole thing, without church, without sunday school, without carl sagan, is what's needed; but it is very difficult to do that.

[couch-potato]

i'm not sure what you're saying with this; unless god is whatever we make him to be, then most religions (or all) have to be wrong, cuz they don't agree one with another

My point was that religion is merely a psychological delusion.

[fishman3811]

The bible is full of shit.Nothing but a bunch of fairy tales like Jesus was born by immaculate conception come on Mary and Joseph were married didnt they have sex?Or like Noahs Ark so this guy called Noah built a huge boat and then collected all the animals and put them on a boat lol come on people wake up.Or people lived to be 600 700 years old right in their dreams maybe.

[anangrymailman]

do i have to mention that the vatican were the ones that were saying the sun relvolves around the earth...think of what could have been accomplished if galileos work wasnt banned

Imagine if he hadn't been put under house arrest by the church until his death!

[stoneberg]

one problem i have with the bible is under leviticus chapter 20 where it says to stone(with rocks not weed) disobedient children and kill fags, along with many other guidlines on who to kill/burn/stone etc. After reading that section, it makes me wonder, if the bible is the inspired word of God, he sure as hell doesn't seem too full of love or mercy.