If this is "faith", none for me please

[Litespeed]

I am never amazed at how gullible people can be

[nomadpete]

Nah. It doesn't bear thinking about.

[nomadpete]

[nomadpete]

 

 

Not as cultured as Stephen Fry, but is more funny.

[Jerry_Atrick]

It is a great video.. 

[facthunter]

Why would GOD need Money?   MAN INVENTS HIS GOD to suit his own requirements. Nev

[onetrack]

It's impossible to separate Americans from Money and God, in that order. They will make out they worship an omnipotent God, but the Almighty Dollar is what they really worship - along with The Gun, of course. And they believe God gave them both to the Americans, so Americans could be the dominant culture in the world, subjugating any nation they decide they want under their control.

Then they regularly espouse the American "Freedom" mantra - which of course, means, to have American Freedom, you have to worship Money, Guns, and God, in that order.

Of course, lawyers receive a great deal of worship and adulation in the American System, too. Especially when they transfer mind-boggling sums of American dollars to the plaintiffs.

[facthunter]

The POWER of LAW  is replaced by the LAW of POWER.   Nev

[nomadpete]

Whenever I was feeling all alone, stuck in some isolated grubby motel, away from the comforts of home......

I'd rummage through the bedside drawer for anything to read. Alas, the only thing I ever found was a Gideon's Bible. 

In desperation I'd open it in hope of finding some mental stimulation beyond what the local TV repeater offered.

 

The first pages hold nice, uplifting positive affamations.... then there is The Old Testament. Wow. Lots of heavy rather unscientific stuff about laws controlling what animals shall be sacrificed for what occasions, & when it is time to stone women to death, etc, etc. 

I guess later on the eight commandments made life easier for the common man (person). 

 

All too depressing - small wonder there is so much suicide in the bush. 

 

Maybe the book is due for revision again....

 

Question - is Scripture teaching fact?

Whose Scripture? What revision number?

Does it come with a change log and was it stored in a code repository so we can track document changes back to confirm the original author(s)?

[facthunter]

Plenty of sects out there, making up their OWN version of God's word.. If you want clarity and freedom of thought give it a MISS. No one can handle the GUILT.  Nev

[old man emu]

4 hours ago, nomadpete said:

is Scripture teaching fact?

Yes; No, and Maybe.

 

The first thing to acknowledge is that the ancient Hebrews were nomadic sheep herders. Their culture would have been a simple one which one could fairly equate to cultures like Aborigines, Indigenous Americans (North and South continents). Their religeous philosophy was without doubt an amalgam of those of the more advanced Mesopotamian cultures. In fact, if one compares the Biblical stories of creation with the creation stories of those advanced cultures, one can imagine that a lot of cut and paste took place. So, in respect of religious philosophies, one could conclude that the Scritpture is not factual.

 

Then we move onto the historical content of the Scriptures. Many accounts in the Scripture relate to events which the Hebrews lived through. In recent times, the application of scientific principles in the area of archeology has produced physical and documentary evidence of a lot of the accounts in the Scripture. One can frequently see from that evidence that events did in fact occur, but their causes were misinterpreted by a people whose scientific knowledge of the forces of Nature was not as correct s ours. Therefore, with the recounting of evetns over generations, the fact were coated with additions that made the story more exciting, but still contained a kernel of truth. That is a common thing in cultures that do not have a written literature. I am pretty sure that I have experienced that in a story of the Aborigines of the Wollongong area of NSW. The story explains how some small islands just off the coast came to be. Basically they are supposed to be canoes that some people stole and saild to the Wollongong coast from the east. It is easy to think that the kernel of truth in this story is the inundation of the Eastern Australian coastal plains after the end of the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. Aborigines living futher to teh east may well have been forced westwards by rising sea levels flodding those plains.

 

So, are the Scriptures historically factual? Maybe, but there is a lot of padding around the kernel of truth.

 

So what about the Scriptures being the Word of God? They are definitely a blueprint for living a life in a community. All the leaders of the community, those with the power to rule the lives of others, have to do to ensure the masses comply is to set up a system where compliance with the dictates of the rulers means a trouble-free life for the individual. First invent an all-powerful deity whose commands are relayed by the powerful in the group. Then dress the system with ceremony and was to express praise to this deity. After that create a set of rules which have to be followed both to appease the deity and to separate the followers of the deity from non-followers.

 

So, are the Scriptures a statement of religious fact? Yes, if the facts relate to the rules of the particular religion, but NO if one does not believe in the existence of a deity. Are the religous facts of the Scriptures of any use to a non-believer? If a non-believer accepts that rules for social cohesion arising from the Sriptures are sensible and useful to lead a trouble-free life, then the Scripture are of use.

[nomadpete]

17 hours ago, old man emu said:

The first thing to acknowledge is that the ancient Hebrews were nomadic sheep herders.

Does that make the scriptures more like a

 

"Goatherders guide to the Galaxy" ?

 

I was trying to address the high probability the any document (dare I call it that?) or book is unlikely to resemble whatever was originally recorded by the authors. This applies to any reliance upon the book for historic 'facts'. Just because a few paragraphs align with other authors does not automatically make all the stories 'factual'.

 

So many revisions (authorised by a god, of course).

 

So many language translations.

 

Unless a god actually signs off on all the inevetible changes, how can the "word" be trusted?

 

Any god who can create a universe in less than a week might find the time to verify their follower's guide book.

 

He has had a couple of billion years to address this issue.

Edited 3 hours ago by nomadpete

[nomadpete]

17 hours ago, old man emu said:

So what about the Scriptures being the Word of God? They are definitely a blueprint for living a life in a community.

On this, I back away.

 

Sure there are some stories designed to teach moral societal behaviour.

 

But are you discounting the old testament?

Our present society would say there is way too much immoral stuff in that.

And remember, for a very long time you would be executed for suggesting that it was anything but the word of god. 

[old man emu]

7 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Just because a few paragraphs align with other authors does not automatically make all the stories 'factual'.

If one does not profess a belief in the deity described in what we call "The Bible", one can reasonably describe the Bible a compendium of the Hebrew culture. A compendium is a comprehensive collection of something. One can also use the word compendium to describe a collection of written works. If one gathers all of the anecdotes, rules for religious practice and religious songs of the Hebrew faith one will have created a compendium of the Hebrew culture.

 

The historical anecdotes as presented most likely are embellishments of actual events, with the embellishments aimed at indicating the influence of the deity on the outcome of the event. This is commoon. Consider the acceptance of Christianity by the Roman Emperor, Constantine. This is supposed to have resulted from his seeing a cross in the sky in association with his winning a battle. The vision was interpreted as being the helping hand of teh deity.

[facthunter]

Some want us to go back to that Now. Your last line, Pete. I don't trust ANY religion. It's Mind altering Dogma that Limit's your ability to think straight and used by many to justify committing Outrageous crimes against Humanity.. Nev

[facthunter]

Do Jews accept the New Testament?  Islam accepts Christ as a prophet. The 3 religions are Abrahamic.. Nev

[nomadpete]

2 minutes ago, old man emu said:

If one gathers all of the anecdotes, rules for religious practice and religious songs of the Hebrew faith one will have created a compendium of the Hebrew culture.

I can neither agree nor disagree with that.

Unfortunately we lack access to enough  other records of ancient Hebrew history, to support this.

 

We seem to have only one book of, as you suggest, embellished anecdotes that may be connected to distant events.

 

But even if it was an accurate history book combined with a guide to life, it seems a poor way to teach good behaviour.

 

The eight commandments basically say "be nice, don't be an arxhole"

 

 

[nomadpete]

8 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Some want us to go back to that Now. Your last line, Pete. I don't trust ANY religion. It's Mind altering Dogma that Limit's your ability to think straight and used by many to justify committing Outrageous crimes against Humanity.. Nev

And that shows how a well intentioned movement can be developed into a ruthless system of mass control. 

 

Every religion is discriminatory. It has no place in any government. Spirituality is a personal thing and any attempt to corporatise it is bad for society, in my opinion.

[facthunter]

Sco Mo used his Happy Clappers God to gain old ladies Votes. How can you go wrong with a Man of Dog?  HE ended up as Popular as a Pork Chop in a Synagogue. Nev

Edited 2 hours ago by facthunter
more content.

[old man emu]

11 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

we lack access to enough  other records of ancient Hebrew history,

We don't have much in the way of records of most ancient civilisations. Time and circumstance have destroyed most of the records of the Past. 

 

Nomadpete kicked off this current discussion by asking Question - is Scripture teaching fact? What "fact" are we discussing? Is it the "fact" that the Scripture is the unadulterated word of a deity? Is it a record of the history of a specific group of people? 

[facthunter]

Some say the Bible is the ABSOLUTE Word of God. I consider that Impossible to take seriously considering it was compiled by Humans and then modified selectively. Nev

[Litespeed]

The mere idea of this discussion is silly.

 

Religion is a absurd abstract.