The word of God

[Mangled*]

Clearly, literal interpretation of the Bible/Qoran/Halakha is wrong. I think to be believing what those texts say literally is to be ignoring plain and simple truths that surround our every-day lives and honestly I know one or two people who do believe in the literal truth of the Bible and they are nothing short of absolute lunatics.

Okay, so we pretty much agree that personal interpretations of spiritual meaning is where it's at, but I'm curious... Why didn't God give us a literal account of events that was meticulously documented and incredibly consistent and flawless? Something where everything is plain as day and everybody is on the same level in terms of interpretation and where there's no need to read between the lines?

Why not? If God made us intelligent enough to invent all the things we have invented and discover all the things we have discovered then why not just give it to us straight?

No more than 507 words in the Bible explain how God created the universe. I mean, that's cutting it pretty thin. Most of that is just him saying what should happen and it happening spontaneously. That explanation may have been acceptable 2000 odd years ago, but this isn't just some trivial event like walking around helping people... this is the creation of everything we know out of nothing. Surely we could handle something a little more detailed and profound than "God said, Let there be x: and there was x."

By being created in God's image, everything we do must have some minor aspect of God in it.  Otherwise we'd be no better than Satan and demons, who are beyond redemption.

Satan is also a God, is he not? Does he have not Godlike powers and influence over the wicked and evil as much as God does over the pure and good? How could Gods sworn enemy be nothing less than a God himself?

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Ooh...and you were doing so well too.  But somehow in a single post, you introduced your own opinions as fact, you misinterpreted other peoples' opinions, you assumed that the Bible was intended to be a history of the earth, and you think that Satan is a god.  Ouch.

[Mangled*]

I introduced my opinions as opinions. What exactly did I misinterpret in that post? I don't think Satan is a God, I don't believe in Satan just like I don't believe in God but that doesn't stop me from giving my opinions on interpretation. Your opinion is that Satan is not a God?

If Satan is not a God then how is he a worthy opponent of God?  Why does God always seem to have his hands full with keeping Satan at bay? After all these years you'd think that one of them would have won.... unless of course they're evenly matched?

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Clearly, literal interpretation of the Bible/Qoran/Halakha is wrong.

Opinion stated as fact.

Okay, so we pretty much agree that personal interpretations of spiritual meaning is where it's at

Misinterpretation of other people's opinions.

Satan is also a God, is he not?

Assertion that Satan is a god.

Satan was an archangel (the second most powerful being in heaven) who was cast out of heaven after his pride cause him to believe that he was better than God.  Satan has free reign over the earth because man chose to introduce sin into the world.  Before then, the world was perfect, with no sin and none of Satan's influence.  Now the world is filled with sin.  However, with God's help we can rebuke Satan, and in the end, on Judgment Day, God will cast out Satan and release heaven and earth from his grip.  There's no doubt in any believer's mind that God will triumph over Satan in the end, and there's also no doubt that God has authority over Satan.  In the beginning of the book of Job, for example, we see Satan asking God for permission to test Job's faith by inflicting pain and suffering on him.  Read Job 1:6-12 and it should be pretty clear.

Why is Satan still prevalent in this world? It's because of the nature of free will.  God wants us to follow him, not because he's the only option, but because we choose it over the alternative.

[poopdogg]

If you only do what is right then you can't save your soul on that way. You must believe in GOD and to have closure on him.

[Demonic]

If you were designing a robot, would you make thousands of self-assembling nanobots and see what happened, or would you just build the robot the way you wanted to?

And why should God, who can see the past, present, and future simultaneously, bother with evolution? If he does have feelings, then the thrill of creation would be in the act of creating, not in watching organisms take excessively round-about ways to get to the design that he had already planned.  Seems to me like the best course of action is to make animals the way you want to, then give them the ability to adapt to the environment that you know will change over time.

Another awkward example, but let's stick with it. Would you create that robot with your bare hands? No, you wouldn't, you couldn't. It would require complex tools to build even the simplest part, not to mention assembling and programming it. The most primitive lifeforms are a million times more advanced than anything mechanical we have built, and afaik, robotology and artificial intelligence studies are currently going by the line of mimicing evolution, as in self-assembling and self-advancing simple designs.

God's motivations aside, the concept of evolution is completely incompatible with the Bible.  Why should God associate with humans if evolution is true? They're just animals like everything else, only they happened to evolve intelligence.  I know there are people who will jump on me for saying this, but evolution is essentially chance, and God would have no reason to associate with humans just because they happened to be evolutionarily lucky.  Also, humans wouldn't have souls and spirits any more than animals would, meaning that either every living thing would go to heaven or hell, or dying is final.  It gets more complicated than it's worth to argue that God arbitrarily picked a point in the evolution of man to determine that they were human and worth giving a soul to, especially since the whole point of evolution is that no divine intervention is required.

You have a poor understanding of evolution, hence you speak so lowly of it. To phrase it another way: if we are right and evolution indeed exists, than it is one, if not the most magnificient creations of God, a force powerfull enough to create a world as we know it. It is a tool, and gives a much better explanation of how things came to be than the image of an old man sitting in the clouds and zapping life here and there. It is only incompatible if you choose it to be.
( also, who said we have souls in the first place? )

There are some other posts I'd reply to, but it seems they've been more or less covered. The day is still long though!

[frogboy]

If you were designing a robot, would you make thousands of self-assembling nanobots and see what happened, or would you just build the robot the way you wanted to?

i know i'd make sure the robot's ass only worked one way, and i'd definitely stop it from metabolising mind altering drugs.  if god really was creator of everything he's not very good at it. for what it's worth i'd take the nanobots option anyway, it'd excuse their shortcomings and be way more awesome.

and for god's sake, why are religious leaders always bigoted pieces of shit? the catholics are homophobic, islamophobic misogynists. the muslims are homophobic, misogynistic antisemites. fundamentalist christians are money-hungry xenophobes. not sure about the jews, i know they don't like pizza...

[Smegma]

If God isnt in satan and demons, then he is not everywhere.

[Keron Cyst]

The traces of His creation can be found in everything, especially them, in their recognizing and acknowledging the presence of truth, and their always trying to distort it. Without Him nothing that has been made would've been made.

Satan is also a God, is he not?

Satan isn't a god. He envies God, though, and constantly strives to be powerful like Him. But there is no other "god" than God; all others are idols.

Why does God always seem to have his hands full with keeping Satan at bay?

He doesn't. He lets Satan roam free. God could speak "Satan, begone!" at any moment and he would immediately disappear from existence (as He could for anything else that exists). Satan was even formed by God—without Him "nothing was made that has been made," in accordance to the opening verses of the gospel of John.

... i'd make sure the robot's ass only worked one way...

Yeah, but humans aren't robots. Humans are real living things with real emotions and desires. God wishes to see us turn to Him honestly and truly; He's not going to force us to obey Him by programming us to loop [ iluvu.wav ] over and over again; it wouldn't be genuine.

... why not just give it to us straight?

He did - this was the original compilation of books that went into the Bible. That's something like asking "Why did God plant the tree of good & evil?" This was to give us free will—the power to choose. He wants us to truly love Him for creating us, and so He constantly sits on the border of human perception. He could easily write using clouds "Behold, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, manifested in the flesh through Jesus Christ, with whom I am well pleased. Worship me," in every language throughout all the sky during today's times and keep all sides of the Earth at noon for 100 hours displaying it. There would surely be a lot of devastation among nonbelievers, but afterwards there would be no active choice to believe. Everyone who doesn't outright dismiss it (which would be quite an incredible act IMO ) would be forced to obey, and everyone would grudgingly submit to His existence. That kind of burden-like believing is the exact opposite of the enthusiastic, joyful way He wants us to believe in Him.

( also, who said we have souls in the first place? )

The soul is the entity that composes us. You're a Christian and you don't believe in souls? That's the same as declaring you're an atheist who believes in heaven and hell! What is the thing of you that goes beyond the Earth- no, I should be saying the known physical world - if your physical body is buried, cremated, or donated to science, if you believe there's nothing beyond the body? Are you of an Abrahamic faith?

[Demonic]

The soul is the entity that composes us. You're a Christian and you don't believe in souls? That's the same as declaring you're an atheist who believes in heaven and hell! What is the thing of you that goes beyond the Earth- no, I should be saying the known physical world - if your physical body is buried, cremated, or donated to science, if you believe there's nothing beyond the body? Are you of an Abrahamic faith?

I believe that the words spirit and soul, or what we mean by them today are due to misinterpretations of biblical text ( even though other religions nail this down in a similiar way ). It doesn't even need a scientific approach, just common sense. You may split a man down to the very building blocks, but you will not find the soul anywhere. From the simple words that God gave us life and spirit, which puts us above animals, a powerfull illusion came to be which makes everyone feel oh-so-special and gives a sniffet of immortality. This is another great hook of Christianity, and makes it personal and intimate like Jesus ( whom is, out of all religions, the only 'link' between humanity and the omnipotent deity of worship ).

There is nothing beyond my body. What you call soul, I call my personality, which will die off once my heart stops beating or my brain ceases to function: however, the promise of ressurrection states that it will be very much physical. My knowledge stops here, because I have no clue what so ever how literaly should this be interpret - but in the meantime, my soul will be nothing more than trillions upon trillions of electric impulses roaring under the skin.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

You mentioned common sense, so let me share with you what I believe to be common sense.

Why would you believe in an immaterial God but doubt the existence of an immaterial soul?  Furthermore, why would this aforementioned God (who has to be immaterial, as he's the one who created matter) reside in a physical place? And once we've determined that God and heaven cannot be physical, how can you possibly justify saying that there is any sort of an afterlife for humans if they're only composed of material substances?

And if you don't believe in an afterlife, how can you believe in Christianity and the need for a savior? Failing that, how can you believe that good actions are justified? After all, if you are only your body, and you'll cease to exist once you die, what does it matter how much you give to charity? Why does God even need to exist, if right and wrong are only local beliefs that cease to have meaning once you're dead?

And like Keron said, do you consider yourself a Christian? If so, what are you basing that on? If it's the Bible, then you should be aware of the parts of the Bible that do talk about heaven and hell, and do talk about living on after the body has died.  We're not just making this stuff up because it sounds good.

[Demonic]

I call myself a christian because I was raised ( more or less ) as a christian, my morals are christian, I try to live as a christian and I accept Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation.

However, instead of taking a blindfold, I'll question everything I encounter. Over the past year, mainly from the point of my conviction, I gave these things quite a lot of thought and tried to look around very well in search of answers.

To my understanding, literal interpretation of the Bible or any other religious text is a pretty dumb thing to do. There is a God, an omnipotent and loving supreme being, but He is quite possibly not like how we had pictured him all this long. For all I know he could be the tenth dimension itself, or something even farther beyond comprehension. But since he is infinite, he must span through the physical realm aswell, otherwise he would be finite in a way. Taken that scale, we are nothing more but measly dots - but we had been gaven a promise of salvation.

I'd be best described as an annihilist: hell is the end of existance itself, the destruction of your being as a whole, whilst salvation would be ressurrection. Again, that could be getting created again at the dawn of a new universe, or getting transformed into something else, or you could pick a - in comparison, quite lame - possibility of getting raised the way you were with all other just folk.

I ain't making this stuff because it sounds good either, but because it sure as hell ( ha ha PUN ) fits better with the whole loving-creator-of-everything image.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Saying that God's infiniteness implies that he must be physical is the same as saying that his infiniteness implies that he's evil.  Can God show us a physical representation of himself? Of course.  That doesn't mean he is physical.  The state of being material means that you're constrained in some way.  If you truly believe that God is infinite and omnipotent, then you must understand that he cannot be held in check by time, space, dimensions, thermodynamics, or any other natural laws.  Creating a universe and all of its elements means that you are outside of that universe.  If God existed before the concept of matter, space, or time, how can he be composed of or constrained by those things?

And it appears that you consider the book of Revelation to be as mythical or metaphorical as Genesis.  The parts where it says that we'll live in heaven forever with God...that doesn't mean anything to you? And if you don't think that's true, how can you say that the path to salvation as described in the Bible is true? What makes it more or less true than any other part of the Bible?

I know it probably seems like I'm attacking you, but I'm not at all sorry for doing so.  The common Christian beliefs of creation, salvation, and eternity all exist because of inspiration from the Bible.  If you're going to call yourself a Bible-believing Christian, it's important that you stick to the Bible, and it's important that you accept the authority of the Bible.  And if you're going to tell me that the Bible says something different than the average Christian believes, you'd better be prepared to back it up with proof.  If you're going to tell me that the Bible can't be taken at face value, then you'd better be questioning your own faith and what its based on.

[Demonic]

Mh, I'm faulty with phrasing, hence you misunderstood.

God is physical in the way that our whole physical world is a part of him. Let's take an example: if you take a sheet of paper and draw a line on it, that's two dimensional. We are three ( or rather, in our current state, four ) dimensional beings, hence we can 'see' everything on that sheet of paper, not just the draw line itself. We may fold, rip or draw on the paper, because we are above it. Whetever you believe in fate or not, knowing both the future and past would require literally overseeing our world as much as we bend over a sheet of paper ( fate would mean one, predetermined line, while the lack of would mean an infinite number of possible lines branching off every moment depending on what you decide to do ). This example is a bit crooked, as we do not have two dimensional elements that we can manipulate - but omnipotence would require standing above all other dimensions, which also means that everything is a part of Him. This might be awkward, but watch this to see what I mean.

It's funny how we are basically debating over what God is like, despite agreeing on his existance. You seem to describe him with human feats, while my image of God is completely abstract - and afaik the Bible does not contradict me in this.

Yes, I consider the book of Revelations to be metaphorical and mythical. There is no giant seamonster, there will be no seven-headed creature rising to power, and Heaven may be just as symbolic as Hell. Then again, this universe is quite friggin' huge, and we could all end up in some brimstone filled planet of devils... but that's an option I'm highly doubting.

You do not have to take my word, as this is purely my interpretation of what I learned and read. However, we're still running laps around a topic which is, imo, pretty far off from what Christianity is really about, just like many fanatical atheists nit-pick every bit and piece of scripture to back their own beliefs up.

[Rhombus]

I'm not sure if this is considered hijacking the thread.. something just occured to me when I read †'s first post.... The word of god is written down by human beings... If God wanted it done right, and to pe precisely the composition of words that He intended.... then why didn't he make a book by himself? He's said to have created the world in 7 days, he created a woman, by taking a man's rib... why didn't he make a book by himself? This whole "literaly vs metaphoricaly" thing is just holding christians back from unity... it's like what he did in Babylon.... no-one really understands anymore...

[Smegma]

If you stand over that piece of paper, are you that piece of paper?

Yes, I consider the book of Revelations to be metaphorical and mythical. There is no giant seamonster, there will be no seven-headed creature rising to power, and Heaven may be just as symbolic as Hell. Then again, this universe is quite friggin' huge, and we could all end up in some brimstone filled planet of devils... but that's an option I'm highly doubting.

So then what does the book hold?

[Demonic]

No, but I did say that the example was a bit crooked because we do not have two dimensional elements in ourselfes - it was merely to illustrate how something that is capable of foreseeing the events of the future stands above what we call reality.

As for your other question, it's all symbolism. Unfortunately for me, I'm no scholar on the subject, and despite attending a religious high school, we never 'decoded' revelations. The only interesting things about this were borderline conspiracy-theories, with the mark of the beast on one's forehead or right hand + the identification chip they're working on, and the urban legend that barcodes have 666 hidden in them.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Let's say, hypothetically, that God really did write down the Bible in its entirety, all by himself.  Let's say he put it on rocks or clay tablets or scrolls or gold plates or something.  Now let's suppose that he gave them to someone and told that person to spread the word.  Let's call that someone Joseph Smith (this is all purely hypothetical, of course).

Joseph Smith takes these gold plates and tells everyone that God has spoken directly to him and has given him new scriptures.  He goes ahead and translates them and shares them with everyone.  Everyone who believes in the message also believes that it was truly inspired and written by God.  Everyone else thinks that Joseph Smith made it all up, and he should stop sending teenagers to their houses telling them how the Book of Mormon is the one true way.

The point is, it doesn't matter whether or not God truly wrote the original scriptures, or even if he dictated them word by word for someone else to write them down.  When that original person dies, or maybe even before, people will doubt that God was the source.  Anyone can write a book and say that God did it.  But how would you prove such a thing?

[Smegma]

No, but I did say that the example was a bit crooked because we do not have two dimensional elements in ourselfes - it was merely to illustrate how something that is capable of foreseeing the events of the future stands above what we call reality.

As for your other question, it's all symbolism. Unfortunately for me, I'm no scholar on the subject, and despite attending a religious high school, we never 'decoded' revelations. The only interesting things about this were borderline conspiracy-theories, with the mark of the beast on one's forehead or right hand + the identification chip they're working on, and the urban legend that barcodes have 666 hidden in them.

If god knows future as certain, then there is no freewill.

On the second part, then I suppose God doesn't exist, as its just a metaphor. All the references to God are merely literary tools, right?

[Demonic]

Deja vu. Haven't we gone through this already?

Each choice you make defines the future, and immediately locks out an infinite number of other timelines. To put it in a different perspective, your free will is basically a choice of infinite variations - and God's omnipotence lies in that he knows all possible outcomes. You have free will, but you can't surprise him.

God exists, but the common image we have of him is faulty.