[ironchef texmex]

Post #44 Gary -- "The entire modus operandi is to discourage the process of understanding, because that process infers that there is doubt at the onset." Not true, though I could certainly see how you might get that impression the way some groups have horded knowledge, and therefore power throughout history (the first people to translate the bible from Latin, which only the church authorities spoke, into something that everyone could read, were burned at the stake). But that was a perversion of Biblical teaching. Numerous times in the book it says something to the effect that each believer is to test and study it themselves. Faith according to the Bible isn't supposed to be blind. It begins with a small step of faith. When God proves Himself trustworthy, then the next step is taken. Maturity in the faith is a slow process. It involves learning to trust, that experiential kind of learning that some say they don't care for, but learning nonetheless.

Post #61 Gary -- (The Bible as a historical text) The Bible is a book that contains historical accounts. No, it is not a history book. The distinction is this: the Bible says up front that its purpose is to introduce people to their creator; the history contained in it is selective in that regard. Although, now that I think about it, plenty of modern 'historical' texts are agenda driven as well.

Everytime archaeology has come across anything contained in the Bible the Biblical account has been corroborated. Some scholars used to dispute Luke 3:1 where he calls Lysinias a Tetrarch (they said he was ruler of Chalcis in the early second century). Then they found an inscription for Lysinias the tetrarch. Turned out it was two seperate people. The Pool of Bethesda, the taking of the census, the existence of King David, the dead sea scrolls (which proved that all those prophecies about Jesus, had in fact been written before Jesus' time, not after), all proved up. Follow the route taken by the Hebrews out of Egypt and you come to a mountain in southern Saudi Arabia, the top of which is scorched black. Go the Bibical region of Sodom and Gomorrah and you find two ancient towns that are covered in volcanic ash (in spite of the fact that there are no volcanos anywhere close). Everytime archaeology has come across Biblical accounts the Bible has passed the test. Can any of that ever prove the Diety of Jesus, the existence of God? Of course not. Nothing that we could dig up could. What if we dug up one of those giants? No good. The Bible gives several sizes for some of the 'bigguns' and the range (7-9 ft) is in the range for the congenital mutation of giantism. People get that big, and the bones won't tell us anything about demonic ancestry. Besides, if they can explain away Sodom and Gomorrah (that the ground opened up and a pocket of natural gas exploded... simultaneously... in both towns... but nowhere else) then brother, they can explain away anything!

Post #63 Kongming -- "He made an analogy with this dump on the edge of town that used to be a pagan alter but the jews had destroyed it. Anyway when the it was written in ancient greek they used words for the afterlife that Jesus was describing and one of those was Hades, the greek hell. So this is where the idea of fire and brimstone came from."

It's the valley of Hinnon, from which the Greek text derived the word Gehenna, from which we get the word hell. *sigh* This one is kind of involved.

You see, originally the Hebrews had only the vaguest of concepts of heaven and hell (what they called Abraham's Bosom and Sheol). Neither was central to Hebrew thinking. Many Jews didn't even believe in an afterlife during Jesus' time. At first, Sheol didn't even carry any connotation of punishment. At first it was a valueless term for life after death. So when Jerusalem started using the valley of Hinnon as its landfill, they called it Sheol, because one of the main things people threw away in the age before plastic was animal carcasses (get it, it was a graveyard). They burned trash every so often, so on down the road of history the word Sheol started to pick up the connotation of fire and burning.

The Biblical hell is a place of seperation from God for the spirits of those who rejected Him in life. Every description is a metaphorical attempt to describe something that is essentially unimaginable. Thus we get the motif of fire (symbolizing pain) -- oh, and Jesus did use the fire motif -- and also terms like darkness (confusion), weeping (sadness), and gnashing of teeth (a jewish symbol of deep regret). All metaphor. Later, when the church of Rome began to assimilate various constructs from the Greek Pantheon, the notion of levels and a lot of the rest wormed its way in. Many modern christians believe various things about hell without having any idea that they come from fictional (fantasy) stories from Dante and Milton, and have no scripural foundation.

The part about the reliving the past comes from the apocryphal book of Enoch, and isn't actually in the Bible. The part about heaven and hell being the same place directly contridicts everything Jesus ever said on the afterlife.... Sorry.

[Gary Wassner]

I have said many times that I am a bit schizophrenic when it comes to my own faith. Intellectually, I think the concept of god is absurd, totally. It makes no sense to me, it doesn't fit into any framework that I can understand. In an infinite universe, I think it's even more absurd to imagine that there is a god who cares about me. If god is not anthropomorphized, then I cannot relate to the concept either, and it becomes so amorphous and impersonal that it once again becomes meaningless for me. I cannot see past my life and the life of those whose time I share. The concept of god renders everything else inconsequential for me. It renders time inconsequentional. It may not for you, Ironchef. It obviously works for you and for countless millions. It does not for me. I am sad to say that I don't believe, and no amount of effort helps me to get past what I see as the absurdity of the concept. I am uncomfortable in a church and in a synogogue. I find it incredibly pretentious and false. My personal experience is that it is not nurturing, but on the contrary, it is alienating. My personal experinece is that it separates people and leads them to hate more than it leads them to love. Somewhere, somehow faith misleads. I don't believe that I am of the chosen and my friends may not be. I don't believe that god speaks to me or to the pope or to the maharishi, or to the mullahs.

I DON'T BELIEVE. Sorry. Can't help it. And I don't really want to because I don't have a real need to.

It scares me to think that so many people feel so out of control all of the time. My perspective is very very different than yours. Again, sorry. Can't help it. None of what you say makes any sense to me at all. In fact, though I don't resent you or find your faith difficult to understand, I just cannot relate to it in the slightest. For me, it's not any different than hearing someone tell me that the spirits are talking to them through a weejee board or that they returned from a seance and the medium spoke with the spirit of their dead dog. SORRY. Can't help it. For me, if something like god exists, then anything at all is possible, and I just cannot restict in my mind what one specific religion would like to tell us is possible under these conditions and what it tells us is not. It scares the crap out of me. Exorcisms of the devil and possessions! Anything and everything becomes possible. The rule of reason is gone, tossed away, and if not for the heirarchy of the church, or whatever structure is in place at the moment in history, telling us what fantastic things are okay to believe in and which are not, we would all be in total fear daily, out of control. Or we would simply behave like lunatics.

Sorry, Ironchef. You are very bright and very knowledgable. I have no bones to pick with you or what you believe. It just doesn't work for me in any way, shape or form. To me, it seems like institutionalized insanity. All of this worshiping and reverance, rituals and rituals and more rituals, all of the guilt and pain, and for what? The pretensions of men of the cloth, the trappings, the power, for what? So that when we die, maybe there will be more
for us?

I can be a good father, a good husband, a good friend and a good person without god. I can be so because I feel it's what i want to be and to do. I can love my family dearly and hold them sacred in my heart. I don't need god for that. And when they die, I can mourn the loss. I don't need god for that. And if it seems meaningless to some without god, it doesn't to me. There is so much in this world and in my family and my writing that gives meaning to each of my days. For me, the concept of god takes that away. It tears me from this world, and it rips the structure of this world, that i live in and depend upon, apart.

Sorry, Ironchef. I don't agree with a word of what you say. I respect your opinion. Believe what you want to. But trust me when I tell you that I can be a good person, a kind person, a generous person who respects life and respects the earth, without god. If I am godless, then so be it. Do you hate me for it? Do you condemn me for it? Do you pity me for it? Don't, please. I heard the bell toll when I was quite young warning me that my god was dying. I mourned for a while. I was afraid. I thought that in god I would find my revenge, my liberation, mmy peace. He would help me. And then I felt so liberated after it was finally over, after he was gone. I was free to choose to be good because if felt right to be good. I was free to do good deeds because it felt right to do them. And I was free to hate those who were cruel to me because they were cruel. I didn't need to love them anymore and turn my battered cheek. I was free. And I am better for it. Me, not you. I am better for it.

Sorry, Ironchef. I don't agree.

[kongming]

Don't forget Giantipithicus (sp?) Who knows when they went extinct or IF they did.

What if we dug up one of those giants? No good. The Bible gives several sizes for some of the 'bigguns' and the range (7-9 ft) is in the range for the congenital mutation of giantism. People get that big, and the bones won't tell us anything about demonic ancestry. .

[Miriamele]

I said it before, and I'll say it again, I find Ironchef's posts very interesting. He seems to be very knowledgable about ancient history and Bible lands.

However...I am going to have to agree with Gary here, that even if some content of the Bible is shown to be true (at least in part) I still can't bring myself to believe in it. I'm sure that most of the people and places mentioned in the Bible really existed. But to me that doesn't prove that God exists or that Jesus is his son. I simply can't believe in something that I have absolutely no proof of, that I have never seen evidence of in my own life.

Moreover, I don't want to believe it, even if I could. Gary, you mirrored my feelings exactly when you said,
I heard the bell toll when I was quite young warning me that my god was dying. I mourned for a while. I was afraid. I thought that in god I would find my revenge, my liberation, my peace. He would help me. And then I felt so liberated after it was finally over, after he was gone. I was free to choose to be good because if felt right to be good. I was free to do good deeds because it felt right to do them. And I was free to hate those who were cruel to me because they were cruel. I didn't need to love them anymore and turn my battered cheek. I was free. And I am better for it. Me, not you. I am better for it. These words could have come from my own mouth. Brought up to be deeply religious, I remained so until around the time I entered my twenties. When I finally decided that God didn't make sense to me anymore, it was the sweetest moment of my life. For the first time I felt truly free. The comfort I had received from my faith had always been outweighed by the guilt that came with it, guilt that I wasn't living up to God's expectations of me. Now, I don't feel that anyone is looking over my shoulder watching what I do. And I feel like for the first time my life is truly my own. I make my own choices, and do the right things because it's right, not because I want to get a heavenly reward. Best of all, now I depend on myself to improve myself and my life, not an omnipotent diety, and I am stronger for it.

I know that generally speaking religious folk are supposed to be happier and live longer. But in my own personal experience I am about one thousand times happier since I rejected my faith. It only weighed me down with guilt and gave me false expectations that God would rescue me from my unhappiness if I prayed enough and was good enough.

Thanks for starting this thread, Gary...it's really been useful to help me sort out my own convictions (or lack of them)...it's not something that normally have time to think about. :)

[Gary Wassner]

It helps me too, Miri. I have to admit that as well, and I am truly glad that it helps you. That was one of the most fulfilling things I could hear from someone. This forum gives me such a wonderful opportunity to speak about things with passionate people who don't always agree with me. We tend to choose our friends by the things we have in common. So we often don't spend enough time discussing the things that we don't. I cherish these moments. When I read, I live for the passages that make me stop and think. I reread them and roll the thoughts over and over in my head. If they make sense to me, whether they are new ideas or not, I feel as if my time was well spent. A beautifully written line is like a perfectly played note. It rings in your head. Here, when I get the chance to read posts by Ironchef and Scott Bakker, Dawnstorm, Kong, Hereford and everyone else who enters these conversations with such full spirits and such anxious minds, it really is fulfilling. I am glad many of us disagree. It would be so boring otherwise, and then I would learn nothing from it all. As it is, I learn so much about myself by virtue of the dialectic nature of this medium.

We all find our own way to inner peace. It's a hard road, and for many, peace means constant striving and constant yearning. I write for the same reasons. I am constantly striving and constantly yearning and my books are my canvases where I splay this struggle our before me. Neither my logic nor my writing is perfect. But they are necessary to me nonetheless.

[JRMurdock]

During every exchange I kept thinking, I hope Ironchef joins in. I'm glad I invited you. You always add posts so filled with passion it's overwhelming. :)

Just for the record, I never called a person who believes in God 'stupid'. I never would It's just not what I base my life on. If it works for you, wonderful. I just like to see how those who do belive and have storong conviction answer the really tough questions without 'You've got to have faith' because faith will only carry you so far before you need something more (IMO).

I'm glad you jumped in here. Made for some great reading and food for thought. :)

[kongming]

Oh that's quite right. You can be a good person etc w/o God. But a belief just makes it easier to be one. If you can achieve those goals w/o God then you are very strong.

I can be a good father, a good husband, a good friend and a good person without god. I can be so because I feel it's what i want to be and to do. I can love my family dearly and hold them sacred in my heart. I don't need god for that. And when they die, I can mourn the loss. I don't need god for that. And if it seems meaningless to some without god, it doesn't to me. There is so much in this world and in my family and my writing that gives meaning to each of my days. For me, the concept of god takes that away. It tears me from this world, and it rips the structure of this world, that i live in and depend upon, apart.
.

[kongming]

Well that was one answer to Gary's first post. The Bible is history because some of the stories of the bible have archeological evidence. Fantasy is not history because for example LOTR does not. I suppose someone is really sad that they aren't going to dig up Mordor ever :rolleyes:

However...I am going to have to agree with Gary here, that even if some content of the Bible is shown to be true (at least in part) I still can't bring myself to believe in it. I'm sure that most of the people and places mentioned in the Bible really existed. But to me that doesn't prove that God exists or that Jesus is his son. I simply can't believe in something that I have absolutely no proof of, that I have never seen evidence of in my own life.

[ironchef texmex]

Post #71 Zsinj -- "but I've talked with a couple of friends of mine who are much better versed in the Bible than I am, and they say that nowhere in the Bible does it say that magic is evil or of the devil, just that it's very dangerous and for that reason Christians shouldn't do it."

Your buddies are a little off on this one. There are 613 rules that comprise the Law of Moses (also called the Levitical Law, the Old Covenant, and about a half a dozen other things). The rule against sorcery was one of the ones that carried a death penalty. The Biblical position on magic is that it really does exist, stems from a person's attempt to exert selfish control over his/her world, and is always powered by demonic spirits. Biblical doctrine does not allow for the existence of "white" magic.

Post #75 Gary -- "Have you met anyone who burned in hell recently?"

This question highlights what I think was the crux of Hereford's message in between posts 45-60. Let's say I had. The meeting would be colored by my POV, and not necessarily illuminating. Here's an entirely made up story, with entirely made up characters for an example:

A guy walked out of a grocery store and went to his car. While he was loading groceries he noticed a woman standing next to him. He looked over at her and she asked him for a ride. Well, you see, the entirely made up character in this story was in a police unit that had take-home squadcars, and he was loading the groceries into the trunk of the police cruiser; so he just figured (she looked a little trashy) that this was a prostitute that was stuck after doing a trick. So he told her that he was not working right then and if she needed the police that she could walk over to the payphone and call 911. This went on for awhile, then all of the sudden, the girl vanished. Thin air. Poof.

Now the way in which the entirely made up event is going to be processed by our intrepid, entirely made up hero, depends on his way of perceiving the world. Since he grew up in the good ol' US of A, and was fairly well ingrained in the monistic (what you see is what you get) way of looking at things, he interpreted the event in terms of hallucinations. Then, after thinking it through for a few seconds and coming to the conclusion that hallucination didn't seem real likely (never happened before, he doesn't drink/use drugs, no recent blows to the head) and remembering that he really does believe in that dualist (what you see isn't always what you get) stuff, he started to interpret the event in terms of his religious beliefs. Well, after he got down on the ground and starting looking under cars, he did.

The point is - don't assume that witnessing a miraculous event is going to have any bearing on your beliefs. What if you could see the Jesus of the Bible right now as He was then? What good would it do? Depending on their point of view, various groups back then interpreted him as a rebel, a drunkard, a madman. The Mishnah (another ancient Jewish text) called him an evil sorcerer. What if you did see someone who claimed to be back from hell just for a little chit chat? Would you assume it was a hoax or some sort of delusion?

Post #77 Miriamele -- No issues with your post. Just a quick comment.

I don't think I could love a God who doled out His favor based on intellegence, where there was entrance exam to get into heaven. The basics of christianity are so basic that a four-year-old can understand them. Personally, I dig as deep as my little peabrain will allow, but I'm not sure that makes me more noble, more faithful. Most christians view their faith like I view my car: they know how it works, they know how to keep it running, and where the nearest mechanic shop is, but they don't feel any need to learn the workings of the internal combustion engine. When it comes to my beliefs, I want to know everything, but I'm not sure it really makes me a better driver. That's not my purpose anyway; I just do it because I like it.

Post #80 Maus -- First off, no, God does not care who wins a sporting event. Not for the reasons we do. Many people view God as a 'sugar daddy' whose job is to give them whatever they want, in this case, success in their work. Tolstoy wrote an interesting story addressing that issue called The Nurse, about what would happen if God really was sugar daddy who gave people everything they wanted. Interesting read. Now, for your question:

"Polytheism existed two thousand years before monotheism. Why were/are polytheists wrong and monotheists right?"

Your premise is wrong. There's no evidence that polytheism is older. The oldest writing in the Bible is the first five books (1400 BC or so). But that's not the oldest book. The oldest book is Job. Job was written once the Hebrews developed writing, but it's a story that was being carried by the Hebrews from the oral tradition. No one knows how old it is.

Yes, historians tend to assume that whatever was written first existed first. They don't know what existed in the oral tradition so they tend to discount it altogether. But even then the argument doesn't hold. The oldest writing from the region that has been translated is Sume. They etched in clay tablets. They were polythiests, yes, but one of there Gods (Anu, God of gods, God of creation) bears a resemblance in his description to Hebrew accounts of Yahweh (The Biblical God). This can mean one of two things; how you view it depends entirely on your POV. Either the Hebrews took from the Sumerians or the Sumerians, through contact with the ancient Hebrews, did what polytheists of the age often did (what they would do later with Jesus) and incorporated the Hebrew God into their system.

[Gary Wassner]

"First off, no, God does not care who wins a sporting event."

How in the world would you know that? It seems as if your presumption might not curry such favor with the God you are so enamoured of. It's nice to be certain when you have faith. It does make it easier to believe without any shadow of a doubt. But that presumption is a bit frightening. And it can be very dangerous for others who have differing opinions. If there was a god, and he wasn't interested in sporting events, then I guess he would be more interested in the opera maybe? Or sky diving?