What are your beliefs on religion, god?

[Denny Crane]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19429-laws-of-physics-may-change-across-the-universe.html

 

[drexlersdad]

Agnostic

There might be a god, might not, but no way to know for sure in this world.

Funny though, the first time I was going to the hospital and made it to my vehicle and couldn't breath I sure prayed to god! When you have nothing else,,,,

the old saying is you drop an atheist in the ocean, right before he drowns you better believe he will be praying

 

[ABM]

Biblical stories fit you like a glove because you are their target audience. And, in all honesty, I wish you and your stories a lifetime of happiness together.

Frankly, it's quite awesome, thanks! back to ya..

 

[ABM]

You mean working today, right? Everyone knows that Saturday is actually the Sabbath. It turns out that Satan convinced early Christian leaders to shift their holy day to Sunday in order to trick them into disobeying God's clear commandments. They're all going to be sooooo surprised when they end up in Gehennah on that little technicality!

OK, well, on the other hand, it's certainly good to know....

.....For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ’s table, wouldn’t it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn’t eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God’s welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.

Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.

What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It’s God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.

~Romans 14:2-9 The Message translation

 

[drexlersdad]

The Message translation

not familiar with this, is this like a new interpretation of the bible?

 

[ABM]

not familiar with this, is this like a new interpretation of the bible?

Various Biblical translations, for the most part, are thematically the same (in other words, the tenents remain aligned). The Message translates in probably more contemporary terms than many of the others.

 

[drexlersdad]

Various Biblical translations, for the most part, are thematically the same (in other words, the tenents remain aligned). The Message translates in probably more contemporary terms than many of the others.

reading some of it it seems they took out alot of the "they shall be put to death" stuff

 

[ABM]

reading some of it it seems they took out alot of the "they shall be put to death" stuff

There are some rather stark and distinct differences between the Old and New Testaments. We screwed up. God had to make adjustments.

 

[Further]

A little joke for everyone



The pope dies and goes to heaven. At the pearly gates, St. Peter welcomes him and asks if he's ready to enter heaven for all eternity. The pope replies, "Yes, but before I go in, I would really like to see what hell is like."

St. Peter thinks a moment and then responds, "I suppose it would be okay if you went down there for a half hour or so."

With that, the pope finds himself in hell, where, to his amazement, the inhabitants are having a huge party. They have the best of the best spread out: French champagne, Italian food, and music of all sorts, from Lawrence Welk to Jimi Hendrix. As the pope watches everyone eating, drinking and being merry, he starts to become very hungry and cannot wait to go back to heaven.

When the pope returns, St. Peter asks him, "How was hell?"

The pope replies, "Well, they were having such a big feast, I became famished watching them."

St. Peter then asks if the pope is ready to enter heaven, to which the pope replies, "Oh yes, I'm very excited. If the people in hell are having such a good time, I cannot imagine how great heaven will be!"

With that, St. Peter leads the pope into a small white room with a small white table and white chairs, and instructs the pope to have a seat. The pope looks a little puzzled but abides his host.

After a few minutes, Jesus enters the room carrying a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk, and takes a seat.

A moment later, St. Peter enters bearing two peanut butter sandwiches and glasses of milk. He hands a peanut butter sandwich and glass of milk to the pope, and sits down and starts to eat.

As they silently sit eating, the pope becomes more and more agitated, until St. Peter finally asks him why he is not eating.

"Well," the pope responds, "down in hell they are having a big bash, with all the finest food, drink, music and dancing. I imagined heaven would top even that!"

"Why," St. Peter queries, raising his eyebrows, "you don't expect us to do all that for just the three of us, do you?"

 

[Denny Crane]

Man shows up at the pearly gates, sees this guy in a pinstripe suit and a briefcase, a cigar, prancing about. He says to Saint Peter, ‘Who’s that guy?’ Saint Peter says, ‘Ah, that’s just God. Thinks he’s Denny Crane.’”

 

[Further]

Man shows up at the pearly gates, sees this guy in a pinstripe suit and a briefcase, a cigar, prancing about. He says to Saint Peter, ‘Who’s that guy?’ Saint Peter says, ‘Ah, that’s just God. Thinks he’s Denny Crane.’”

If I told that joke it would be like an Abbott and Costello routine.

 

[Denny Crane]

If I told that joke it would be like an Abbott and Costello routine.

Who's playing at the auditorium.

Yes.

I mean, who's playing at the auditorium.

Yes.

So when the concert's over, who gets paid?

Yes.

 

[ABM]

"Why," St. Peter queries, raising his eyebrows, "you don't expect us to do all that for just the three of us, do you?"

Amen

 

[ABM]

A fellow finds himself in front of the Pearly Gates. St. Peter explains that its not so easy to get in heaven. There are some criteria before entry is allowed.

For example, was the man religious in life? Attend church? No? St. Peter told him that's bad. Was he generous? give money to the poor? Charities? No? St. Peter told him that that too was bad. Did he do any good deeds? Help his neighbor? Anything? No? St. Peter was becoming concerned.

Exasperated, Peter says, "Look, everybody does something nice sometime. Work with me, I'm trying to help. Now think!"

The man says, "There was this old lady. I came out of a store and found her surrounded by a dozen Hell's Angels. They had taken her purse and were shoving her around, taunting and abusing her. I got so mad I threw my bags down, fought through the crowd, and got her purse back.

I then helped her to her feet. I then went up to the biggest, baddest biker and told him how despicable, cowardly and mean he was and then spat in his face".

"Wow", said Peter, "That's impressive. When did this happen"?

"Oh, about 10 minutes ago", replied the man.

 

[drexlersdad]

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"

Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

 

[ABM]

....Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

Joe died, went to heaven and met Peter at the pearly gates. Peter then proceeded to show Jow around the place. As they were walking, Peter said, "Now, over here are the Methodists. Don't they look like they're having a good time?" Joe nodded in approval. They walked some more. Peter then pointed ahead and said, "And, over here are the Presbyterians. They're a great bunch. " Joe smiled. They kept walking some more. Peter then leaned over and whispered to Joe, "And, over here are the Baptists." Joe looked a bit puzzled, then responded, "Very cool. But, why are you whispering?" Peter then whispered in return, "Because they think they're the only ones up here. "

 

[TripTango]

i don't see how someone versed in science can disagree that an overall picture has been painted by observation of the natural world that superstitious religious tenets such as the christian narrative concerning the soul are improbable. do you really believe evolution or the findings of neurobiology are not evidence indicating the christian soul narrative is improbable just because there is no direct way to test a 'soul'? that would be an unneccesarily narrow constricting view of what constitutes scientific knowledge that is not shared by most working scientists i have read.

Insofar as religion makes testable claims, you're absolutely right -- experiment is a valuable tool, and I always do my part to debunk superstition and pseudoscience wherever possible. But there are underlying questions -- the "whys" and the "what nexts" -- that science will almost certainly never be able to even recognize, let alone answer. I'm fine with leaving those questions unanswered, and obviously you are too. But there's certainly nothing strictly incompatible between a belief in a higher power and the actual body of scientific knowledge. Nothing. And there are enough scientists -- sane, intelligent, productive scientists -- who do maintain a belief in a higher power of some form, to warrant a certain degree of acceptance of those beliefs, even if they are empirically unfounded.

 

[ABM]

Insofar as religion makes testable claims, you're absolutely right -- experiment is a valuable tool, and I always do my part to debunk superstition and pseudoscience wherever possible. But there are underlying questions -- the "whys" and the "what nexts" -- that science will almost certainly never be able to even recognize, let alone answer. I'm fine with leaving those questions unanswered, and obviously you are too. But there's certainly nothing strictly incompatible between a belief in a higher power and the actual body of scientific knowledge. Nothing. And there are enough scientists -- sane, intelligent, productive scientists -- who do maintain a belief in a higher power of some form, to warrant a certain degree of acceptance of those beliefs, even if they are empirically unfounded.

 

[TripTango]

OK, well, on the other hand, it's certainly good to know....



~Romans 14:2-9 The Message translation

That is interesting -- never heard of that particular translation before. (Though my Catholic HS did provide plenty of other good justification for switching the holy day to Sunday.)

Of course, it's partly this incredible flexibility of interpretation that makes folks like myself skeptical of the usefulness of the Bible as a moral compass. Oftentimes it seems as though laws, stories, and translations are cherry-picked to suit the needs of the particular reader at any particular time. Don't like a law? Find a translation or interpretation that puts it in a different context, taking you off the hook. Don't like what somebody is doing? Find a verse that labels them as "bad", ignore any other possible meanings, and reference it constantly. Rinse and repeat.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

From Michio Kaku's radio show, last week's episode was - Dr. Daniel Dennet - can religion be explained using science and evolution?

Listen here - http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/88669 (It's only 30mins long)

Enjoy!

 

[ABM]

That is interesting -- never heard of that particular translation before. (Though my Catholic HS did provide plenty of other good justification for switching the holy day to Sunday.)

Of course, it's partly this incredible flexibility of interpretation that makes folks like myself skeptical of the usefulness of the Bible as a moral compass. Oftentimes it seems as though laws, stories, and translations are cherry-picked to suit the needs of the particular reader at any particular time. Don't like a law? Find a translation or interpretation that puts it in a different context, taking you off the hook. Don't like what somebody is doing? Find a verse that labels them as "bad", ignore any other possible meanings, and reference it constantly. Rinse and repeat.

It all boils down to Jesus. There are no Christian (I'm in no way referring to JW, Mormon, etc.) translations that cut Him short. As far as the examples you're referring to, I doubt there are such opposing translations that totally deviate from, or otherwise twist, the main point(s).

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Any of you read anything by this guy?

Bart Ehrman

Biography:

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Since then he has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited twenty-one books, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews.



Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)

Picking up where Bible expert Bart Ehrman's New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus left off, Jesus, Interrupted addresses the larger issue of what the New Testament actually teaches—and it's not what most people think. Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed:

• The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works
• The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later
• Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions
• Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologians

These are not idiosyncratic perspectives of just one modern scholar. As Ehrman skillfully demonstrates, they have been the standard and widespread views of critical scholars across a full spectrum of denominations and traditions. Why is it most people have never heard such things? This is the book that pastors, educators, and anyone interested in the Bible have been waiting for—a clear and compelling account of the central challenges we face when attempting to reconstruct the life and message of Jesus.



Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

The early Christian Church was a chaos of contending beliefs. Some groups of Christians claimed that there was not one God but two or twelve or thirty. Some believed that the world had not been created by God but by a lesser, ignorant deity. Certain sects maintained that Jesus was human but not divine, while others said he was divine but not human.

In Lost Christianities, Bart D. Ehrman offers a fascinating look at these early forms of Christianity and shows how they came to be suppressed, reformed, or forgotten. All of these groups insisted that they upheld the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, and they all possessed writings that bore out their claims, books reputedly produced by Jesus's own followers. Modern archaeological work has recovered a number of key texts, and as Ehrman shows, these spectacular discoveries reveal religious diversity that says much about the ways in which history gets written by the winners. Ehrman's discussion ranges from considerations of various "lost scriptures"--including forged gospels supposedly written by Simon Peter, Jesus's closest disciple, and Judas Thomas, Jesus's alleged twin brother--to the disparate beliefs of such groups as the Jewish-Christian Ebionites, the anti-Jewish Marcionites, and various "Gnostic" sects. Ehrman examines in depth the battles that raged between "proto-orthodox Christians"--those who eventually compiled the canonical books of the New Testament and standardized Christian belief--and the groups they denounced as heretics and ultimately overcame.


Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

For almost 1,500 years, the New Testament manuscripts were copied by hand––and mistakes and intentional changes abound in the competing manuscript versions. Religious and biblical scholar Bart Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself are the results of both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes.
In this compelling and fascinating book, Ehrman shows where and why changes were made in our earliest surviving manuscripts, explaining for the first time how the many variations of our cherished biblical stories came to be, and why only certain versions of the stories qualify for publication in the Bibles we read today. Ehrman frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultra–conservative views of the Bible.


Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

It is often said, even by critical scholars who should know better, that “writing in the name of another” was widely accepted in antiquity. But New York Times bestselling author Bart D. Ehrman dares to call it what it was: literary forgery, a practice that was as scandalous then as it is today. In Forged, Ehrman’s fresh and original research takes readers back to the ancient world, where forgeries were used as weapons by unknown authors to fend off attacks to their faith and establish their church. So, if many of the books in the Bible were not in fact written by Jesus’s inner circle—but by writers living decades later, with differing agendas in rival communities—what does that do to the authority of Scripture?
Ehrman investigates ancient sources to:

• Reveal which New Testament books were outright forgeries.
• Explain how widely forgery was practiced by early Christian writers—and how strongly it was condemned in the ancient world as fraudulent and illicit.
• Expose the deception in the history of the Christian religion.

Ehrman’s fascinating story of fraud and deceit is essential reading for anyone interested in the truth about the Bible and the dubious origins of Christianity’s sacred texts.

 

[ABM]

Any of you read anything by this guy?

Never heard of him, but that shouldn't surprise anyone here.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

More from Ehrman -

Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth

Large numbers of atheists, humanists, and conspiracy theorists are raising one of the most pressing questions in the history of religion: "Did Jesus exist at all?" Was he invented out of whole cloth for nefarious purposes by those seeking to control the masses? Or was Jesus such a shadowy figure—far removed from any credible historical evidence—that he bears no meaningful resemblance to the person described in the Bible?
In Did Jesus Exist? historian and Bible expert Bart Ehrman confronts these questions, vigorously defends the historicity of Jesus, and provides a compelling portrait of the man from Nazareth. The Jesus you discover here may not be the Jesus you had hoped to meet—but he did exist, whether we like it or not.




And his latest book -



[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Forgery and Counterforgery:
[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Book Description -- "Arguably the most distinctive feature of the early Christian literature," writes Bart Ehrman, "is the degree to which it was forged." The Homilies and Recognitions of Clement; Paul's letters to and from Seneca; Gospels by Peter, Thomas, and Philip; Jesus' correspondence with Abgar, letters by Peter and Paul in the New Testament--all forgeries. To cite just a few examples.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Forgery and Counterforgery is the first comprehensive study of early Christian pseudepigrapha ever produced in English. In it, Ehrman argues that ancient critics--pagan, Jewish, and Christian--understood false authorial claims to be a form of literary deceit, and thus forgeries. Ehrman considers the extent of the phenomenon, the "intention" and motivations of ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish forgers, and reactions to their work once detected. He also assesses the criteria ancient critics applied to expose forgeries and the techniques forgers used to avoid detection. With the wider practices of the ancient world as backdrop, Ehrman then focuses on early Christian polemics, as various Christian authors forged documents in order to lend their ideas a veneer of authority in literary battles waged with pagans, Jews, and, most importantly, with one another in internecine disputes over doctrine and practice. In some instances a forger directed his work against views found in another forgery, creating thereby a "counter-forgery." Ehrman's evaluation of polemical forgeries starts with those of the New Testament (nearly half of whose books make a false authorial claim) up through the Pseudo-Ignatian epistles and the Apostolic Constitutions at the end of the fourth century.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Shining light on an important but overlooked feature of the early Christian world, Forgery and Counterforgery explores the possible motivations of the deceivers who produced these writings, situating their practice within ancient Christian discourses on lying and deceit.[/FONT]

http://www.bartdehrman.com/

 

[ABM]

Why wouldn't that surprise anyone?

Because I said so, that's why.

 

[ABM]

Huh?

Nevermind. My attempts @ jokes somehow are lost on you. It's all good, though.

EDIT: It was my failed facetious attempt at sarcastic and veritably redundant dogma.

 

[Further]

Hey ABM, when was the last time you questioned you faith? Just wondering, no judgement.

 

[ABM]

Hey ABM, when was the last time you questioned you faith? Just wondering, no judgement.

Absolutely never. Since day one, I've always been able to say that I know that I know that I know. ^^

 

[Further]

Absolutely never. Since day one, I've always been able to say that I know that I know that I know. ^^

That amazes me. That is as foreign a concept to me as anything else in this thread.

 

[ABM]

That amazes me. That is as foreign a concept to me as anything else in this thread.

True and pure faith can be as amazing as it is simple. To me, it just is......faith.