Have difficulty believing the Bible.

[JustDave]

Maybe a better way to put it is that without actual knowledge, there is more room to disagree.

 

[Em in Ohio]

My grandmother was a baptist, and had the biggest effect on my religious indoctrination. My mother was Lutheran, but encouraged me to think on my own, although I don't think she imagined that might lead to atheism. But my grandmother! Oh boy, did I get a load from her. None of this thinking on your own stuff. If something doesn't make sense, disregard it and believe it anyway, or you go straight to Hell. By the way, Hell was a place where the Devil whipped you and made you shovel coal into a furnace. I guess that came from the fact that we heated our two flat with coal, and she considered that a burden, although she never actually did it.

Now, even at the age of five (no, better make that eight), I knew that I could not believe things that didn't make sense, but I could pretend things made sense. But no... That wasn't good enough for Grandma. You go straight to Hell if you're faking it. It was an impossible situation, and I realized I was Hell bound, no matter how good I tried to be.

With that bleak prognosis, I decided that maybe God wasn't the heartless entity I was given. So I started imagining an understanding God, or less severe gods, or maybe gods that had no physical form and allowed evolution to create mankind without his direction. But none of that worked, because no matter how appealing I imagined a god to be, or how fair he might be, or how much he reflected actual reality, the same result always happened; I could not find convincing evidence for the existence of any one of them, even the one's I liked.

So here I am a happy atheist trying to do no harm, and using ethics as my guide. Granted ethics, might be a subjective as morality, but I like my ethics, and I don't worry about pleasing an overseer who is hiding in the bushes and cannot be seen.

I was faced with a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario in the Catholic church. As a child, we were told to repeat "I believe in God, the Father Almighty,..." Since I didn't believe, I refused. Well, okay. If I lied and repeated this mantra, I was sinning and would go to hell (or to Confession, the easy out). If I didn't repeat it, I was hell-bound for not believing.

After a meeting with a Monsignor, it was mutually decided that I wasn't good Catholic material and that I would burn in hell. My Catholic relatives already told me that my father was going to burn in hell because he didn't believe.

If a man with my father's natural morality and high ethical standards was going to be sent to eternal hell, while the "good Catholic" hypocrites flourished in heaven, this god was either a work of fiction or a totally-off-his-rocker sadist.

I was withdrawn (banned) from "Confirmation classes."

 

[JustDave]

After a meeting with a Monsignor, it was mutually decided that I wasn't good Catholic material and that I would burn in hell. My Catholic relatives already told me that my father was going to burn in hell because he didn't believe.

If a man with my father's natural morality and high ethical standards was going to be sent to eternal hell, while the "good Catholic" hypocrites flourished in heaven, this god was either a work of fiction or a totally-off-his-rocker sadist.

I was withdrawn (banned) from "Confirmation classes."

At a very young age, maybe around 7 or so, my Catholic friends were already making a pitch for their religion. Now we were kids and our needs in life only represented kids. One of their strongest points was that kids in Catholic School got more days off from school. I told my Baptist grandmother that I thought I might like to become a Catholic, which horrified her no end, because she told me that if I became a Catholic, I would go to Hell. So I scratched that idea. It seemed as though according to every religion everyone was going to Hell for being in the wrong religion, but they usually agreed that some religion was better than none... but you still go to Hell.

 

[Capt Lightning]

A man had four sons. Three became priests and one became a doctor. One morning at breakfast, the first priest said, " I had a strange dream. I dreamt that I was in heaven and it was just like being at home sitting round the fire."
The second priest said, "That's strange, I had exactly the same dream " "So did I" said the third priest .
Then the doctor said, "I had a dream last night and I dreamt I was in Hell. It was just like home, you couldn't get near the fire for bloody priests!"

 

[Em in Ohio]

Believers of various religious texts know that man wrote them but they believe they were directly inspired by God.

oldaunt said:
And that is the very reason the whole thing is suspect. Remember, God did not write the bible. MAN did.

And herein lies the rub: Portions of bibles have been eliminated because of someone's judgement that they were NOT handed down from god-brain to human brain directly. Who has the right to say that the eliminated parts weren't direct god-speak, but just the philosophizing of some human? If all are god's children, isn't it possible that it is all god-speak or, conversely, that it is all just human-think?

 

[JonSR77]

Lara's opinions are not necessarily untruths; That is if you define a truth as something one believes to be true (They are being honest and not lying). So a more accurate description of Lara's opinions is that they are opinions. Maybe they are true. Maybe they are not. Since they cannot be proven, they remain opinions. Truth or untruth is then irrelevant. That one believes it is truth does not convince the non-believer. This is the gap between believers and non-believers. Believers claim to be telling the truth. Non-believers know that the believers believe it, but understand that there is no proof. This makes most debates about religious doctrines exercises in futility. This frustrates both sides of the argument, and people walk away angry.

Well, respectfully, saying "there is no proof" is an assertion. It is, in itself, a theory. There is no formalized proof that that assertion is true. There are many people who do believe there is proof.

As I mentioned... in my post. Studies done that prove that prayer has an effect. ESP studies. Professional interactions with psychics.

There is an enormous amount of proof out there. My proof, I mean evidence really. If ESP exists, that is evidence that the supernatural exists. Or that an undefined experience exists (which, of course, is what the supernatural means in the first place). Maybe magic is just the ability to access another plane of existence. Does it matter if there is an explanation or not?


So, for example....the neurosurgeon Eben Alexander said he had an NDE. And being a neurosurgeon, he looked at his medical chart and saw that at the time he had his NDE experience, his brain was so inflamed with illness, the brain could not have produced those images.

No one has come forward to dispute that his brain was too damaged to produce images.

Now, that is proof that in his state of being...whatever you want to call it, his brain was not producing images.

Now, you can say he lied about seeing those images, if you want. But you can't say that his brain produced those images, because there is, in fact, scientific proof that that is not the case.

Further, if he were to take a polygraph and pass, then there would be about a 70% chance that his reporting of seeing those images was accurate reporting.

Then, you could say, oh, well...he believes it, but that merely means he is deluded.

Then you could test him for delusion, prove he had never experienced delusion, and then that line of argumentation fails.


And then, you know, you have more proof of the truth of his experiences.


But the mind is locked in. If you want to not believe in God and the supernatural, you will then move to find other lines of argumentation that support your theory.

But what you can't dispute are the facts that already exist. That people like Gandhi and Socrates report hearing a voice from God.

That thousands of people over the course of thousands of years, report spiritual experiences.

You can come to a different conclusion about what those experiences are. But you can't pretend they don't exist.


And if some of the smartest people who ever lived believed in God? What then? Is the idea that somehow, they did not explore the theories of doubt themselves...and, nevertheless, come to a different conclusion?

You can say that you don't believe. But you can't say that your own IQ is anywhere close to that of Benjamin Franklin (historians believe his IQ was something like 205). And if a guy that much smarter than us believed in God? Well, then you have to admit of the possibility that he understood things more clearly than us.

Now, there are also a few, rare, very high IQ who don't believe in God. But that still does not allow us to entirely dismiss the testimony of one of the smartest men in history. And Franklin was one. And Newton was another. Tesla believed also. Many Nobel Prize winners in science also believe...

 

[JonSR77]

And herein lies the rub: Portions of bibles have been eliminated because of someone's judgement that they were NOT handed down from god-brain to human brain directly. Who has the right to say that the eliminated parts weren't direct god-speak, but just the philosophizing of some human? If all are god's children, isn't it possible that it is all god-speak or, conversely, that it is all just human-think?

That is commonly reported on the internet, but is really not historically all that accurate.

There were other writings by the Apostles themselves, that did not make it into the final version of the New Testament.

Some of them still exist and can be found in the Gnostic Gospels. St. Peter, for example, wrote a treatise about the origins of evil (and how to overcome and avoid evil).

This was a very different period in history. This was a very different period for literature. Most of the literature was the collection of orally transmitted stories.

And there was no sense of, oh...we simply have to include everything.

No, back in the ancient world, when they collected the various accounts, maybe they thought St. Peter's discussion of evil was too frightening for people. So, they simply decided not to include it. But that does not mean there was some kind of grand, manipulative strategy going on.

That was really, very simply, how information, at the time, was collected into one format....

 

[oldaunt]

Well, respectfully, saying "there is no proof" is an assertion. It is, in itself, a theory. There is no formalized proof that that assertion is true. There are many people who do believe there is proof.

As I mentioned... in my post. Studies done that prove that prayer has an effect. ESP studies. Professional interactions with psychics.

There is an enormous amount of proof out there. My proof, I mean evidence really. If ESP exists, that is evidence that the supernatural exists. Or that an undefined experience exists (which, of course, is what the supernatural means in the first place). Maybe magic is just the ability to access another plane of existence. Does it matter if there is an explanation or not?


So, for example....the neurosurgeon Eben Alexander said he had an NDE. And being a neurosurgeon, he looked at his medical chart and saw that at the time he had his NDE experience, his brain was so inflamed with illness, the brain could not have produced those images.

No one has come forward to dispute that his brain was too damaged to produce images.

Now, that is proof that in his state of being...whatever you want to call it, his brain was not producing images.

Now, you can say he lied about seeing those images, if you want. But you can't say that his brain produced those images, because there is, in fact, scientific proof that that is not the case.

Further, if he were to take a polygraph and pass, then there would be about a 70% chance that his reporting of seeing those images was accurate reporting.

Then, you could say, oh, well...he believes it, but that merely means he is deluded.

Then you could test him for delusion, prove he had never experienced delusion, and then that line of argumentation fails.


And then, you know, you have more proof of the truth of his experiences.


But the mind is locked in. If you want to not believe in God and the supernatural, you will then move to find other lines of argumentation that support your theory.

But what you can't dispute are the facts that already exist. That people like Gandhi and Socrates report hearing a voice from God.

That thousands of people over the course of thousands of years, report spiritual experiences.

You can come to a different conclusion about what those experiences are. But you can't pretend they don't exist.


And if some of the smartest people who ever lived believed in God? What then? Is the idea that somehow, they did not explore the theories of doubt themselves...and, nevertheless, come to a different conclusion?

You can say that you don't believe. But you can't say that your own IQ is anywhere close to that of Benjamin Franklin (historians believe his IQ was something like 205). And if a guy that much smarter than us believed in God? Well, then you have to admit of the possibility that he understood things more clearly than us.

Now, there are also a few, rare, very high IQ who don't believe in God. But that still does not allow us to entirely dismiss the testimony of one of the smartest men in history. And Franklin was one. And Newton was another. Tesla believed also. Many Nobel Prize winners in science also believe...

It is also true that some of the most intelligent people ever were proven insane.....

 

[JonSR77]

At a very young age, maybe around 7 or so, my Catholic friends were already making a pitch for their religion. Now we were kids and our needs in life only represented kids. One of their strongest points was that kids in Catholic School got more days off from school. I told my Baptist grandmother that I thought I might like to become a Catholic, which horrified her no end, because she told me that if I became a Catholic, I would go to Hell. So I scratched that idea. It seemed as though according to every religion everyone was going to Hell for being in the wrong religion, but they usually agreed that some religion was better than none... but you still go to Hell.

Well, of course, you now realize that the entirety of the religious history of the world, can hardly be summed up by the rumors that the kids were passing along at school.

My wife works for a major Catholic University. And, oh yes, we hear all the criticisms of the Church. Corruption, pedophilia.

And we ourselves hate and want to end the problems. One of Laurie's best friends was a nun who fought against anti-Semitism in the Church...and, in fact, won significant victories.

Every major institution is composed of people. And people are flawed.

Does that mean that the Christian teachings of kindness are not true.

For every one story about pedophilia and corruption there are 1000 priests and nuns, going into the Third World, at great risk to themselves, to bring food and medical care to the poor and desperate.

But, do those stories get covered as much as the corruptions? Of course not, because it is boring to always hear stories about how wonderful priests and nuns can be.

Anyone who thinks that the Church, or other religions for that matter, are one long history of corruption, is absolutely living in a cartoon, entirely divorced from reality.

The secular historians, absolutely confirm that the single major civilizing force in the development of modern society has been the force of religion. It ended the Roman gladiator games. The moral codes became the laws that forbade murders, rapes, theft and etc.

Over the course of human history the Church's influence has prevented millions of murders and other serious crimes.

But, how many stories about that? Actually, I have never seen even one.

 

[JonSR77]

It is also true that some of the most intelligent people ever were proven insane.....

Ok, do you have specific evidence that any of the following people were /are insane???


Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Mahatma Gandhi
many modern winners of the Nobel Prize

by all means, please provide a professional, credible source, which indicates that any of these folks were / are insane...

 

[JonSR77]

It is also true that some of the most intelligent people ever were proven insane.....

Oh, and by the way...reasonably nasty comment. You know, outside the bounds of civility.


So, would it be ok, for me to take people you respect...oh, like your doctor or a favorite teacher and just say to you...

"Oh, sure you respected them, but are you so sure that they were not flat out insane?"

Because it would be rude of me to say that to you.

So, accord me the same respect, please.

 

[Em in Ohio]

And herein lies the rub: Portions of bibles have been eliminated because of someone's judgement that they were NOT handed down from god-brain to human brain directly. Who has the right to say that the eliminated parts weren't direct god-speak, but just the philosophizing of some human? If all are god's children, isn't it possible that it is all god-speak or, conversely, that it is all just human-think?

Adding to my own post: Portions of some bibles have also been included because of someone's judgement that they were handed down from god-brain to human brain directly.

 

[JonSR77]

Adding to my own post: Portions of some bibles have also been included because of someone's judgement that they were handed down from god-brain to human brain directly.

You can say that. But there is zero...absolutely ZERO historical evidence that this was the case.

You are projecting modern ideas about manipulation into an ancient culture that did not have it. They had manipulations, but not the ones you are describing.

And by that, I don't mean that Egypt did not engage in spectacular lies and manipulations, they did.

I am talking, specifically, about the farmers and tradesmen in that region of ancient Israel, who became Christ's followers. They were not sophisticated enough in, oh, PR techniques, to create those kinds of ideas. It just was not in their thinking.

 

[JonSR77]

I mean, I can say that you are, in fact, not human, from an alien race and making the comments you make to undermine and destroy human civilization.

But just because I say that, that makes it true?


Hey, maybe you do want to do destroy all goodness on earth. I don't know. But I have zero evidence to make that conclusion.

 

[Knight]

@Lara
I copied the entire post # 9 so nothing will be taken out of context.

Quote

What's wrong with our Creator controlling what He created? He's our heavenly Father, we are His children.
What's wrong with an earthly father controlling his children?
****************************
It's the way control was established. If an earthly father decided to control by murdering there would consequences.

https://www.vocativ.com/news/309748/all-the-people-god-kills-in-the-bible/index.html


Both leave open the ability for them to also make their own choices as well. Some right, some wrong. Some good, some evil. But the love of these two fathers want their children not to have to suffer the natural consequences of the wrong choices. So a foundation is laid as the children grow and learn.
***********************************
So Jesus grew, learned & obviously didn't do what was expected. The bible story of Jesus plain & simple was used to instill more fear.

Without the benefit of being bible taught as far back as the 18th. century B C murder wasn't condoned

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-...th-penalty/early-history-of-the-death-penalty

Claiming "God" has the right to murder because he is the father doesn't work for me.

I should include asking your definition of the atrocity by a benevolent "maker". The bible story that claims to eliminate all mankind except Noah & his family

 

[JonSR77]

Really, folks...

just go take a moment, call the local archdiocese and talk to an actual priest for a minute.

Meet him for a cup of coffee. Get to know him as a person...


These ideas you guys are presenting have nothing to do with the actual Church and its actual people.

They are just intellectual ideas about manipulative control.

Maybe the CIA and the KGB have that culture. But it is not in the Church.

Oh, not saying that there isn't some odd lunatic in the Church who does lunatic stuff. But, you know, that is the 1 in 10,000 person, not the everyday people who are the Church.

I have met hundreds of priests and nuns. A couple of them were cold-hearted jerks. But, in my own personal experience, I would say over 95% were not just nice normal folks...but over 95% were incredibly nice people.

 

[David777]

An important communication facet of the issue of inerrancy of the Bible that few casually discussing the matter understand is the nature of oral history especially how it was used in those ancient times. Very very little was written down and rather information was passed through oral tellings that were never for audiences expected to be the exact words of an event or what someone actually stated but rather communicated the essence of whatever. A good storyteller was supposed to make whatever interesting.

That is why the same stories wording in the synoptic gospels tend to all vary somewhat. That someone will doggedly try to argue each gospel's differing words were exactly true is obvious logical nonsense. But to steer an argument into rejecting oral history because it wasn't what exactly actually happened shows an ignorance of how ancient oral history functioned. I would highly recommend those many that don't understand the nature of ancient oral history to spend a little time on the web reading how historical experts interpret such.

If say all 3 synoptic gospels had exactly the same wording, it would indicate they were copied from the same source. By being slightly different, that significantly shows the essence of whatever to more likely be reasonably accurate. The same logic plays out in this modern era in courts when multiple witnesses with possible agendas suspiciously state identical stories as though conspirantly rehearsed.

 

[Serenity4321]

My teachings of Christianity came straight out of the draconian Roman Catholic version. Whenever I questioned whether Adam & Eve, were the first humans, which according to the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian religions, they were, and all humans have descended from them.

As stated in the Bible, Adam and Eve were created by God to take care of His creation, to populate the earth, and to have a relationship with Him. I asked, was that a metaphor? Remember, they had two sons, Cane & Able.

Abel, in the Old Testament, second son of Adam and Eve, who was slain by his older brother, Cain (Genesis 4:1–16). According to Genesis, Abel, a shepherd, offered the Lord the firstborn of his flock. The Lord respected Abel's sacrifice but did not respect that offered by Cain. In a jealous rage, Cain murdered Abel.

So when I asked about procreation, given that one son was slain, one was vilified and no other woman, other than Eve is ever mentioned, my typical Roman Catholic answer was: "You little heathen," each syllable would be accompanied by a slap around the head.

Therefore I must assume that I should believe every word in the bible, chapter & verse, or on the day of judgement, God will slap me around the head with every syllable, just to knock some sense into me.

And there you have it.

LOL I enjoyed your take on the Church..I am a non-practicing Catholic..I find so many who have been turned off by the Church ..my youngest at 8 in Catechism asked the nun why she said God was up heaven when she had been told God was everywhere..

 

[Knight]

An important communication facet of the issue of inerrancy of the Bible that few casually discussing the matter understand is the nature of oral history especially how it was used in those ancient times. Very very little was written down and rather information was passed through oral tellings that were never for audiences expected to be the exact words of an event or what someone actually stated but rather communicated the essence of whatever. A good storyteller was supposed to make whatever interesting.

That is why the same stories wording in the synoptic gospels tend to all vary somewhat. That someone will doggedly try to argue each gospel's differing words were exactly true is obvious logical nonsense. But to steer an argument into rejecting oral history because it wasn't what exactly actually happened shows an ignorance of how ancient oral history functioned. I would highly recommend those many that don't understand the nature of ancient oral history to spend a little time on the web reading how historical experts interpret such.

If say all 3 synoptic gospels had exactly the same wording, it would indicate they were copied from the same source. By being slightly different, that significantly shows the essence of whatever to more likely be reasonably accurate. The same logic plays out in this modern era in courts when multiple witnesses with possible agendas suspiciously state identical stories as though conspirantly rehearsed.

Short version. Story telling was how the imagination of the teller was passed down. Bible stories are the written version of that imagination.

 

[chic]

And that is the very reason the whole thing is suspect. Remember, God did not write the bible. MAN did.

I agree. Man did write the bible. I'm a religious person in crisis. I believe in God but get no comfort out of the bible. I haven't for a long time and this creates a lot of conflict within me.

 

[Serenity4321]

Really, folks...

just go take a moment, call the local archdiocese and talk to an actual priest for a minute.

Meet him for a cup of coffee. Get to know him as a person...


These ideas you guys are presenting have nothing to do with the actual Church and its actual people.

They are just intellectual ideas about manipulative control.

Maybe the CIA and the KGB have that culture. But it is not in the Church.

Oh, not saying that there isn't some odd lunatic in the Church who does lunatic stuff. But, you know, that is the 1 in 10,000 person, not the everyday people who are the Church.

I have met hundreds of priests and nuns. A couple of them were cold-hearted jerks. But, in my own personal experience, I would say over 95% were not just nice normal folks...but over 95% were incredibly nice people.

Unfortunately, the Church did great harm to itself during the priest sex scandals and IMO the worst of it was the cover-up and the keeping silent by those not involved. I understand the power of forgiveness and greatly admire those who stayed with the Church and tried to make it stronger. I no longer practice Catholicism exclusively as I have found peace and spirituality in almost all religions. Buddism is one of my favorite and IMO there is no conflict among religious phylosophies except among the man-made rules

 

[Serenity4321]

I agree. Man did write the bible. I'm a religious person in crisis. I believe in God but get no comfort out of the bible. I haven't for a long time and this creates a lot of conflict within me.

IMO religion is not as important as a relationship with God/Spirit whatever anyone calls the Force/Energy of which we are all One...

 

[JonSR77]

Short version. Story telling was how the imagination of the teller was passed down. Bible stories are the written version of that imagination.

That is just some stuff that got passed around. There is much known about the history of that time.

You are ascribing concepts about imagination and thought and ideas...they all come from a much more modern era.

People did not think like that at the time. And they had a lot of mystical ideas. They believed in portents and omens and spells.
And those ideas were in their heads.

This is 1500 years before universities existed. Very different era. They engaged in very different thought.

We are living in an era with modern fiction novels. They did not exist at the time. Fiction, as a literary form, did exist, but it was very very very limited. And even then, most of the fiction contained moral instruction or other things.

 

[oldaunt]

Oh, and by the way...reasonably nasty comment. You know, outside the bounds of civility.


So, would it be ok, for me to take people you respect...oh, like your doctor or a favorite teacher and just say to you...

"Oh, sure you respected them, but are you so sure that they were not flat out insane?"

Because it would be rude of me to say that to you.

So, accord me the same respect, please.

Before your brain implodes, please note I did NOT say THOSE people were insane, just that history has noted there were some who were. As for the rest, no I wouldn't be upset by your suggestion, since I can use my common sense pretty well and decide for myself. Please think about why you consider truth to be "nasty", especially when you misunderstood the statement, being all defensive and such.....

 

[David777]

Short version. Story telling was how the imagination of the teller was passed down. Bible stories are the written version of that imagination.

To use the term "imagination" injects some bias into that terse statement. Better would be enhanced for the sake of an audience, "recollection".