Cameron documentary claims to have found Jesus' Tomb. Oh, and dead body too...

[Azure]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I think I'm having a deja vu experience.

My main point is that the whole thing looks like He got it wrong the first time and changed things in the second one. That seems "imperfect" to say the least.

As for the oldtimers who the first book was geared at, did they have to live by those crazy rules? Like actual human beings had to suffer through that kind of thing?

He didn't get it wrong the first time. I'll say what Firefly said, God evolved alongside mankind.

Now I appreciate your concern, but your last comment seems a bit sarcastic and stupid, so I won't answer it.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Azure

He didn't get it wrong the first time. I'll say what Firefly said, God evolved alongside mankind.
.

That idea seems pretty good if you accept the idea that, if god is everwhere then we are part of god.

Another explaination is that each person interpreting god's directions was influenced by their own personal and societal predjudices and needs. In the old testament they seemed to live almost a nomadic existence and had to act swiftly for transgressions as it was a matter of survival. Now with a more modern society we are able to be more concerned with the nicities and don't have to use an eye for an eye justice.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Azure

He didn't get it wrong the first time. I'll say what Firefly said, God evolved alongside mankind.

Now I appreciate your concern, but your last comment seems a bit sarcastic and stupid, so I won't answer it.

If you have to evolve or develop then weren't you by definition "not perfect" in the first place?

And whether it was a stupid question or not is a matter of opinion, but it wasn't sarcastic. It's a real question. You said the old testament was geared towards a different time and different people. Fair enough. Did those people it was aimed at have to follow the laws and rules in it? A yes or no answer would be satisfactory.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

If you have to evolve or develop then weren't you by definition "not perfect" in the first place?

And whether it was a stupid question or not is a matter of opinion, but it wasn't sarcastic. It's a real question. You said the old testament was geared towards a different time and different people. Fair enough. Did those people it was aimed at have to follow the laws and rules in it? A yes or no answer would be satisfactory.

Obviously. Why would it be part of the Old Testament?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

That idea seems pretty good if you accept the idea that, if god is everwhere then we are part of god.

Naturally.

Remember, everything I'm saying here isn't exactly 'objective.' Its what I believe.

Another explaination is that each person interpreting god's directions was influenced by their own personal and societal predjudices and needs. In the old testament they seemed to live almost a nomadic existence and had to act swiftly for transgressions as it was a matter of survival. Now with a more modern society we are able to be more concerned with the nicities and don't have to use an eye for an eye justice.

Not only nomadic, but they couldn't find salvation on their own. A priest was appointed by God to wash away their sins every year. They sacrificed thousands of animals each year for this.

Now, we can find salvation on our own, because of Jesus Christ, and that fact that we can confer directly with the Holy Spirit, who will lead us to God.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Azure

Obviously. Why would it be part of the Old Testament?

Obviously what? There is nothing obvious about this stuff because A) it's really weird and B) everyone who claims to believe in it has a different interpretation.

For example, I, look at these rules...

Enslaving Women Captives: In a foreign war, an Israelite could take any woman as a slave-wife, even if it were against her will. He would put her through what could be regarded as a period of ritual abuse. If he later dislikes her, he can grant her freedom, but cannot sell her to another slave owner. Deuteronomy 21:10-14: "When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her [i.e. rape her or engage in consensual sex], and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her." Deuteronomy 20:14"But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself"

Do you believe these rules were set out by God and actual living human beings followed them at some point in time?

[flames85]

Originally Posted by photon

So what happens if you get it wrong the first time? Then you are doomed to a life of misery? All churches I've been to have spoken more about commitment, communication, and such far more than some magic "find the right person and it'll all work out".

Given how high the divorce rate is, obviously finding the right person isn't something that many people are able to do, no matter what their religion.

Love and commitment, communication and work, patience and kindness, trust and honesty, all those things have nothing to do with it?

Are you are saying because my faith isn't strong enough, my marriage is doomed to fail?

What do I believe in with respect to what? The Flames? We'll make one minor deal before tomorrow's end.

You're young and you have much to learn, try not to make too many enemies and alienate yourself from too many people too soon...

I didn't rule out all those things. Of course all those things are needed to have a sucessful marriage, but what do i know, i have not been married.

What do you believe in with respect to religion.... and no the flames don't count.

Your right, i am young and i will agree with you i have lots to learn. I won't even argue with you on that one! Although I do know what i stand for.
Hope i'm not coming off as a jerk, just want to share my beliefs.

[Azure]

Yes I believe they were set up by God.

Trust me, I know exactly how weird they are. You mention one section out of hundreds that make absolutely no sense to me. But then again, I didn't live in that age, so I can't say much.

Slavery isn't exactly something that should surprise you. Only recently, looking at the age of mankind, was it outlawed.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Azure

Yes I believe they were set up by God.

Trust me, I know exactly how weird they are. You mention one section out of hundreds that make absolutely no sense to me. But then again, I didn't live in that age, so I can't say much.

Slavery isn't exactly something that should surprise you. Only recently, looking at the age of mankind, was it outlawed.

Slavery doesn't surprise me. The fact that people worship a god that explicitly condoned and set up rules for the practice (among many other reprehensible practices) is what surprises me.

I didn't live in 1860, but I can still say slavery was a bad thing then and it is now. I don't have to have been around in 500BC to know that volunteering your daughter for a gang-rape was as bad a thing then as it would be now, but it doesn't appear to be frowned upon in the book.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Slavery doesn't surprise me. The fact that people worship a god that explicitly condoned and set up rules for the practice (among many other reprehensible practices) is what surprises me.

I didn't live in 1860, but I can still say slavery was a bad thing then and it is now. I don't have to have been around in 500BC to know that volunteering your daughter for a gang-rape was as bad a thing then as it would be now, but it doesn't appear to be frowned upon in the book.

Like I said, God changed all those laws.

How do you know it wasn't a cultural tradition to do something that crazy? Or part of the Jewish culture at that time?

I might have missed something, but where does it talk about gang-rape?

[photon]

Originally Posted by flames85

What do you believe in with respect to religion.... and no the flames don't count.

Your right, i am young and i will agree with you i have lots to learn. I won't even argue with you on that one! Although I do know what i stand for.
Hope i'm not coming off as a jerk, just want to share my beliefs.

I understand wanting to share your beliefs, but it's possible to do that without judging others (in fact you are commanded to do so), and you've come across as pretty judgemental as has been pointed out by others already in this thread.

Funny thing about standing for something, is that usually means standing against something else. Sharing beliefs usually involves being a light to others, not being a barrier against something.

As for what I believe, I'm not sure I can answer that fully. I was raised in religion, fed it from an early age so it obviously influences me. As I get older I find more and more to question. I guess you could say that I'm currently waiting for God, the ball is in His court.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Azure

Like I said, God changed all those laws.

How do you know it wasn't a cultural tradition to do something that crazy? Or part of the Jewish culture at that time?

I might have missed something, but where does it talk about gang-rape?

He may have changed 'em, but according to you he made them up in the first place. I find that kind of disturbing.

How do I know it wasn't a cultural tradition to do something that crazy? I don't know And besides, so what if it was? It is an indefensibly bad cultural tradition if it was one, but here we have God condoning it by writing up the rulebook.

The story of Lot has him offering up his daughter to a sex-crazed mob at the door, in effort to protect some guys that popped in. He gets rewarded for it. That's where the gang-rape comes in. Oddly enough, this episode makes more sense and is possibly even less depraved than other events that take place in Genesis 19.*

How anyone can possibly believe these things actually happened in reality or take some sort of spiritual feelgoodity in believing that they did is truly mind-buggering.

*I have shamelessly stolen this example from Richard Dawkins. I don't even have a copy of the Old Testament, but thankfully it is all on-line

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Azure

Not only nomadic, but they couldn't find salvation on their own. A priest was appointed by God to wash away their sins every year. They sacrificed thousands of animals each year for this.

Now, we can find salvation on our own, because of Jesus Christ, and that fact that we can confer directly with the Holy Spirit, who will lead us to God.

That's maybe all cool and such but you missed my point that the old testament was influenced by the mores and circumstances of the times and filtered through the writers mind, so it can hardly be called the word of god. Taking things to the next step, the new testament was written 2 thousand years ago and looking at it today it also was influenced by it's times. Thus can the bible be considered the end all and be all of the 'word of god'. In the bible it says "in the beginning was the 'word' and the word was with god and the word was god". The bible is not the word and is not infallible it's just a poor roadmap.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

That's maybe all cool and such but you missed my point that the old testament was influenced by the mores and circumstances of the times and filtered through the writers mind, so it can hardly be called the word of god. Taking things to the next step, the new testament was written 2 thousand years ago and looking at it today it also was influenced by it's times. Thus can the bible be considered the end all and be all of the 'word of god'. In the bible it says "in the beginning was the 'word' and the word was with god and the word was god". The bible is not the word and is not infallible it's just a poor roadmap.

Which would be strictly your opinion.

I will agree that the Old Testament was written by people who lived in a completely different culture then we did, so of course everything they did would scare us.

Was in condoned by God? I believe it was, but then again, I don't really read much of the Old Testament, outside of Psalms and Proverbs. So I know about the petty laws, or that they exist, but I have never studied them in detail. To me, they don't matter.

[MolsonInBothHands]

OK, I have to ask, where the heck is Cheese? Normally, he would be all over this debate, and I haven't seen him around for a long time. Just hoping all is well in the Maison de Fromage.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by MolsonInBothHands

OK, I have to ask, where the heck is Cheese? Normally, he would be all over this debate, and I haven't seen him around for a long time. Just hoping all is well in the Maison de Fromage.

I PMed him. He said he just needed to take a short break from CP. He has dropped in a few times (and put in a few posts), I think he is just too busy to get involved in any running debates.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Azure

Which would be strictly your opinion.

An opinion gained by personal experience and no, I don't believe lots that happened in the Bible was condoned by god, much of it was just the actions of a mostly unknowledgble tribe trying to have a relationship with god.
Trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in the bible is a tough task since there isn't a lot of wheat.
OK, I'm coming off as a bit of a knob right now, but that's how I feel about the bible.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

An opinion gained by personal experience and no, I don't believe lots that happened in the Bible was condoned by god, much of it was just the actions of a mostly unknowledgble tribe trying to have a relationship with god.
Trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in the bible is a tough task since there isn't a lot of wheat.
OK, I'm coming off as a bit of a knob right now, but that's how I feel about the bible.

It is not as difficult as you imagine it to be, if you are willing to recognize that much of what is recorded in the Old Testament never happened in the first place. The exodus probably did not happen as it is recorded; apart from the miracles, it remains unlikely that an entire ethnic group of slaves wandered around in the wilderness for over 40 years on their way to their ancestral homeland. Furthermore, there was almost certainly no conquest, and no truth to the genocidal accounts in the Book of Joshua. These stories were probably based upon ancient legends, and embellished in an effort to promote the 8th–7th century Judeaen aristocracy's attempts at religious reform. The stories of slaughter were greatly exagerated as part of a programme of hyper-nationalism and hyper Yahwism; in my own personal opinion, I tend to think that the embellishment was so extreme in large part because the authors of these accounts were painfully aware of the unreasonable cost of the kind of level of ritual purity that they envisioned.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It is not as difficult as you imagine it to be, if you are willing to recognize that much of what is recorded in the Old Testament never happened in the first place. The exodus probably did not happen as it is recorded; apart from the miracles, it remains unlikely that an entire ethnic group of slaves wandered around in the wilderness for over 40 years on their way to their ancestral homeland. Furthermore, there was almost certainly no conquest, and no truth to the genocidal accounts in the Book of Joshua. These stories were probably based upon ancient legends, and embellished in an effort to promote the 8th–7th century Judeaen aristocracy's attempts at religious reform. The stories of slaughter were greatly exagerated as part of a programme of hyper-nationalism and hyper Yahwism; in my own personal opinion, I tend to think that the embellishment was so extreme in large part because the authors of these accounts were painfully aware of the unreasonable cost of the kind of level of ritual purity that they envisioned.

I'm not talking about the events described. I take them with a grain of salt. What happened with the birth of Adam and Eve is an example. A pretty far fetched story but IIRC, with some good truths and lessons behind it. Jesus's parables are also pretty good if some weren't botched by the writers so they don't make any sense today.

My take on the ancient Jews was that there were a few knowledgable leaders who didn't share this with the common man and just passed on enough, to appeal to and keep a stable society and now we have our clergy passing on this misdirection as the gospel.

I'm not necessarily blaming these leaders. The old saying 'You can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink' applies to any level of knowledge and yes I guess it does require a level of purity.

[Vulcan]

OK, the Tomb is on Vision TV [261 Bell] today at 4 PM and 8 Pm MST today.