but if you believe that part of the bible then you also believe the part that says it is god's poetic words, or inspired by god. so who cares if they didn't have microscopes, it wasn't their writing/words. and god probably doesn't need a microscope.
the bible doesn't say that. again, we have a lot of biblical scholars here who don't seem to have read the bible. i believe the bible was divinely inspired. i don't know what it means when people says it's inerrant. that's nonsensical to me. i don't agree or disagree with that statement, because i don't know what it means. i was asked to sign off on a statement of faith to be involved with a ministry once that included that phrase...i scratched it out and signed the rest. divinely inspired does not mean to me that god spoke these words in their ears and they wrote them down. the bible isn't one coherent books. it's a collection of poetry, prophecy, and accounts. it doesn't have one author.
I agree. I can't stand churches and preachers that advertise a "Literal Interpretation" of the bible: 1. It's an oxymoron. It's either literal or it's an interpretation. Not both. 2. I don't speak or read Old English, Latin, Greek, or Aramaic. I do speak and read English well enough to know words change, meanings change, connotations change. If I say I'm gay, you probably don't take it to mean I'm happy (in a hetero way )... like my grandfather would have. For fun, Jefferson used to take a Greek phrase, translate it to Latin, then French, then English. He'd put it away for a year or so, then come back and translate the English to French to Latin and then back to Greek. When he compared the original Greek to his translated version, it was never the same. If Jefferson's not smart enough to capture all the meaning, nobody is. 3. A cult of personality develops around any church leader claiming to read the bible literally. It's that person's interpretation, not God's. That way be dragons. 4. If you're going to take it literally, then you believe what is now known to be ridiculous stuff: women who give birth to a son aren't allowed in church for 33 days and women who give birth to a daughter aren't allowed in church for 66 days (Leviticus). If you're going to take it literally, then you think the earth is rooted in place and does not move. If you take it literally, that means you think unicorns are real. 5. If you're going to take it literally, how do you explain the contradictions? You can't offer an interpretation that explains them away, because that would not be literal. If you do offer interpretations, then that exposes the lie of literal interpretation as just what you think is in the bible. For example, God says he will never hold anger forever and then later, he says he will hold anger forever (Jeremiah). You can say the ways of God are mysterious, but that's not literal. 6. If God meant for us to take the bible literally, why does Jesus talk in parables? Could it be that he knew his teachings would be translated into many languages and wanted the principles to remain in tact even if the exact language was mangled? 7. Why talk to us like children and at the same time give us a brain that can analyze and experiment and think abstractly? If all we had to do was read the words of the bible and not think, that'd be easy... but the journey of faith is hard because we do think and we are challenged. If God had meant the bible to be taken literally, there'd be no need for the story of Doubting Thomas.
But as an evolutionist that is what I believe in.... God Created and it is evolving into what He Eternally Expectes It To Become! For example there was a chosen moment in Human evolution that God Chose to reveal His Commandments. There was also another time in man's evolution when He Revealed Himself to us.
25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. I can only assume from the evidences we have so far that man have evolved over time and the early man looks very different from us. I also believe that man evolved from lower life forms. Another question , if they are created in the image of god, what are we? If we evolve in the future I guess we are no longer like god?
Image of God doesn't mean physically...it means possessing ability to know..to create...etc. The things that we'd say make humans different from other animals. As you posted...Genesis doesn't provide a lot of detail. It's not a science text. It says he spoke and things came into existence. It doesn't give a timetable. It doesn't support or preclude evolution, as far as I can tell. It's not about that. There's a jewish professor who has done a pretty interesting study suggesting each day in the bible is an epoch of time...some longer period of time. I've read it before on the internet, but don't know where it is. I don't really know, and I don't care. I believe God created creation, but I don't need Genesis to read like a science text for me to believe it.
As Max has already stated Genesis is not a science book nor is it the intent of it to be a science book. The part about creation is a poem. For those asking arguing about Genesis having weak science, or why doesn't it describe this, you are missing the point of Genesis. It's like asking why doesn't your paper towel go and clean your automobile for you. The reason is that isn't the function of the paper towel.
so it was not meant to be taken literally? How is to be taken then, symbolically, figuratively? if so then where are the rules? how the hell am I supposed to know how God wanted be to interpt it? And if I got it wrong shouldn't God, to protect the integrity of his inspired words, say "hey you took it out of context" or "that's not what I meant." Seems only fair to me.
It doesn't hurt science to believe God created man. It doesn't hurt God to believe in evolution. Jesus said "in the beginning man was created... husband and wife" The apostle Peter, John and Paul all emphasized in their writings that God created all things. Let's see, a scientist designs an experiment, mutates bacteria and reveals the origin of man.
A couple of things. It is meant to be taken as stories with morals. The stories may be historically accurate to varying degrees. Secondly and maybe most important, the bible was never meant to be just a set of rules to follow. It is a book to learn from about the spirit. It is to be questioned, explored, etc not a set list of rules to either do or not to do.
And not an operator's manual... it's a narrative. Oh...and God isn't the cop around the corner trying to trip you up, either.
when is the sequel coming out? seriously, a lots happened since then and i think its time for an update.
well there are alot of books that you can learn from. some use stories, allegories, pictures, pop-ups , etc... seriously, what about the i ching, popol vuh, koran, or any other historical book out there. you can learn a ton of morals and lessons in those as well. that doesn't make the bible all that special...
This is all my take on it, but I'll tell you what makes the bible and Christianity special to me. It's the whole love your enemy message from Jesus. It's the whole sermon on the mount, the turn the other cheek etc. To me, that kind of love is divine. The idea of justice and do unto others is found in other religions, and capable for humans alone to conceive and understand(It's hard to enact, for sure). But loving those that are doing you harm is pretty amazing, and beyond human. That isn't to say you shouldn't learn from everything else. Go for it. This of course is only a very minimal and surface explanation of it. But I hope it helps. Also read Mad Max's post in the religion go thread that I quoted.
Agreed and agreed. By the way, you're little cop analogy is going to win you a lot of friends on this bbs. Now that that cat's out of the bag, I'm going to try and use it in as many posts of yours as possible
I completely agree with this. It's also great that there are people out there using the Bible in this manner, for this purpose. The point of contention, however, is whether its message is divine or man-made More importantly, does even that really matter? If someone lives his life as well as (or better than) the Bible says (or is "interpreted" as saying) he should, so what if he's never heard of Jesus? I completely disagree with this. A mother can still love a child who has disowned and abandoned her in old age. A soldier can still display compassion towards the enemy during wartime. Just like the ability to hate and destroy, the ability to forgive and love is also innate in all humans - why should anything we judge as "good" automatically be attributed to some divine creator? And if we follow Jesus' message and leave the task of ultimate judgment to God, doesn't that mean God is exempt from His own moral rules? If I was told that I would die a slow and painful death but end up "saving" (whatever that means) the rest of the entire freaking world - past and present, good and evil - I think I'd take the deal. I think most people would. And we're not divine.. we're human
While what you describe is selfless, and wonderful, it isn't quite the same as loving an enemy. It guess the mother loving the child is very close, but I think that is one exception rather than the rule applied to all.
