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Bramble
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Location: National treasures need homes
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 Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:57 am Post subject: |
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| kermo wrote: |
| Bramble wrote: |
No, you're twisting my words around. I don't believe in the Bible. I'm not saying everything in it that's bad is a forgery; I just remember hearing (years ago) that some passage about Noah's sons was added for that specific purpose. Something about Noah cursing his son Ham and all his descendants as revenge for seeing him naked ... people read this to mean that all Africans were destined to be the slaves of all Europeans, or something. Maybe Kermo or Troll Bait knows about this? |
There have been a number of creative and specious interpretations of the Bible made in an effort to justify race inequality, and as recently as 1978, the Mormon church used the "mark of Cain" as an excuse not to ordain black people. This interpretation was also found in the early Syriac church, but not widely accepted. Brigham Young specified that the "mark of Cain" (not described in the Bible itself) was actually "dark skin, kinky hair and a flat nose." The following is an elaboration of the policy:
| Alvin R. Dyer at the Missionary Conference in Oslo, Norway, March 18, 1961 wrote: |
| �I suppose, and you may have often heard missionaries say it or have asked the question: Why is a Negro a Negro? And, you have heard this answer. 'Well, they must have been neutral in the pre-existence or they must have straddled the fence. That is the most common saying�they were neither hot nor cold, so the Lord made them Negroes. This, of course, is not true. The reason that spirits are born into Negro bodies is because those spirits rejected the Priesthood of God in the pre-existence. This is the reason why you have Negroes upon the earth. �You will observe that when Cain was influenced by the power of Lucifer to follow him...Cain rejected the counsel of God. He rejected again the Priesthood as his forebearers had done in the pre-existence. Therefore, the curse of the pre-existence was made institute through the loins of Cain. Consequently, you have the beginning of the race of men and women into which would be born those in the pre-existence who had rejected the Priesthood of God....Ham reinstated the curse of the pre-existence when he rejected the Priesthood of Noah, and in consequence of that he preserved the curse on the earth. Therefore, the Negroes to be born thereafter, or those who were to become Negroes, were to be born through the loins of Ham. �All of this is according to a well worked-out plan, that these millions and billions of spirits awaiting birth in the pre-existence would be born through a channel or race of people. Consequently, the cursed were to be born through Ham. |
Strangely, the mark of Cain was not a curse, but a promise of protection on Cain, who feared that his exile would lead to his death at the hands of strangers:
| Genesis 4:13-16 wrote: |
Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."
15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
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Alert readers will also note that Cain is afraid of being killed, but eventually marries and raises a family in exile, which implies that there were people other than Adam, Eve and (future) baby brother Seth. Just an interesting side-note which disputes the "Adam and Eve as parents of all mankind" theory. |
Thanks for the info. That Dyer guy sounds like a real nutcase ... |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:32 am Post subject: |
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Just interested in the following...
Seeing as the bible was written over many years and spans many ages... is it still being updated...?
Or is it considered over...?
Are there people somewhere scribbling away new chapters of 'His story' or whatever that will eventually be added in hundreds / thousands of years time..
If so, who would they be...?
Inrteresting, because if it is God's story or whatever (i'm not religious) then shouldn't it still be in the proccess of being written...?
It would be weird if it just ended.... |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:45 am Post subject: |
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| The Bible won't be written any more because God doesn't talk to people anymore. God hasn't talked to people since the old days, when people were smart enough to say "Hey, that's God talking!" These days we're a lot more naive. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:22 am Post subject: |
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| venus wrote: |
Just interested in the following...
Seeing as the bible was written over many years and spans many ages... is it still being updated...?
Or is it considered over...? |
A council of men back around about 300 AD (I'm too lazy to google) voted on what books made up the bible. They didn't provide an amending formula. |
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hairy sue
Joined: 18 May 2006
Location: weewee heaven
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:52 am Post subject: |
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| Does a tomato have an ingredients label yet? |
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Novernae
Joined: 02 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:08 am Post subject: |
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| Bramble wrote: |
| Novernae wrote: |
| Bramble wrote: |
| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
| The first time I ever opened a Bible, my eyes fell on a passage that said basically "Thou shalt not suffer a Jew to live. Jews think they're God's chosen people, but they march in the army of Satan." Something like that. It was an 18th century family Bible and I haven't been able to find documentation of it. |
I never heard that one. But I'm sure I heard somewhere that the Bible was full of forgery, and that some of the forged parts were used to defend slavery in the U.S. |
That's rich. Slavery's bad. The Bible condones it. Ergo it must be a forgery!!!  Is the rest of the bad stuff in there a forgery, too?
Here's a better idea. The Bible is rife with bad ideas, bad people, bad morals, and should have been abandoned before it was written. |
No, you're twisting my words around. I don't believe in the Bible. I'm not saying everything in it that's bad is a forgery; I just remember hearing (years ago) that some passage about Noah's sons was added for that specific purpose. Something about Noah cursing his son Ham and all his descendants as revenge for seeing him naked ... people read this to mean that all Africans were destined to be the slaves of all Europeans, or something. Maybe Kermo or Troll Bait knows about this? |
Well, I apologize for misinterpreting you. |
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Bramble
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Location: National treasures need homes
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| Novernae wrote: |
| Bramble wrote: |
| Novernae wrote: |
| Bramble wrote: |
| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
| The first time I ever opened a Bible, my eyes fell on a passage that said basically "Thou shalt not suffer a Jew to live. Jews think they're God's chosen people, but they march in the army of Satan." Something like that. It was an 18th century family Bible and I haven't been able to find documentation of it. |
I never heard that one. But I'm sure I heard somewhere that the Bible was full of forgery, and that some of the forged parts were used to defend slavery in the U.S. |
That's rich. Slavery's bad. The Bible condones it. Ergo it must be a forgery!!! Is the rest of the bad stuff in there a forgery, too?
Here's a better idea. The Bible is rife with bad ideas, bad people, bad morals, and should have been abandoned before it was written. |
No, you're twisting my words around. I don't believe in the Bible. I'm not saying everything in it that's bad is a forgery; I just remember hearing (years ago) that some passage about Noah's sons was added for that specific purpose. Something about Noah cursing his son Ham and all his descendants as revenge for seeing him naked ... people read this to mean that all Africans were destined to be the slaves of all Europeans, or something. Maybe Kermo or Troll Bait knows about this? |
Well, I apologize for misinterpreting you. |
No problem. Lots of bad stuff in the Bible. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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| gang ah jee wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Is death a concept? I thought you would consider it nothing but a natural reality. |
Just that most Christians - and Genesis - seem to think that God invented death is all. If one believes that an omniscient, omnipotent God created the universe, one would also accept that death is one of God's ideas, no? |
If you are talking from the christain point of view rather than your own, then yes, the concept of death existed first in the mind of God. I'm not sure what your point is, though. Athiests seem to have no problem with the idea that Nature gives us life and then takes it, but if God does the same, He must be bad and they argue that they can't believe in a God that would such a thing (though they do believe in a "god" who does exactly that). |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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| flakfizer wrote: |
| gang ah jee wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Is death a concept? I thought you would consider it nothing but a natural reality. |
Just that most Christians - and Genesis - seem to think that God invented death is all. If one believes that an omniscient, omnipotent God created the universe, one would also accept that death is one of God's ideas, no? |
If you are talking from the christain point of view rather than your own, then yes, the concept of death existed first in the mind of God. I'm not sure what your point is, though. Athiests seem to have no problem with the idea that Nature gives us life and then takes it, but if God does the same, He must be bad and they argue that they can't believe in a God that would such a thing (though they do believe in a "god" who does exactly that). |
Ah, but Nature is neutral, unlike the Christian God. Nature didn't set any rules to follow, and follows none in return (this is of course using your personification of Nature, which in itself is an entire argument). |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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Arguing against Christianity, while fun, is usually not useful. It is very hard to defend the Bible, and the word "faith" or "God's plan" tend to come up a lot. But defending against arguments against it is much easier, as you can debate processes, people or intentions.
Actually arguing against it allows people to create fairly valid arguments against the actual attacks sometimes, which is then erroneously used as proof linking back to the Bible. Education has been doing a fine (yet slow) job of pushing religion out of main stream life. Just let it work and while we won't see it in our lifetimes, Christianity will fade away, just like everything else in the universe. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| ED209 wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
God sentences people to death and he is therefore an "ahole."  Of course, one would then have to conclude that humans and "mother nature" are much bigger aholes as they have ended the lives of countless more people. |
People would expect more from an all loving merciful god. |
And we get more. As I just said, billions of people have died at the hands of other men and at the hands of nature. The incidents the OP writes here are miniscule in comparison - and they were all avoidable.
"All loving merciful" does not mean that wrong-doing is overlooked. However, forgiveness is granted to all who seek it. It does not mean that people can do whatever they wish and never have to face the negative consequences of their actions. That is neither love nor mercy. Jonah went to Nineveh to warn them that God was going to destroy them because of their wickedness. They repented and God relented. God always responds to repentance with mercy. |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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| KWhitehead wrote: |
one of the words they use in the Hebrew for "god" is actually plural: "elohim"
redaction criticism of the bible is quite cool. learn Greek & Hebrew. |
| Genesis 1:26 wrote: |
King James Version (KJV)
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
New International Version (NIV)
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
Footnotes:
Genesis 1:26 Hebrew; Syriac all the wild animals |
There is some evidence that those definitive polytheists, the ancient Greeks, were moving towards monotheism. For example, some of Porphyry's writings describe Zeus not like the bearded, horny old guy on top of a mountain, but as being the first and last, having a boundless, radiant body that encircles all things, with the sun and moon as his two eyes (thus reducing Apollo and Artemis from full-fledged gods to attributes of Zeus), and "he is the mind from which he brings forth all things, and by his thoughts creates them." Another interesting quote is "But they have made the representation of Zeus in human form, because mind was that according to which he wrought ..."
(Read about it here.)
And in ancient Egypt, the father of King Tut, Pharoah Amenhotep IV (later called Akhenaten) introduced monotheism, but it did not last long. This, "The Amarna Heresy," took place before 1,000 BCE and was probably history's first monotheism.
(Reference) |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| gang ah jee wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Is death a concept? I thought you would consider it nothing but a natural reality. |
Just that most Christians - and Genesis - seem to think that God invented death is all. If one believes that an omniscient, omnipotent God created the universe, one would also accept that death is one of God's ideas, no? |
If you are talking from the christain point of view rather than your own, then yes, the concept of death existed first in the mind of God. I'm not sure what your point is, though. Athiests seem to have no problem with the idea that Nature gives us life and then takes it, but if God does the same, He must be bad and they argue that they can't believe in a God that would such a thing (though they do believe in a "god" who does exactly that). |
Ah, but Nature is neutral, unlike the Christian God. Nature didn't set any rules to follow, and follows none in return (this is of course using your personification of Nature, which in itself is an entire argument). |
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Nature certainly does have rules. Many on this board consider those rules to be the only knowable truths and the study of those rules to be true religion. If you mean moral rules, then I quite agree, yet many here constantly argue otherwise, that we can be morally good with only nature as our guide. And then some proceed to pass moral judgements on a God they say does not exist measuring him against the moral standards that they apparently got from neutral (amoral) nature. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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| flakfizer wrote: |
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Nature certainly does have rules. Many on this board consider those rules to be the only knowable truths and the study of those rules to be true religion. If you mean moral rules, then I quite agree, yet many here constantly argue otherwise, that we can be morally good with only nature as our guide. And then some proceed to pass moral judgements on a God they say does not exist measuring him against the moral standards that they apparently got from neutral (amoral) nature. |
There is no reason a human can't have morals and Nature not. Morals are ideas that allow others to act in ways that serve to make their lives better. Most morals actually do make life better for a society, even if they seem to infringe upon certain, more instaneous pleasures.
Secondly, many on this board do not consider the study of nature's rules to be the true religion, or any religion at all. They are usually (I won't say always) pointing out fact. As an agnostic myself, I don't hold with athiesm, but it's not a religion. |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
| kermo wrote: |
| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
| The first time I ever opened a Bible, my eyes fell on a passage that said basically "Thou shalt not suffer a Jew to live. Jews think they're God's chosen people, but they march in the army of Satan." Something like that. It was an 18th century family Bible and I haven't been able to find documentation of it. |
That's pretty wild. I have never read anything resembling that, and have no idea how or where that would appear in the Bible. |
I think it was removed sometime after the 18th century. Pretty sure it was somewhere near the back. Anyway, the Bible still says basically the same thing about witches, doesn't it? |
Are you sure that you remembered it accurately? Human memory is a funny thing. As a former psychology major, I learned that, unlike a tape or a DVD, memories are stored in different parts of the brain (the one responsible for sight, hearing, etc.). Everytime we remember, the different brain areas work to put their pieces together. Human memory is known to be faulty. Just saying, that's all.
Here are two passages about liars, pretending to be Jews, serving in Satan's Grand Army of Naughty People:
| Revelation 2:9 wrote: |
King James Version (KJV)
I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
New International Version (NIV)
I know your afflictions and your poverty�yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
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| Revelation 3:9 wrote: |
King James Version (KJV)
Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.
New International Version (NIV)
I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars�I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. |
And maybe they got a little mixed up with ...
| Exodus 22:18 wrote: |
King James Version (KJV)
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
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