How are we supposed to know?
Posted on: March 17, 2009 - 2:13pm
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How are we supposed to know?
I recently made a post about how many changes the christian bible has undergone since its initial creation. And the question I ask a christian is how are we supposed to know which bible is correct? They have all been changed at one point? So if it is the word of god, then why was it changed? I specifically speak of the King James Version. That is the one that I grew up with and now after doing research outside of the bible, I discovered that it was written in 1611. So why was it altered if it is he word of god?
"Take all the heads of the people
and hang them up before the Lord
against the sun.” -- Numbers 25:4
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And I addressed this in that post.
But, let me give you another example.
A couple fans of Star Trec, decided to create a full language based on the characters called "Klingons". So if another fan decides to tweak the "Klingon language" by writing a newer different spin off, does that make Klingons real?
My point is even if you trace Christianity back to the very first writings, those writings are a spin off of the Hebrew writings which were a spin off of the polytheism of the Ugartic era of Mesopotamia. Many historians can even point to the Egyptian motifs much older that appear in the Christian bible. Such as walking on water, judgment of the dead, Maddonna and child, spitting in the eye to cure blindness, assention into heaven.
So when you say correct, I say bullshit, none of them are correct. Dissimbodied beings don't knock up girls and human flesh does not survive rigor mortis after 3 days.
This is why I do not argue the history of the writings when the magical claims, no matter who was the first to write them down, are still bullshit.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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You will never get a straight answer to this question, because it comes exceedingly close to a way of disproving the christian god. Most christians will dodge into multiple passages and all different bibles needing to be read so one can come to some fictional epiphany, regardless of the fact that every text read simply adds to the confusion and ridiculous nature of the texts in the first place.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
"Take all the heads of the people
and hang them up before the Lord
against the sun.” -- Numbers 25:4
Yes, that is a perplexing problem for Biblical literalists, isn't it? Remember, of course, that the KJV Bible is not the original either, by any measure. The Bible was written primarily in Hebrew, and, due the differences between languages, you can't translate it into English and maintain its "perfection."
You can refer to the Bible passage where 42 children were ripped apart by two bears. This is usually claimed to be a poor translation, where "young men" or, at least, "youths," would have worked better than "young children" or such. The KJV also seems to condone the argument from evil; in this case, apologists would remark that, in each case, the Hebrew term, in context, probably meant calamaties or "bad things," rather than the ethical evil.
Edit: So, to answer your question, anyone who maintains that the KJV is perfect is a moron. It's a translation for crying out loud!
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Please forgive the digression, but I want to correct this misunderstanding. The Klingon language was not made by Star Trek fans. It was created by a linguist, under contract to Paramount Pictures, as part of the "set dressing" for the third Star Trek movie. Only after he turned his notes into a book that was published as The Klingon Dictionary did Trekkies (and others) start learning it. (It turns out that the people who study it seriously enough to be able to use it in casual conversation are more likely to be language geeks than they are to be Star Trek geeks.)
We now return to the Rational Responders forum, already in progress.
Geek.
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If you fear man, you refute man by refuting God in front of man to show man that you no fear man and your fearless warrior of truth.
If you fear God your just wise.
Job28:28
You see its not a choice for you to fear God or not. It just happens. Unless your foolish and think it wont happen. Job was an honest God loving man. He was put in a situation that exposed his self righteousness, and it took lots of painful trials that I couldn't imagine going through. When you look at Job, you can only wonder how he would fear God instead of resent Him. I think it was because he was wise and understood how foolish that would be. I think he was a better man after it was all said and done. Good life lesson.
And fear of god is the main reason people are christians today. Often people say that the sacrifice of jesus shows a level of mercy and compassion that drew them to god and yet I wonder if it isn't just fear of eternal damnation. The story of Job is one of the vilest books in the bible and yet the sheeple constantly view Job as a real man of faith. If bad things had just happened to Job and he held onto his faith that would be fine. However, god was allegedly to have let satan have his way with him. Luckily, this story is as make believe as any Grimms fairytale.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
That does not answer the question I asked. And once again you used scripture to answer, scripture from an altered book, which is exactly my point.
"Take all the heads of the people
and hang them up before the Lord
against the sun.” -- Numbers 25:4
If you consider the Bible as an analogy to an OS like Windows perhaps it may help. In Windows when you have trashed your OS in some way such that it runs badly or simply errors out you can run a diagnostic program such as Norton Win doctor or Windows OneCare. You can always go back to the original source code and reload it all from disk. Problem here is there is no original source code for the Bible to run to restore the original parameters and there sure aren't any frakking diagnostics either.
No problem says the wise and wonderful Catholic Church as they are trained con artists, err magicians, I mean extensively trained theologians that have learned to understand the intention of God. They have 2000 years of indoctrination, I mean training in interpreting what they want, I mean in explaining what the God hath said. There is no reason for the common believer to understand what God has presented as it's up to them to see to it the con, I mean the intent of God's will is understood. If at some point they are backed into a corner over a particular point of scripture clearly this is an allegory and doesn't mean what your untrained mind thinks it does as you don't understand what the frak God means only they do.
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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
The kjv is just the vatican approved version, nothing else and far from the original, in fact it is easy to say there is no original bible, the torah would be the closest, but again the translation of laguage, the bridge of time, and the content of the writers must be factored in. remember the bible was not written by god homself but was influenced by god, translation, time, and human influence has changed what we deem as the bible, the bible is just a tool of religion not religion itself.
Hope this helps, if not, let me know what you are looking for, i may be able to better explain, then maybe i won't known anything nor be any help at all.
Jay
The KJV is not a "Vatican approved" translation. Quite to the contrary, it is a translation promulgated by the Anglican Church with an emphasis on translation that serves Reformation, or more properly, Calvinsitic, theology. Seven books are altogether missing while several others have been heavily edited.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
Yeah, I'm with you. I have thought about this many times. You have asked a very logical, very reasonable and very straight forward question. Why can"t someone give a logical answer- a simple direct answer or just say " I don't know." And where are all the bible scholars or clergy. When a person relies only on faith, they always run into the problem of not being able to answer questions like this, so they try to dance around it with a bunch of gobbledegook. Hope we get a good answer.