The Skeptics Annotated Bible

Well, I mean absolutely no offense, but I don't believe the Bible and God are anything more than man-made inventions by a few to control the masses.

I suppose just about any two thousand year of book you could disect in such a manner. Two thousand years from now they will probably be saying the same about what we write now?

Not sure of anything that took well over 600 years to gather together and establish as the "approved" Bible has anything comparable to that now. And I'm not sure what book now people worship as the "holy words" from a deity. Do you?

What ever tickles there fancy i suppose.

I suppose:dunno:

Willie i'll truthfully say that I dont care if the bible was man made, all i care about is that it teaches people to do every good action in their power and also how to live happily and help others to live happily, can you tell me that if everybody followed those ideals then the world wouldnt be a better place?

Brent im sorry for saying something unrelated to your topic, if you could forward me what has been brought up conserning the bible(or just point me in the right direction) i would be extremely grateful.

Most opinions like the above are standard, simplistic formula replies. I would like to know what "few" are controlling what "masses"? Names please.

This (religion?) is an idea that is copied and adopted, it worked for some, others observed the results and wanted to adopt the same approach. As time passes, it evolved into a more complicated system.

That's why there is no "new religions" , as far as I know, with complicated miraculous phenomena or special super powers. Now, new religions are more of a social religion leaving the spiritual aspect to nourish on the social benefit and nothing to do with a paranormal or hocus bogus, like the ancient religion.

Allow me to elaborate, but first I would like to share with you a TV commercial.

A kid asks his father, How do these (local brand) tissues absorb all the water spilled on the table...... the father unexpecting this question comes up with this answer: every tissue contains hundreds of small elephants that suck the water dry. The kid looks with doubting eyes but has a smile on his face. The kid is maybe 5.

How does this relate to "few" controlling what "masses"?

Simple:

The kid asks about a mystery he does not understand. The father has to give an answer. Why does he have to give an answer? The kid expects his father to know, and he is told always that his father and mother know, same thing as everyone else ,except him and his friends and those of the same age.

The father, probably knows why the tissue absorbs the water, might even know the technical aspect of artificial tissues which lead it to absorb more than natural tissues and how it progressed to what we had today.

But, he did not explain this to the kid. The kid will not understand the technical aspect and what is synthetic, artificial and natural and how each is made and why and when and where. Why do I assume the kid will not understand, because he is young i.e.:limited experience, knowledge and capability to logic. His brain at this stage is not able to relate al the subjects so he can see the bigger picture.


Who is the father and who is the kid?

The father is the "few" and the "masses" are the kid.


Once the masses "kid" gain enough knowledge, attitude will change. Simple answers will not be accepted.

The masses will become more inquisitive.

Some will try to find some proofs that there are small elephants, ( due to their love of who told them the story, due to the happiness they experienced while believing in this or due to them being employed in the little elephant agency and ofcourse there is the usual aspect of being naked of the beleif in blue elephant which they followed with million others for years and years), some will realise that the answer they were given was not true and will understand it is all following a natural law which is explained by science. Some will choose to tell the same story they were told to their kids, some will try to simplify their discovery in a way that a kid can understand.

Some might even try to replace the little elephants with some very tiny flying peter pans who rush to empty the water from their very tiny ship. Than we have a new religion/product, which is answers where the water is gone.


Does this help?

Nice first post. My first question would be. Why is this senario set up with a lie by the father to his child? In a comparison to religion this theory you have set up indicatate's the the church is lieing to it's followers. To believe this i would need proof of this charade and not proof of someone making a wrong explanation but some true malice intent. Some thing conspiracys are made of?

It's a nice explanation none the less.

A true Father doesnt lie to his child. At any rate the Father will live what he believes so the child will learn from example.

"Raise up your child in the way you want him to go and when he is old he will not depart from it"

:thumbup:

I think we really diverted from the topic, maybe someone should start a new topic and we can then discuss with examples how is it that we, the masses, were lied to and controlled by the few, the organised religion.


Until then, here I go:


This father did not do anything different that any of you had done ,or will do. How many of you told kids 3-5, that there is no father xmas? None!

Is there a father xmas? No (if you beleive there is a father xmas, plz put me on your ignore list)

Why lie then? Because the benefit of this lie is much greater than the truth. Same thing did the father in my scenario.

Lets expand the father xmas scenario:

There is no father xmas, there were never a father xmas that came down the chemny and put present in socks for the good children.

On the other hand, saying that there is a father xmas, encourages the little monkies to behave ,sometimes. Telling them that if you do what we (parents/religious-agent) tell you, we will put a good word with father xmas.

- Hey guess what, there are some presents under the tree. I wonder who got presents to someone that has been a good kid
- Oh look, they even got the same present I wanted (sometimes)

This illusion keeps on going on until either you run out of money, the kid catches you buying or putting the present, or until they realise there is no father xmas thanks to their friend from the playground or an older kid.

Same with religion, it lives on our ignorance, insecurity and want(need) for there to be a big brother watching over us. Freud related that to the human need of a father figure, all mighty,strong and protective. The kind of father that will always forgive me and help me if I ask him and promise him to do as he said.

[HTML]wrong explanation OR some true malice intent[/HTML]

This is a good point, but you need to explain what you consider malicious intent.....................


To this day, almost all religions require donations. With excuses from helping the poor to spreading the true word. Helping the poor and needy sounds like a noble cause, so why not.
But what I am being told is that as a good adherent of my religion, and a good member of this congregation, it is my duty to donate, otherwise I will be questioned in the day of judgements why I did not help when I could have.

Sounds logical so far and very socially constructive.

But, I discover that these needy being helped are being blackmailed into joining and accepting my(organised religion)version of the truth in exchange for being helped!

So, in reality, although it is very noble,honourable and socially constructive to give donation to help the poor, this is not what is taking place.
I personally find it very malicious that I am contributing to buying the poor and needy into my group by exchanging help with their joining.

When this becomes normal, and another religious group follows suit, suddenly we have to lable them as evil doers because they are taking potential members away of my group.

Should the whole purpose not be to help those less priveledged?

Wrong explanation or malice, this case is pure malice, even if it leads to more ppl being "saved" by accepting "my" version of what or who god is. This is assuming there is a god.

The malice is clear, simply by liying and telling me there is a god, and be being fooled into beleiving this, than anything you get out of my beleif is malice. Your original intention was to make sure I beleive ,than you get the authority to control. You decide how I go to heaven. How is that? simply you tell me this book is the only answer, and i can not get it from amazon I have to buy it from you even if it is more expensive, why is that? coz some of the extra money goes to help the poor. Here we go again. More like a circle of deception than a circle of life!



Is a drunk-driver who kills someone responsable or not.According to the law, no. They are responsable of being drunk and driving but not of killing since there were not "intent" to kill. But at the end the result is the same.

You are using a similar analogy, maybe someone tried to explain religion using wrong information or wrong data, but they did not intend to lie, they just wanted you to beleive and be saved. So when later you discover they lied, you are expected to look at their motive (save you) and not their action(lie)!

And still they can not proof that there is anything later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it is a bet ! you are betting on number 7, and when do you kn ow if you won is when your race ends and you die!!!!

Maybe who ever thought about creating a big figure "god" had good intentions. It might have been an idea to say there is a huge guy that lives on the clouds (where we can't see) and he does not like that you go and steel. it worked on some of the theives and they stopped. But some did not, than a more advanced idea, the big huge guy in the clouds is going to punish us (who we beleive in him) because we are not stopping the other theives!

This keeps on evolving until you get to what we have today. So who came up with the original idea of the guy in the cloud? A smart guy, cold even be one of the theives who wanted to cut down the competition and later on things went wrong. It could be that it was one of the victims.


Did I miss something?


Here is a good thought from a book called 'small gods'. There is a gods graveyard, where all the dead gods stay. Why are they in a graveyard if gods do not die? well they are dead since there is no one that beleives in them.

Well...Thing is, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ive won.

Like i said, some kind of conspriracy. Ron Al Hubbard rings a bell.

Ron Hubbard malice intent, would you explain?

Fiction writer who starts his own religion, scientoligy. With the interest to make easy money. If you would like a few examples use your search button. I have a few links but i would have to find them.

God and the Bible are quite confusing.

In one part God gives Moses the Ten Commandments - with one of the Commandments being "Do not Kill".

Yet in another part God tell Abraham to sacrifice (kill / murder) his own son to prove his commitment to God.

I said it before and I will say it again - God is one sick dude.

Yes we know any if you were God, you'd be much more benevolent.