mesquite wrote:Pardon me for jumping in, but I have a question.
Implicator wrote:Well don't just stop there, Frank
there is a whole lot more to Eden then you are sharing. This god then sends his son as payment for the sin that Adam committed in the garden, and that became part of the nature of all of us (according to this story). The *thrust* of Eden (since you have changed the rules, I will now adopt the new ones) was to be the first step in a demonstration of his love whereby he sends this son to pay for the sins these people committed. The fact that Jesus dies a terrible death at the hands of the murderous elite of the day is (according to the new rules) irrelevant, because the *thrust* of this god's sending his son was an action of love.
Did God really say that? Sure sounds like a strange way to show love, torturing your son and all in a sacrifice to yourself. You are just trying to mess with us. right?
The very concept of sin comes from the bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?
Dan Barker
Losing Faith in Faith
P
Pat myself on the back? What for? I've had a great professional career, and I've been retired since 1998, and enjoying my life with world travel. I don't need to prove anything to anybody - especially you and your ilk.
Your christianity is showing by "...you might break your arm..." How christian of you! LOL
Pauligirl wrote:mesquite wrote:Pardon me for jumping in, but I have a question.
Implicator wrote:Well don’t just stop there, Frank … there is a whole lot more to Eden then you are sharing. This god then sends his son as payment for the sin that Adam committed in the garden, and that became part of the nature of all of us (according to this story). The *thrust* of Eden (since you have changed the rules, I will now adopt the new ones) was to be the first step in a demonstration of his love whereby he sends this son to pay for the sins these people committed. The fact that Jesus dies a terrible death at the hands of the murderous elite of the day is (according to the new rules) irrelevant, because the *thrust* of this god’s sending his son was an action of love.
Did God really say that? Sure sounds like a strange way to show love, torturing your son and all in a sacrifice to yourself. You are just trying to mess with us. right?
The very concept of sin comes from the bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?
Dan Barker
Losing Faith in Faith
P
The concept of sin does not come from the bible. It comes from man. Christianity did not make the problem. It tried to solve it. Sorry, but your knife/bandage analogy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
cicerone imposter wrote:Pat myself on the back? What for? I've had a great professional career, and I've been retired since 1998, and enjoying my life with world travel. I don't need to prove anything to anybody - especially you and your ilk.
Your christianity is showing by "...you might break your arm..." How christian of you! LOL
C.I.,
I may be a Christian but I am still a human being. You goad and goad and goad and goad and then when someone finally has enough and snaps back in the slightest you act like you are Mr. Innocent.
Uh, did you check out that definition of fear I posted in the other thread? I haven't heard a response about that.
cicerone imposter wrote:Pat myself on the back? What for? I've had a great professional career, and I've been retired since 1998, and enjoying my life with world travel. I don't need to prove anything to anybody - especially you and your ilk.
Your christianity is showing by "...you might break your arm..." How christian of you! LOL
Yes, it was Christian of her. She saw that you may do harm to yourself and she tried to warn you. Mighty nice of her if you ask me.
Your biography is not the issue here. How does your world travel lead into not having to prove anything to MA and her "ilk" Given your spelling record, I am just wondering if you meant elk? ;-)
Many modern translators prefer the straightforward sin. In English, this is the oldest of the three words, from the Old English syn and dating to c. 825. It has cognates in other Germanic languages and it may be related to the Latin sons, meaning guilty.
There is a belief that sin derives from some archery term meaning to miss the target. This tale stems from confusion and misunderstanding of preachers giving Sunday sermons. The English word sin has no such etymology. The Greek hamartia, however, can literally mean to fall short or miss, especially in the archery context. Preachers sometimes use this Greek etymology as a sermon illustration and people confuse it with the etymology of the English word. The sermon illustration, however, is somewhat flawed. By the time of Christ the archery sense of hamartia was obsolete, so the sermon illustration is anachronistic. To Christ and his contemporaries it would simply mean a violation of God's law.
cicerone imposter wrote:Many modern translators prefer the straightforward sin. In English, this is the oldest of the three words, from the Old English syn and dating to c. 825. It has cognates in other Germanic languages and it may be related to the Latin sons, meaning guilty.
There is a belief that sin derives from some archery term meaning to miss the target. This tale stems from confusion and misunderstanding of preachers giving Sunday sermons. The English word sin has no such etymology. The Greek hamartia, however, can literally mean to fall short or miss, especially in the archery context. Preachers sometimes use this Greek etymology as a sermon illustration and people confuse it with the etymology of the English word. The sermon illustration, however, is somewhat flawed. By the time of Christ the archery sense of hamartia was obsolete, so the sermon illustration is anachronistic. To Christ and his contemporaries it would simply mean a violation of God's law.
So, you don't agree with Pauligirl that sin comes from the Bible?
Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:
The concept of sin does not come from the bible. It comes from man. Christianity did not make the problem. It tried to solve it. Sorry, but your knife/bandage analogy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Define sin.
P
Sin is estrangement from God. Now before you go all fluttery and claim that you were right about the bible.... Adam and Eve commited the first sin against God. Therefore, man created the sin. The bible only records the event for us. The bible did not create it.
Intrepid wrote:Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:
The concept of sin does not come from the bible. It comes from man. Christianity did not make the problem. It tried to solve it. Sorry, but your knife/bandage analogy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Define sin.
P
Sin is estrangement from God. Now before you go all fluttery and claim that you were right about the bible.... Adam and Eve commited the first sin against God. Therefore, man created the sin. The bible only records the event for us. The bible did not create it.
The concept of sin most certainly does come from the bible. Without God and the bible, there would be no sin --under your definition.
P
Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:
The concept of sin does not come from the bible. It comes from man. Christianity did not make the problem. It tried to solve it. Sorry, but your knife/bandage analogy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Define sin.
P
Sin is estrangement from God. Now before you go all fluttery and claim that you were right about the bible.... Adam and Eve commited the first sin against God. Therefore, man created the sin. The bible only records the event for us. The bible did not create it.
The concept of sin most certainly does come from the bible. Without God and the bible, there would be no sin --under your definition.
P
If there was no bible, the sin would still be there. A book does not make sin. God would still be God if there was no bible.
Intrepid wrote:Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:
The concept of sin does not come from the bible. It comes from man. Christianity did not make the problem. It tried to solve it. Sorry, but your knife/bandage analogy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Define sin.
P
Sin is estrangement from God. Now before you go all fluttery and claim that you were right about the bible.... Adam and Eve commited the first sin against God. Therefore, man created the sin. The bible only records the event for us. The bible did not create it.
The concept of sin most certainly does come from the bible. Without God and the bible, there would be no sin --under your definition.
P
If there was no bible, the sin would still be there. A book does not make sin. God would still be God if there was no bible.
You're missing the point. It's a Christian concept. Without God and the bible, there would be no sin --under your definition.
P
Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:Pauligirl wrote:Intrepid wrote:
The concept of sin does not come from the bible. It comes from man. Christianity did not make the problem. It tried to solve it. Sorry, but your knife/bandage analogy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Define sin.
P
Sin is estrangement from God. Now before you go all fluttery and claim that you were right about the bible.... Adam and Eve commited the first sin against God. Therefore, man created the sin. The bible only records the event for us. The bible did not create it.
The concept of sin most certainly does come from the bible. Without God and the bible, there would be no sin --under your definition.
P
If there was no bible, the sin would still be there. A book does not make sin. God would still be God if there was no bible.
You're missing the point. It's a Christian concept. Without God and the bible, there would be no sin --under your definition.
P
Without Betty Crocker and cookbooks, there would still be meals
Without Abbot and Costello, there would still be humour
Momma Angel wrote:Frank Apisa Wrote:
Quote:I thank you from the bottom of my heart for asking this, Endymion. Please do read my response through carefully. There are lots of points in this reply to your questions that I would love for you to give special consideration.
Much of this give and take nonsense with these people is indeed frustrating, Endymion...I freely acknowledge that. But this is a war that has to be fought.
Religion...superstition...is a cancer growing in the human evolutionary body. If it is not excised...it will kill that evolution...stop it in its tracks...like Implicator brags he is here to stop me and this thread in its tracks.
It simply has to be fought.
I derive as much pleasure as possible from everything I do. This give and take with these good folk is no different...and I have simply trained myself to deal with the frustration. Fact is, "dealing with the frustration" has become a direct source of pleasure and delight for me. One lesson among many, if you will, on how to deal with life.
In any case, while I recognize...as you do...that they have been indoctrinated and brainwashed...that they are operating from blind, numbing (and unfortunately, unrecognized) fear...and that, in a sense, they are not listening because they don't want to hear...I look past all that.
Mark my words well...(and this is the reason that their pastors, ministers, priests and rabbi would counsel them to avoid sites like A2K's religion forum)...
...there is a part of them that cannot tune out what is being said and raised here.
No matter how indoctrinated, brainwashed and fear-driven...there is a level of consciousness in them that IS listening...is learning...is processing...and is assimilating everything being pointed out here.
All of this stuff is brewing deep inside them...and eventually, for most of them, it will percolate through to their conscious brains. (I often tell them that I hope that the epiphany does not come while they are repairing a roof...or defusing a bomb...because more than likely, it will stagger them.)
Like a fly sitting on a table about to be swatted and not realizing it already is dead...they are already changed, but just don't know it yet.
Never give up this good fight, Endymion.
Keep coming back at them.
Do not allow the frustration to defeat you. Put it to better use. Allow it to become an opportunity for growth in this area.
Sorry to have any part of what I've said here sound like a lecture. I'd be preaching to the choir if I did that to you. I'm sure you realize that much of what I've had to say here is not entirely directed toward you...but is part of the subliminal operations in which I am engaged.
A lot of the times I am amazed at the posts on these threads. Sometimes I am even amused. This one? Whew. Frank, are you on a crusade here or what?
Seems to me you might be getting awfully close to that fanaticism (in the opposite direction of course) that you accuse of Christians of.
Indoctrinated? Brainwashed? Fear-driven? Who in the world are you talking about? Frank, you make such judgements.
Frank, we don't need you as our savior. We already have one.
I was responding to what Endymion wrote, MA.
Keep up. We're going as slowly as possible.
Intrepid wrote:Frank Apisa wrote:Intrepid wrote:Your challenge has been met and exceeded, Frank. You asked for passages and you got passages. Now you want to extend the passage to include the entire chapter.
You should stop pretending that your challenge has not been met. It has.
Live with it.
So far you two have come up with one woman getting pregnant...as your example of the god of the Bible being all those good things you say it is.
You wanted to pass off the "garden of Eden" and the "Noah" fiascos as examples of it being decent...but that is too laughable for words. In the first case...Adam and Eve were set up for a fall...and the god punished the entire of humanity for their naive error. In the second...the god slaughtered every last human and animal on the planet except for Noah, his family, and the animals on his ark.
You two are too silly to take seriously.
You grow tiresome, Frank. Go back and read what you asked and what you were given. You got what you asked for. Don't make it something that it is not. Your childish barbs are just an example of your lack of convincing argument on anything that you write. You are drowning in your own self importance. You are in the real world now, Frank. This is not Abuzz.
You are the one using "barbs" Intrepid...not me.
And if you are bothered that I am laughing at you two for suggesting that your god punishing the entire of humanity for one error by Adam...and then drowning everyone on the planet...
..is an example of it being kind, compassionate, and humanity loving...
...what can I say.
Develop a sense of humor...because this is one of the most comical assertions I've ever heard in this forum.
Pauligirl wrote:mesquite wrote:Pardon me for jumping in, but I have a question.
Implicator wrote:Well don't just stop there, Frank
there is a whole lot more to Eden then you are sharing. This god then sends his son as payment for the sin that Adam committed in the garden, and that became part of the nature of all of us (according to this story). The *thrust* of Eden (since you have changed the rules, I will now adopt the new ones) was to be the first step in a demonstration of his love whereby he sends this son to pay for the sins these people committed. The fact that Jesus dies a terrible death at the hands of the murderous elite of the day is (according to the new rules) irrelevant, because the *thrust* of this god's sending his son was an action of love.
Did God really say that? Sure sounds like a strange way to show love, torturing your son and all in a sacrifice to yourself. You are just trying to mess with us. right?
The very concept of sin comes from the bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?
Dan Barker
Losing Faith in Faith
P
PauliGirl
Can you get over this guy suggesting that the god is good, kind, and humanity loving...
...and attempts to show that by saying the god punishes everyone in the world for one man's innocent error...
...and then is willing to relent if humanity will first torture and kill its son????
How do they do that to these people?
The brainwashers in "The Manchurian Candidate" couldn't do that good a job!
From the LA Times yesterday:
======
The dark side of faith
By ROSA BROOKS
IT'S OFFICIAL: Too much religion may be a dangerous thing.
This is the implication of a study reported in the current issue of the Journal of Religion and Society, a publication of Creighton University's Center for the Study of Religion. The study, by evolutionary scientist Gregory S. Paul, looks at the correlation between levels of "popular religiosity" and various "quantifiable societal health" indicators in 18 prosperous democracies, including the United States.
Paul ranked societies based on the percentage of their population expressing absolute belief in God, the frequency of prayer reported by their citizens and their frequency of attendance at religious services. He then correlated this with data on rates of homicide, sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, abortion and child mortality.
He found that the most religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. Of the nations studied, the U.S. ?- which has by far the largest percentage of people who take the Bible literally and express absolute belief in God (and the lowest percentage of atheists and agnostics) ?- also has by far the highest levels of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
This conclusion will come as no surprise to those who have long gnashed their teeth in frustration while listening to right-wing evangelical claims that secular liberals are weak on "values." Paul's study confirms globally what is already evident in the U.S.: When it comes to "values," if you look at facts rather than mere rhetoric, the substantially more secular blue states routinely leave the Bible Belt red states in the dust.
Murder rates? Six of the seven states with the highest 2003 homicide rates were "red" in the 2004 elections (Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina), while the deep blue Northeastern states had murder rates well below the national average. Infant mortality rates? Highest in the South and Southwest; lowest in New England. Divorce rates? Marriages break up far more in red states than in blue. Teen pregnancy rates? The same.
Of course, the red/blue divide is only an imperfect proxy for levels of religiosity. And while Paul's study found that the correlation between high degrees of religiosity and high degrees of social dysfunction appears robust, it could be that high levels of social dysfunction fuel religiosity, rather than the other way around.
Although correlation is not causation, Paul's study offers much food for thought. At a minimum, his findings suggest that contrary to popular belief, lack of religiosity does societies no particular harm. This should offer ammunition to those who maintain that religious belief is a purely private matter and that government should remain neutral, not only among religions but also between religion and lack of religion. It should also give a boost to critics of "faith-based" social services and abstinence-only disease and pregnancy prevention programs.
We shouldn't shy away from the possibility that too much religiosity may be socially dangerous. Secular, rationalist approaches to problem-solving emphasize uncertainty, evidence and perpetual reevaluation. Religious faith is inherently nonrational.
This in itself does not make religion worthless or dangerous. All humans hold nonrational beliefs, and some of these may have both individual and societal value. But historically, societies run into trouble when powerful religions become imperial and absolutist.
The claim that religion can have a dark side should not be news. Does anyone doubt that Islamic extremism is linked to the recent rise in international terrorism? And since the history of Christianity is every bit as blood-drenched as the history of Islam, why should we doubt that extremist forms of modern American Christianity have their own pernicious and measurable effects on national health and well-being?
Arguably, Paul's study invites us to conclude that the most serious threat humanity faces today is religious extremism: nonrational, absolutist belief systems that refuse to tolerate difference and dissent.
My prediction is that right-wing evangelicals will do their best to discredit Paul's substantive findings. But when they fail, they'll just shrug: So what if highly religious societies have more murders and disease than less religious societies? Remember the trials of Job? God likes to test the faithful.
To the truly nonrational, even evidence that on its face undermines your beliefs can be twisted to support them. Absolutism means never having to say you're sorry.
And that, of course, is what makes it so very dangerous.
====
That is fascinating, Joe.
Frank,
I knew who you were responding to. You call us brainwashed and hard-headed. What do you call it when we give you our take on God and you continaullay try to tell us we are wrong and He is as your take on things depicts Him to be.
You make statements like it is your moral duty, etc., to rid the world, etc. You are making judgements about us. You are trying to decide for us. That is what I don't like. We don't try to decide for you. We give you our take and things and it is up to you to accept it or not. We don't tell you it's our moral duty to cram it down your throat or to try to change your rights.
That is what you are doing to us, Frank. You are putting yourself in the position of trying to save us from our religion. Frank, we don't need you to save us. We are already saved.
If you want freedom from religion, why do you continue surrounding yourself with it?
