The Faith & Religion mega Thread

It appears time is in fact stoppable??? Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Yes, time is easy to stop. Why, it takes no time at all . . .

Originally Posted by trickykid That's one problem with the bible. The amount of revisions it's had by people who weren't even around but felt they needed to change it to their liking. I mean, come on, King James has his own version. Line up 20 kids in a line. Whisper a phrase in the ear of one kid at the end of the line and have them pass the info down til it reaches the kid on the other end, I'd guarantee the phrase passed along does not end up being the same. That's the bible, a book of tales passed down, changed, revised over the past 2 thousand years, written by man, not a God. But trust me, if religion gives people that warm and fuzzy feeling that there's a beholder looking out over everyone, all power to them if it gives them that hope they're going someplace heavenly when they die, they're entitled to such things.

You feel that the bible is not accurate and there is no evidence that what it says is true.

I will assume that you are willing to do research into that.

I suggest the following:

The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel

and

Evidence for Christianity by Josh McDowell

I will gladly send those books to you for free.

There's only one SUN of God, and it's known world wide since the beginning of time!

Can you be more specific ?

Do you believe in santa claus down the chimney of all or the easter bunny &c, of course not (I hope) so why trick your kids until the older kids reveal? Because subconsciously when you get older, you need to be tricked! That's just sad.

Originally Posted by jamison20000e It appears time is in fact stoppable??? Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Time is the essence of every motion.
If motion disappear, time will cease to exist.

Hello Jam.

m.m.

Although the King James Bible is a beautiful masterwork of English literature, it is true that the text is, in the end, a compilation. The books that are in it (manuscripts, really ...) were selected, from among all of the manuscripts available at that time. Only those deemed to be "canonical" made the cut.

Some close-seconds made it into the Apocrypha, which appears in Catholic bibles. There are some interesting pieces, such as alternate versions and missing sections of certain books. (Also, there is some terrific story-telling in there!)

The teams that produced the KJV did keep records of their research ... they were scholars, all ... and there are a lot of discussions about their sources. Usually, they had more than one.

Teams which have produced other English translations, such as NIV, also went back to those original sources, and talked a lot about it even in the preface of their works. (Unfortunately, some of the prefaces in more recent editions have been shortened and rather "dumbed down.") They filled their texts with footnotes describing sources, and the particular English readings that they applied.

But, at the end of the day, we have ... a compilation. The authors of those texts never knew or saw each other, and were not eyewitnesses to what they described. We don't know precisely when the texts were written, nor who actually wrote (whatever is) the "original" version. Many texts were "pseudo-epigraphical," which means that they were not written by the person whose name appears on the book. (There is speculation that the author of Luke/Acts might have been a woman.) It is also plain to see that the texts have been redacted, by an unknowable number of unknown hands at unknown times.

And so, we have it: the Christian Bible. The progeny of a process that's pretty "par for the course" of all books of its kind. (Actually, far cleaner than some, since a sizable chunk of the text is a product of the Roman Empire, a literate society that had paper and other such things, and so is only a couple thousand years old.)

Does this "invalidate" it? Well, only if you intend to stuff-and-mount the thing and regard it as something other than what it, pragmatically, can possibly be. But if you simply take it for what it is, "warts and all," "inconsistencies and all," you have ... a book that has spoken to billions of people over thousands of years. Could there be "the hand of Deity" in such an accomplishment? I certainly like to think so.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Although the King James Bible is a beautiful masterwork of English literature, it is true that the text is, in the end, a compilation. The books that are in it (manuscripts, really ...) were selected, from among all of the manuscripts available at that time. Only those deemed to be "canonical" made the cut. Some close-seconds made it into the Apocrypha, which appears in Catholic bibles. There are some interesting pieces, such as alternate versions and missing sections of certain books. (Also, there is some terrific story-telling in there!) The teams that produced the KJV did keep records of their research ... they were scholars, all ... and there are a lot of discussions about their sources. Usually, they had more than one. Teams which have produced other English translations, such as NIV, also went back to those original sources, and talked a lot about it even in the preface of their works. (Unfortunately, some of the prefaces in more recent editions have been shortened and rather "dumbed down.") They filled their texts with footnotes describing sources, and the particular English readings that they applied. But, at the end of the day, we have ... a compilation. The authors of those texts never knew or saw each other, and were not eyewitnesses to what they described. We don't know precisely when the texts were written, nor who actually wrote (whatever is) the "original" version. Many texts were "pseudo-epigraphical," which means that they were not written by the person whose name appears on the book. (There is speculation that the author of Luke/Acts might have been a woman.) It is also plain to see that the texts have been redacted, by an unknowable number of unknown hands at unknown times. And so, we have it: the Christian Bible. The progeny of a process that's pretty "par for the course" of all books of its kind. (Actually, far cleaner than some, since a sizable chunk of the text is a product of the Roman Empire, a literate society that had paper and other such things, and so is only a couple thousand years old.) Does this "invalidate" it? Well, only if you intend to stuff-and-mount the thing and regard it as something other than what it, pragmatically, can possibly be. But if you simply take it for what it is, "warts and all," "inconsistencies and all," you have ... a book that has spoken to billions of people over thousands of years. Could there be "the hand of Deity" in such an accomplishment? I certainly like to think so.

This is an interesting topic to "hear about" sundialsvcs.
What could others say about it?

m.m.

The process of deciding what was canonical and what was not was actually very gradual. There was no committee sitting and sorting books into two piles; if there had been, they might well have made mistakes. It was the experience of the religious community, often over generations that decided it. Some books were always regarded as canonical. Some were dubious for a while and were gradually accepted. Some were dubious and were eventually rejected.

It was the Jewish community which created the Old Testament. They started with the five books of the Torah, added the prophets, and then gradually other writings. Initially there were two different collections, one for Palestinian Jews and one for the diaspora, translated into Greek and with some extra books in it. The latter became the earliest Christian scriptures, so the Jews dropped it. It was only in the time of Jerome that the Church reverted to using the Jewish Bible as their Old Testament, because it was found to be counter-productive to argue with Jews on the basis of books that they didn't consider canonical. The extra books then became the Apocrypha. The Catholic Church didn't want to reject them completely because they had been part of the earliest Christian scriptures.

It was the same with the New Testament. The four gospels, Acts and the letters of Paul were always accepted. Other books like the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews took longer to win their place. Others again, like the epistles of Clement, were considered and rejected.

The criterion for inclusion wasn't authorship or supposed authorship. After all, a lot of these books are anonymous and some are quite obviously the work of more than one hand. The criterion was whether the experience of the Jewish people, and later the Church, showed these books to have been genuinely inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I don't know of any other holy books that have been through anything like this kind of quality control.

Others again, like the epistles of Clement, were considered and rejected.

By whom? By the Random House Publishing Co.?

Originally Posted by malekmustaq By whom? By the Random House Publishing Co.?

No, by the whole Church, after much discussion, often over several generations. As you would have seen if you'd read my post (particularly the second sentence) in detail.

How does one, or any number of ones, test for "genuinely inspired by the Holy Spirit"? This of course assumes a Holy Spirit(s) exist, so how does one test for that? We can't even verify that Gilgamesh actually ever existed and he was described as at least partly flesh and blood. Then we have to accept or better, actually understand, that this "spirit" is an expert authority on anything. Then we have to assume we can actually be inspired by a Holy Spirit, or any non-corporeal being, and whether we will comprehend and relate or true meaning is lost in translation. I think I'll stick to falsifiable evidence and Occam.

One curious observation....it seems that during so-called biblical times God(s), Spirits, Demons, Angels, etc etc had fairly routine contact with humans, or so it is written. That this level of relationship ceased begs the question did they change policy or did humans change perspective?

Originally Posted by malekmustaq Time is the essence of every motion. If motion disappear, time will cease to exist. Hello Jam. m.m.

When motion ceases for us so to0 our time but not fairy tale...

Add: spoiler alerts ahead...

Recently I heard of this thing: http://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/about/

Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a weekly podcast reading Harry Potter, the best-selling series of all time, as if it was a sacred text. Just as Christians read the Bible, Jews the Torah and Muslims read the Quran, we are embarking on a 199-episode journey (one chapter an episode, to be released weekly) to glean what wisdom and meaning we can make from J.K. Rowling’s beloved novels.

Apparently this is not ironic. So the question of whether a text describes true events or not is mostly irrelevant for sacred texts anyway...