It's full of moral lessons and commandments... in the same way that Aesop is. Or maybe Asimov. I Robot doesn't say 'you should use these laws implementing robots'
You're betting your immortal soul on that? Think very carefully...the fires of hell await all those who get it wrong.
Me? I think the chances of getting it right by reading The Bible are so ridiculously slim that I don't even bother. I might as well have a few good years on Earth before the demons get me.
Who knows? Satan might even like me for what I did here on Earth and promote me to floor manager. Your ass is mine for all eternity...
Everything in the OP's approach requires a belief in sola Sciptura, because he thinks that the Bible has a plain meaning that he and his Christian interlocutor can reach just by looking at the text, without consulting a canon of interpretation.
a) God gave us free will but not enough brainpower to understand his book?
b) Why is the book written as if it has a plain meaning? It has some very direct commands. If I can't take a phrase like "Thou shalt not kill" at face value then the book seems totally worthless to me.
You're accusing me of cherry picking and in the same breath throwing away the entire Old Testament as irrelevant to your personal interpretation of Christianity.
> The whole point of Christianity is to get into Heaven.... The Bible is only your Guide for doing so.
lol, way to read through. Remember this: "Catholics believe that sacred scripture and sacred tradition preserved and interpreted by the Magisterium are both necessary for attaining to the fullest understanding of all of God's revelation" Funny how that's distinctly not 'only the Bible'.
Well...that's the Catholics for you.
When I use the word "Christian" I don't refer to Catholics. I count Catholics as "Christian" in name only. Where does all that that worship of Mary, creation of saints, etc., come from? It's certainly not in the Bible.
If you're going to criticize it, then criticize it right. Picking a passage out of the bible is like picking some US law drafted pre-1800 without even the common law surrounding it.
I can do that, too, but generally it's not worth the effort.
Spending five minutes getting a Christian to deny his/her own holy book is about all the time I have for them these days.
Besides: "Cherry picking" is what the people in the pulpits have been doing for centuries. Why can't I do it too...?
i.e. I would never argue an English language bible is anything other than the very best human effort to translate the original language "breathed" by God.
You're saying English isn't capable of expressing the concepts of Christianity? That's laughable.
Are you saying God wasn't there to guide the hands of the translators? Not very omnipotent, is he?
The "it's only a translation" thing is a ridiculous strawman.
Which is it: a) "Thou shalt not kill" b) "Thou shalt not murder"
I've seen Christians argue this point as a justification for going to Iraq/Afghanistan.
The whole "turn the other cheek" thing doesn't apply when the US Marine Corps is bombing civilians.
Go after the Bible.... "that's just taken out of context, only relevant in the context of an ancient civilization, only an interpretation of God's word, no longer applies because Jesus, etc."
And then people like to go on about how churches pick and choose snippets from the bible...
The bible is a story book. It doesn't contain belief system or a morality, that is crafted from churches by interpretation.
Nope. The whole point of Christianity is to get into Heaven. It's a complete waste of time being a Christian otherwise. The Bible is only your Guide for doing so.
Either The Bible the literal word of god or it isn't. If it is...you'd better follow the rules. If it isn't then why did god make it? Is he a novelist in his spare time? That's ridiculous.
If you believe in God then you have to believe he's omnipotent and omnipresent. It's his book, they're his words. He was there to guide the hand of the writers and translators. It has a purpose and that purpose is for Christians to get into heaven so he can love them for all eternity.
I never mentioned evolution, I just pointed out The Bible is a load or rubbish.
eg. The great Roman census that made Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem. It never happened - we've got plenty of historians writing about Rome in that period, the receipts for the Roman Legion's underpants have survived. A massive, empire-wide census? The biggest work of bureaucracy in history? Strangely absent.
King Herod killing all the male children under two? Nobody bothered to report it to Cesar? None of the historians who documented all of Herod's public works, his buildings, etc. thought it was worth a mention? How convenient.
Yeah, it usually descends into that after about ten minutes, right after you show them a few rules they're breaking that mean they're not going to heaven - own an iPhione, eat Bacon, etc. (really? Christians aren't supposed to eat pork? The Bible is the same book as the Koran??)
At that point of the debate they'll happily tell you The Bible isn't really what Christianity is all about. Nope, it's about loving everybody and being a good person. So long as they do that they can choose to ignore their own scriptures/rules (uhuh...)
At that point I usually show the verses that make the Bible a horrible moral code. The misogynistic ones, the ones that support slavery, beating of children ("spare not the rod"), etc. I point out there's a much better moral code than that, it's called "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and it was written by Atheists.
At this point the "debate" usually ends.
When you've done it a few times it's like following a script. I'd love a well-informed riposte that made me go away and research something but Christians are depressingly unimaginative. They never really vary in their answers or the order in which they give them.
You won't convert them on the spot, but you can easily get them to deny The Bible and show that religion doesn't make moral people (murder and divorce correlate quite well with number of churches per square mile in American states).
Maybe you can plant a few seeds of doubt...and that's really the best you can hope for.
It helps if they get angry too, that means they're listening...
I dunno...the best tool for arguing with a Christian is a copy of The Bible.
Knowing The Bible better than they do is usually very very easy (I don't think many Christians have actually read it) and you only need five or six verses memorized to make the entire belief system look ridiculous.
Point to their TV/SUV and read the bit about how Jesus tells them to give all their stuff away; rich men, camels, eyes of needles, etc.
Next ask them what the ten commandments are then read Exodus 34 together, that's always a hoot.
Read some old testament "stone naughty children" verses then when they pull out the line about how Jesus makes the old testament obsolete show them Matthew 5:17-20
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Also Luke 12:23 - addressing a large crowd of people.
It's full of moral lessons and commandments ... in the same way that Aesop is. Or maybe Asimov. I Robot doesn't say 'you should use these laws implementing robots'
You're betting your immortal soul on that? Think very carefully...the fires of hell await all those who get it wrong.
Me? I think the chances of getting it right by reading The Bible are so ridiculously slim that I don't even bother. I might as well have a few good years on Earth before the demons get me.
Who knows? Satan might even like me for what I did here on Earth and promote me to floor manager. Your ass is mine for all eternity...
Everything in the OP's approach requires a belief in sola Sciptura, because he thinks that the Bible has a plain meaning that he and his Christian interlocutor can reach just by looking at the text, without consulting a canon of interpretation.
a) God gave us free will but not enough brainpower to understand his book?
b) Why is the book written as if it has a plain meaning? It has some very direct commands. If I can't take a phrase like "Thou shalt not kill" at face value then the book seems totally worthless to me.
the notion of a belief really founded on sola Scriptura is hard to imagine
Judaism?
None of them snuck in any religious references or commands from supreme beings?
I'm trying to imagine Christians doing that. I'm trying really, really hard...
You're accusing me of cherry picking and in the same breath throwing away the entire Old Testament as irrelevant to your personal interpretation of Christianity.
Sorry, but... "LOL!"
...you think the 10 commandments is something critical? It rather isn't.
LOL!
Huh?
> The whole point of Christianity is to get into Heaven. ... The Bible is only your Guide for doing so.
lol, way to read through. Remember this:
"Catholics believe that sacred scripture and sacred tradition preserved and interpreted by the Magisterium are both necessary for attaining to the fullest understanding of all of God's revelation" Funny how that's distinctly not 'only the Bible'.
Well...that's the Catholics for you.
When I use the word "Christian" I don't refer to Catholics. I count Catholics as "Christian" in name only. Where does all that that worship of Mary, creation of saints, etc., come from? It's certainly not in the Bible.
If you're going to criticize it, then criticize it right. Picking a passage out of the bible is like picking some US law drafted pre-1800 without even the common law surrounding it.
I can do that, too, but generally it's not worth the effort.
Spending five minutes getting a Christian to deny his/her own holy book is about all the time I have for them these days.
Besides: "Cherry picking" is what the people in the pulpits have been doing for centuries. Why can't I do it too...?
i.e. I would never argue an English language bible is anything other than the very best human effort to translate the original language "breathed" by God.
You're saying English isn't capable of expressing the concepts of Christianity? That's laughable.
Are you saying God wasn't there to guide the hands of the translators? Not very omnipotent, is he?
The "it's only a translation" thing is a ridiculous strawman.
Which is it:
a) "Thou shalt not kill"
b) "Thou shalt not murder"
I've seen Christians argue this point as a justification for going to Iraq/Afghanistan.
The whole "turn the other cheek" thing doesn't apply when the US Marine Corps is bombing civilians.
Go after the Bible.... "that's just taken out of context, only relevant in the context of an ancient civilization, only an interpretation of God's word, no longer applies because Jesus, etc."
Did you not read Matthew 5:17-20?
It's Jesus speaking and he's pretty clear about what happens to people who choose to ignore the Old Testament rules/regulations.
(ie. They don't go to heaven...)
Yeah, that's one of my favorites for the "god is love" people.
Little children calling God's prophet a baldy? That's a shredding!
And then people like to go on about how churches pick and choose snippets from the bible...
The bible is a story book. It doesn't contain belief system or a morality, that is crafted from churches by interpretation.
Nope. The whole point of Christianity is to get into Heaven. It's a complete waste of time being a Christian otherwise. The Bible is only your Guide for doing so.
Either The Bible the literal word of god or it isn't. If it is...you'd better follow the rules. If it isn't then why did god make it? Is he a novelist in his spare time? That's ridiculous.
If you believe in God then you have to believe he's omnipotent and omnipresent. It's his book, they're his words. He was there to guide the hand of the writers and translators. It has a purpose and that purpose is for Christians to get into heaven so he can love them for all eternity.
I never mentioned evolution, I just pointed out The Bible is a load or rubbish.
eg. The great Roman census that made Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem. It never happened - we've got plenty of historians writing about Rome in that period, the receipts for the Roman Legion's underpants have survived. A massive, empire-wide census? The biggest work of bureaucracy in history? Strangely absent.
King Herod killing all the male children under two? Nobody bothered to report it to Cesar? None of the historians who documented all of Herod's public works, his buildings, etc. thought it was worth a mention? How convenient.
etc.
Yeah, it usually descends into that after about ten minutes, right after you show them a few rules they're breaking that mean they're not going to heaven - own an iPhione, eat Bacon, etc. (really? Christians aren't supposed to eat pork? The Bible is the same book as the Koran??)
At that point of the debate they'll happily tell you The Bible isn't really what Christianity is all about. Nope, it's about loving everybody and being a good person. So long as they do that they can choose to ignore their own scriptures/rules (uhuh...)
At that point I usually show the verses that make the Bible a horrible moral code. The misogynistic ones, the ones that support slavery, beating of children ("spare not the rod"), etc. I point out there's a much better moral code than that, it's called "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and it was written by Atheists.
At this point the "debate" usually ends.
When you've done it a few times it's like following a script. I'd love a well-informed riposte that made me go away and research something but Christians are depressingly unimaginative. They never really vary in their answers or the order in which they give them.
You won't convert them on the spot, but you can easily get them to deny The Bible and show that religion doesn't make moral people (murder and divorce correlate quite well with number of churches per square mile in American states).
Maybe you can plant a few seeds of doubt...and that's really the best you can hope for.
It helps if they get angry too, that means they're listening...
I dunno...the best tool for arguing with a Christian is a copy of The Bible.
Knowing The Bible better than they do is usually very very easy (I don't think many Christians have actually read it) and you only need five or six verses memorized to make the entire belief system look ridiculous.
Point to their TV/SUV and read the bit about how Jesus tells them to give all their stuff away; rich men, camels, eyes of needles, etc.
Next ask them what the ten commandments are then read Exodus 34 together, that's always a hoot.
Read some old testament "stone naughty children" verses then when they pull out the line about how Jesus makes the old testament obsolete show them Matthew 5:17-20
etc.
DAMN! That's fugly...looks more like a building than a boat.
And the bridge full of iMacs? Fail on every level. It's just a grey table with some iMacs on it.
If you've got significant amounts of either of those in your car exhaust you should get your engine checked. Just sayin'.
Sure, but doesn't most of it go on luxuries and fancy facilities to attract students rather than actual teaching?
Sports facilities better then most professional teams, plasma TVs in every dorm room, etc.
There's a lot of PHBs who find Cisco to be "reassuringly expensive".
A bit like Oracle, et al.
Assuming algae is grown in tubes, how does the nitrogen/phosphorus go from the burning of the fuel into the air back into the tubes?
Even a non-chemist should know that no nitrogen/phosphorus comes out of car exhaust pipes .... it's all CO2 and H2O.
Wouldn't most of that nitrogen/phosphorus be recycled into the next generation of algae after extraction of the fuel?
ie. Once the cycle is started it doesn't take anywhere near that amount to keep it going.
Did you ever stop to ask yourself why a stick of dynamite is that particular shape/thickness...?
So... everybody should "get over it" just because Grizzley9 doesn't mind strangers grabbing his balls in public?
Sorry. That's not good enough in a civilized society.