Jesus Camp Trailer

[<ankh>]

ahh the old tower of Baal - I referred to that earlier in the thread! Basically men where becoming so powerful God decided to go down and remove their universal translator (kind of reverse bable fish engineering).

You mean Tower Of Babel..right? Baal is the name of a demon.

[Kallima]

Why not skip to the New Testament, Luz. Personally I find it much more comprehensible. If you say your aim is to understand Christians then go for the core, which is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Kind of four different views of the same events. Like four descriptions of a football match, they will vary a bit, but they will all include the main events.

The Old Testament is a collection of writings by different people. Which writings are included in it has varied over time, place, and which particular Christian faith. It all depended on the view of assorted religious councils. Of those in the current Bible, some is part of the Hebrew canon. Some extra books which form the Apocrypha aren't. Some extra books are recognised by the Eastern Orthodox Church and probably won't be found in your Bible. Then there is the Russian Orthodox Church which has a slightly different selection again. Then there are some other writings that didn't make it into any of them. Its all a bit confusing.

[Gandelf]

Excuse me Luz, but why have you decided to pick on the Bible and not any other holy books like the Quran, for example. Isn't that discrimination?

Statements such as this:-

He's this omnipotent creature allknowing and wise but he f-cks up time after time.

...do not do anything except offend those with religious beliefs. I know I'm offended by it. If you want to disagree with religion, then by all means do, but do it in a civilised manner without insulting religious people by being rude and ill-mannered!

[Lieva]

As I keep reading God seems plain stupid.

He's this omnipotent creature allknowing and wise but he f-cks up time after time.

The LORD planted a garden to the east... east of what may I ask?! Anyways...

First of he created Adam. But he failed to realize he needed a woman?? (clever move omnipotent one)
Then he makes Eve, great! (contriary to what people believe, men and woman have exactly the same numbers of ribs, I asked a nurse).

He also created a speaking serpent before he made man and woman, who he made sneaky and "more crafty" then any other animal, who made Eve snatch the apple. Why would God put that tree there that he didnt want them to eat from?? Does this snake represent Satan? If so why did God create Satan???

He then promtly smites the serpent in the vengefull ways God seems to like so much, forcing it to eat dirt forever, but ofc we all know serpents eat mice and insects, oh well.

He also walks around in Eden yelling "where are you" for Adam, which seems strange thing to do when you know everything. He also asks what they dont, which he should already know.

actually

not sure if its factual

but you can read the 'missing' pages to the bible on the internet.
They add more to it to make sence really.
I think Adam actually dies about 200times..(i had to give up at one point. was annoying me. seriously couldnt work out why god didnt wipe us out there and then if thats the truth )

the bit about God creating a woman (for example)

Thing is..You have to remember that satan was in the garden wayy before the tree so technically he did cause alot of stuff to happen. (edit) or not...cant find the text no more <sigh>

Adam would have been fine 'without' a partner until the serpent decieved him and made him crave one.
Then he didnt have a woman but a woman called Lilith who was of the djinn (you may have heard of her) but she was feminist rights and refused to even consider being adams 2nd - so then Eve was made.

Unfortunatly that bits not in the main bible and i have no idea if its sposed to be true or not.
pity if its not cuz it explains so much such as Adams discovery of fire etc

[Sharkith]

You mean Tower Of Babel..right? Baal is the name of a demon.

ahh now you see there is some speculation that they were one and the same and that the current God was indeed an off shoot of Baal.... It all depends on which notes you read there is some evidence to suggest that both Cristianity and Islam have the same root. Not sure about the validity of the evidence though because I keep falling asleep when people mention it.

[<ankh>]

ahh now you see there is some speculation that they were one and the same and that the current God was indeed an off shoot of Baal.... It all depends on which notes you read there is some evidence to suggest that both Cristianity and Islam have the same root. Not sure about the validity of the evidence though because I keep falling asleep when people mention it.

Fair enough. But the question in that case is - do you belive in that part? If so, does religious people select the stories the want to belive in and ditch the rest?
Speaking of it - why have christians decided to belive in the bible? Apart from the parts that are indeed historial (names, places etc etc) are there anything that says that the rest is true? The answer is no (apart from the "I feel it in my heart" standard answer). So my question to you Sharkith/Gandelf is - what makes you belive that christianity is THE true religion?

Excuse me Luz, but why have you decided to pick on the Bible and not any other holy books like the Quran, for example. Isn't that discrimination?

Gandelf...how many muslims have you seen in the discussion so far? Correct me if im wrong, but most of the people in this thread live in christian countries - in that case its a natural choice in this discussion.
Oh btw - there is a question further back which I have asked you 4 times and you still havent replied to. (http://www.prydwen.net/showpost.php?p=9 ... stcount=67)

Edit: I don't doubt you feel your religion is the right choice, im not the one to say its not the right one for you. My point is, if you had grown up in a muslim land - dont you think that you would claim allah was the only one? Or if you had lived in asia you could be a follower of Buddah.

/Ankh

[Sharkith]

Fair enough. But the question in that case is - do you belive in that part? If so, does religious people select the stories the want to belive in and ditch the rest?
Speaking of it - why have christians decided to belive in the bible? Apart from the parts that are indeed historial (names, places etc etc) are there anything that says that the rest is true? The answer is no (apart from the "I feel it in my heart" standard answer). So my question to you Sharkith/Gandelf is - what makes you belive that christianity is THE true religion?

If I believed in Baal the chances are I would believe that all religion has the same source (because thats one of the messages of the story). If I believed that there was one root to all world religions then none would be special. Don't rush to put me into a box.

I find most of this deeply interesting because I am someone who studies culture and society that means I am predisposed to valuing all religious accounts as equally important for people. Unlike some here I don't rush in to destroy it at every turn because I believe that in order to adequately understand something one must first listen.

The answer to your question will vary. Some christians would point out that they don't know the mind of God and so they have no way of knowing that their religion is the only religion. For example Methodists (whose root is within the orthodox armenian tradition) have a doctrine called the 4 A's (I can only remember 3!! )
All people can be saved
All people can know they are saved
All people can know they are saved to the uttermost
(the 4 have been collapsed into the distinction between knowledge and discipline)

If you look at the first one you can read it as all people can be saved as Methodists or that all people can know their God. Wesley would have meant the former but many people today would read it as a much more liberal principle. You can see in it the potential for liberalist nothions of freedom and in fact we know that these ideas have had a significant influence on the democratic movement in the UK. Tony Benn for example is a convinced Methodist - Methodism was deeply influencial in the labour movement.

Not only this, but writiers like Kierkegaard took many of these ideas further , in particular the principle that someone could be saved to the uttermost (the belief that you could be at one with God and live totally in his will).

Kierkegaard is now recognised as one of the fore runners of existentialism.

So to be honest Ankh whilst you might not believe in religion the fact is it underpins many of your values today. What I find amusing is your desire to dismiss it when in fact we owe many of these tradations for our freedom..... Are you now going to continue to claim that our world would have been better without religion?

[<ankh>]

So to be honest Ankh whilst you might not believe in religion the fact is it underpins many of your values today. What I find amusing is your desire to dismiss it when in fact we owe many of these tradations for our freedom..... Are you now going to continue to claim that our world would have been better without religion?

It's amazing how you claim I've dismissed religion - if you check the other posts i've made in this rather long thread, I've actually said several times that I'm not here to prove that you'r wrong with your religion..Im here to let you convince me.
Who said that the world had been better without religion? Thats another thing I pointed out in another earlier post, that religion might have led to war and death..but at the same time people have had use of it to stay calm.
I do not belive in gods, spirits, ghosts, angels, demons or any other imaginary diety/creature... BUT that doesnt mean that I concider religious people to be idiots (something that I also pointed out earlier).

/Ankh

[Xest]

Sharkith what is it with your attacks on those questioning religion? Neither me nor Ankh has outright dismissed religion and on the contrary we've both stated that in some cases religions has been beneficial to humans as well as many of the moral principles being fairly good ideas. What we don't beleive is that religion has any place in modern society in that it causes more harm than good in the developed world.

Also, your last responses to me completely ignored things that had already been responded to. Could you at least take the time to read the thread before putting words into peoples mouths and then attacking them for it or making arguments that have already been covered?

[<ankh>]

Btw - if we should find life on another planet, would you still belive in the bible?

/Ankh