Iustificati
Xiam
I really don't have time for this s**t tonight.
I'm here all week.
mrgreen
Alright. I've gotten a good four-ish hours of sleep, and I'm not in the middle of playing Monster Hunter (which is immensely more fun than talking to nutjobs on Gaia), so let's give this a shot.
Iustificati
Xiam
You
do realize you're a fallable human being, right?
As were the authors of the Bible.
Goddammit, I misspelled "fallible." Sorry, off-topic.
Iustificati
If you truly believe that God didn't divinely inspire the Bible, I encourage you to research the painstaking work put into its preservation.
Into preserving
the Bible? So like...
translation preservation? Because that s**t is kind of off-kilter. What's more, I'm not talking about
preservation. Preservation is a matter of the reverence of those who follow its words, not a matter of the creation itself. What's worse, there are
plenty of scientific and historical errors in the Bible, not even related to the whole Creationism nonsense. Still, as an example, let's look at
Genesis 1:14-19...
Quote:
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,[a] and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Two problems here. First, who is using these signs? Man isn't going to be around for another two days, even in this myth, and humans all around the world use many different methods to mark the seasons. The Egyptians didn't even need the sky for that, they followed the Nile's annual flooding and receding to mark when it was time to plant their crops. And not even getting into the fact that
light and darkness, and day and night, were both made on the first day, there's still the issue of the moon being treated as a "light" at night, when it's actually
reflecting light. What's worse, it's not always
out at night. For half a lunar month, it's actually out during the
day. And sometimes it's gone altogether.
Need more? Leviticus 11:13-19, birds that are unclean. Vultures, ravens, owls, alright, yada yada... wait, what's this? The
bat? But bats are
mammals! Furthermore, 11:6, it lists
rabbits as chewing cud. Which they do not.
I'm actually starting to wear down now, but
here are some
links if you are interested in more. Moving on to the big one.
Iustificati
Learn about prophecy... it's not the shoddy, self-contradicting piece of garbage that popular culture purports it to be. It proves itself. You might look back now and be unimpressed by the tons and tons of prophecies that have
already been proven to have been correct, but it's enough for me not to question it. And no, it's not a clever backdating trick. Even modern scholars admit that copies of the books that comprise the Bible precede the events they prophesied.
This is always
hilarious when people bring it up. "But it's
consistent! It
proves itself! No. It doesn't. It really doesn't. The "fulfilled" prophecy about a virgin birth? Not about an actual virgin, but a young woman. And not about Mary either. Also it mentioned a son named Emmanuel. Know who isn't called Emmanuel?
Jesus.
Speaking of Jesus, the Messiah was supposed to be something of a warrior-king. In fact, there are other people who have come along that actually fit the prophecy of the Messiah
better than Jesus. It's actually a bit strange that the Cult of Jesus of Nazareth survived, to be honest, given the track record and death of its supposed Messiah. But somehow they managed to bullshit people into thinking his death was "all part of the plan." Which, by the way, was never a part of the prophecy.
Actually... now that I think of it... that bit I linked above, the Wikipedia segment about the Jewish view of unfulfilled prophecies...
Quote:
Christian apologists claim that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies, which they argue are nearly impossible to fulfill by chance.
Now... call me skeptic, but there
is an alternative to this. Nearly impossible to fulfill by chance, but
incredibly easy to fulfill by fabrication.
But you know... something funny about a book which supposedly fulfills all the same prophecies it comes up with... I could say that
Macbeth is divinely inspired, because the prophecies of the Weird Sisters come true. Within Macbeth. But, of course, they were witches, and probably in league with the Devil. And the prophecies of Greek myth, those were done with the assistance of "false gods," so I don't suppose they count either? Still...
prophecy.
Also, Harry Potter fulfilled the prophecy about the Chosen One who would lead to the downfall of the Dark Lord Voldemort. All hail the Boy Who Lived!
But what about the
real world? The world outside of literature and prophecies fulfilled within the text itself? Funny thing. The Bible mentions the End of Days coming sometime before those who
lived at the time of Jesus died. Supposedly, as spoken
by Jesus himself. What's more, the most damning prophecies concerning that period
haven't happened yet. And those that supposedly have are so vague that they could be taken to mean
anything. Nostradamus had a knack for something very similar.
Where's Wormwood? Where's the Mark of the Beast? Are you aware that most of Revelation is a thinly veiled attack on the Roman Empire? Are you aware that the Roman Empire is
gone now? Does this mean we're in the New Kingdom now? Should we be awaiting the Next Testament of the Bible? Because we seem to be lacking on new divine guidance.
(After all, if the Word of God was perfect and didn't need any further interpretation or addition...
why did we have the New Testament? Why did we need Jesus at all?)
Iustificati
As for my own human nature, well... lol. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that I've been able to comprehend any bit of it. I'm a pretty smart guy as far as book smarts go, but the Gospel is tricky when you try to go it alone. Neither the creation or the comprehension are the result of my work.
So basically you don't ******** know. Your "power of the Holy Spirit" is an excuse to interpret however the hell you want, because you
feel it should be this way. Just as I could claim that with my above reference to Harry Potter, that series was divinely inspired. No evidence for him, you say?
We have the books about his life to prove it! And I don't have to prove it to you, you have to disprove it to
me! Or you should do your
research on Harry Potter. King's Cross is an actual train station. London is a real place. Things
exist! Everything else, you just have to take on faith, right? Allow the Holy Spirit of Magic into your heart, and you will understand
everything.
I've been told I'm pretty smart too. I say "I've been told," because I've already established it as being less about
smart, and more about that I've made an effort to learn as much as possible... and, that my brain never shuts up. I'm
constantly thinking, and it's kind of become a burden upon me. But it, along with the knowledge I've gathered, has led me down various interesting avenues of philosophical and religious study.
And I learned it from
many scholars.
Something you said before, that I'm sorry that I missed commenting on at the time.
Iustificati
Change isn't necessarily progress...
I beg to differ. I'll never be the first to claim novelty is improvement - all those infomercials for gadgets that supposedly simplify your life are largely gimmicky bullshit. However, look at the progress we've made over the past hundred years alone, in sanitation, medicine, genetics, astronomy, chemistry, physics, law, technology... s**t, even though our environment is going to Hell in a handbasket, even energy production and use has improved. Somewhat.
We understand our place in the world so much better than we once did. And that was because we looked to the study of others, scrutinized, improved, and passed it on.
"If I have seen further it is by
standing on the shoulders of giants."
Change is not always progress. But neither is stagnant adherence to
tradition. Things are not always better because they are old. They have only withstood the test of time because of stubborn anti-intellectuals who think that anything new is evil, and have convinced others of the same. It's the same type of issue that leads to old people to find themselves befuddled and mistrustful of technology, and leads to the old cliche of an old man who thinks teens are much more disrespectful and corrupt than kids were back in the Good Old Days when
he was a disrespectful and corrupt piece of s**t.
Iustificati
Edited for clarity and use of real-life words.
As opposed to what, Elvish?
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