by minimus 64 Replies latest jw friends
so you pick and choose which parts to believe and which parts to view as "stories". Convenient.
Not to speak for anyone, but if a person does NOT believe that the bible is "error proof" why wouldn't they pick and choose which parts seem to them to be the true representation of thier chosen belief system?
happyguy,
No, I do not pick and choose which parts of the bible I accept as true. But, I realize that some parts of the bible are allegories, so in a sense they are not true the way some would think of truth, but still they are stories that teach literal moral truths and principles God wants us to know, and I accept them as such.
I made that specific point because if not, and I just said yes to the Q posed, I am sure the non believers in the bible would have taken the opportunity to jump all over me and tell me how stupid I am for believing in the OT stories such of the flood, Adam and Eve being tempted by a talking snake, johah and the whale, etc. As these threads seem to illicit that response on this forum.
So while I do not accept some bible accounts as "literal", I do accept them as teaching literal truths and good moral principles.
And I indeed accept the prophecies of God as spoken by him to his prophets and the testimony of Jesus Christ to be 100% true, literal and accurate.
And I will reiterate my statment that since man ultimately interprets the Bible for himself and since man is not infallible, his interpretation of the bible cannot be either. I think this is really where the biggest problem arises as far as the bible is concerned and is the reason people Q the Bible's accuracy and truthfullness.
Thanks for the opportunity to help me clear up my original statement. Peace, Lilly
I was going to post a long string of just laughter, but it's kind of sad when you think about it.
The Bible is a future mythology, really no different from the stories of Zeus or Thor or Isis. The sad part is how much time, energy, effort are wasted on the Bible. How much fighting and killing over the words there has been.
Science has "beyond a reasonable doubt" proven that man evolved from the lower forms and there never was a worldwide flood in Man's time, nor even the exodus that supposedly started the Jews as a nation. Yet, we bicker over that because it's just "faith." Even my mentioning it will derail the subject here most likely.
I was young, in the U.S. military, visiting Greece. I asked a tourguide if anyone still believed in Apollo or Zeus or any of them. She provided the long string of laughter. "How silly. Of course not. We realize that it was just morality stories." These same people accept the Jesus story.
Christmas is pagan, but so is every last thing. Christianity, itself- that is pagan in it's roots. The Jews worshipped many gods and that Yahweh fellow won out when his priests were allowed to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem when they were released from Babylon. Everything before that time was not entirely made up, but was embellished from legends. Nobody ever lived under the Mosaic Law code and stoned people for all those minor infractions. Sure, there was a stoning here and there, but that was mob rule for some other reasons. The Law Code, if it were implemented, would lead to stonings and deaths and impossible standards.
Jesus of legends did not put an end to the Law Code because they didn't really live it. But the stories did tell of rebellion against both the Roman rule and the Yahweh priestly control over the people. They told a completely different morality story.
Sorry to get all "serious" on your thread. It's a slow day.
Yes, especially this (Gen.30:37-44): And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted... And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's...
This certainly turned out to be much more efficient than Trofim Lysenko's modern methods that were developed 3000 yrs after Jacob's succesfull experiments on inheritance. Unfortunately for himself, Lysenko did not read the Bible, so his science would fail.
OTWO,
While I understand your view point and agree on some points ( Science, flood), but most was mere speculation on your part and that is what is done on both sides, speculation.
Lil, please elaborate on the allegories.
Noah's ark and the flood? Adam, Eve and the Snake? Jonah and The Big Fish?
no but i do accept that it is 100% fiction!
yeah! Specially the part when The Prophet John Smith used the glasses to translate the plates.... wait a minute, thats the other bible
no but i do accept that it is 100% fiction!
Well said highdose.
1. Kings 7:23 is another favorite of mine (and probably well known here): And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
So the Bible claims that the value of pi=3. In that verse we thus have a statement in Bible that is absolutely wrong. It was wrong back then and it is wrong now, and it was known better in other nations in the time of writing. And there will be no new light coming in this issue.
Has the wtBtS society tried to explain this issue on the value of pi (I do not have the Insight book available)? I'm asking just to get a good laugh.
Hmm... the Einsteinian space might be curved such that the geometry changes. Maybe Jehovah's mighty presence with all his energy in the temple caused a space-time bend in the temple, so that the circumference/radius could be so much less than 3.14159... Unfortunately, the strength of the gravity required for such a bend would have crunhed the whole city, so nobody could do the measurement. Perhaps there was a black hole in the ark? Just kidding...
