by Aussie Oz 112 Replies latest watchtower bible
Tammy: Since doing so, I started acknowledging and then removing the hypocrisy that I found in myself. I started caring about all others (not just the ones who were of benefit to me, or part of my close circle)
Thanks for your detailed reply. As I said before, I don't doubt that you are a kind person and were before you became a Christian.
You are a better person than me. I am aware of the the hypocrisy in myself but it suits me to hold on to it!
I see people not really believing that the bible is the divine inspired word of god, but reading the passages they like (Jesus parts) and base their life and hope on this, that even itself may well be myth and story like the other parts they reject as myth and story.
I am aware of the the hypocrisy in myself but it suits me to hold on to it!
The first step is admitting you have a problem... :)
(just teasing you... - sort of )
You are always considerate of the beliefs of those who follow Christ - even if you don't personally believe in Him. I appreciate that, (greatly) and I still think you give yourself too little credit in the 'kindness' department.
Tammy
Hi Stephen
What would be even more plain and simple is if God showed up in all His majesty and presented His message plain and simple, right?
The thing is, in His wisdom He has decided that isn't such a great idea. I guess many would say "cool" but change their minds later on, in the same way Adam and Eve did.
So, he tried the plain simple approach with adam and eve = they rejected message
So he switched to complicated = most of mankind cannot find message
Wisdom is proved by results. The results are still mass confusion over his bible...that does not say 'wisdom' to me. Calling it wisdom is church talk for ''dont know but i just agree'' i think.
oz
Hi Tammy
but thay means when reading the bible and we get to timothy we could interupt our commentry on it and say,
''well... maybe some isn't inspired, but Paul may have thought so from his point of view... still, we dont know, he could equally be mistaken. So dear bretheren, take what you will from todays reading and indeed from the entire holy bible because while we feel its gods word, we just cant be sure which bits are not...''
That still represents a massive problem surely!
As Gladiator mentions, even the account and record of Jesus must thus be suspect...
cheers
oz ps i'm sober now!
Aussie Oz Wisdom is proved by results. The results are still mass confusion over his bible...that does not say 'wisdom' to me. Calling it wisdom is church talk for ''dont know but i just agree'' i think.
I disagree. The masses are agreed regarding the bible. Sure, we might disagree on the some of the finer points of doctrine but most Christians agree over the core basics and much more. I have no core problems with my Catholic brothers etc. All that counts is being born again, no verses quoted :)
Anything else is WT propaganda and falsehood. Sure, there are numerous denominations and groups but save for some minority heretics and cults who are wolves in sheep's clothing, we are all one body in Christ.
Blessings,
Stephen
The History of Western civilization over the past 1800 years shows the above to be false.
Freedom of thought was suppressed and punished and nearly eliminated. Texts were altered by Church Leaders to effect their view as Politic Supreme.
What people have come to hold dear is a personal interpretation, made comforting and familiar to their culture and community. That is socialization of belief.
Following the 'Golden Rule' and being a good steward of this earth, simple messages from the 'Good Book', will go a long way to improving one's life , their community and the future for all.
There's a lot of good work to do for this beautiful earth, your great great great grandchildren will be the beneficiaries.
The "All scripture is inspired by god..." quotation can't refer to anything in the new Testment. Why? Simply because it was almost a hundred years after Jesus that writings started to appear that referred to spoken stories about who said what to who.
The Apostles, Disciples, Jesus, Paul, etc. did not carry around bibles. Certainly there was no New Testament. There was no such thing as a portable Bible at all. The Septuagint version of the Hebrew scriptures (translated into Greek) would be the only thing Synagogue-attending Jews might be familiar with.
Having said that....
Saul/Paul wrote his letters after reportedly being blinded and hearing a voice. Those letters (epistles) were not holy scripture. They gradually acquired a certain important status until, eventually, (when they completely disappeared!) were regarded by the Catholic Church as HOLY WRIT!
Can you see where this is going?
Spoken stories eventually written down are different from eyewitness accounts made on the spot by trained reporters.
Do you imagine there were tape recorders at the Last Supper? Did people walk around with reams of papyrus or vellum and a sharpened quill and a supply of ink and enough candles to see what they were writing?
When the disciples ALL fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus was praying his long prayer and weeping----WHO was standing there jotting it all down WORD-FOR-WORD? Hmmmm? Nobody.
Conversations constructed as "quotes" are mere literary inventions.
That is why we cannot hold people to a standard of Proof Text orthodoxy.
We do not and cannot ever know who said EXACTLY what to whom!
We can't prove anything about bible statements or even make certain what we do have corresponds to what was ORIGINALLY written.
Those texts, autograph originals are COMPLETELY GONE FOREVER!
Pause for a moment.
Ask yourself "why"?
Why would the most obviously important words ever spoken be allowed to vanish and be reconstructed by imperfect men?
Why would error-ridden copies of copies be circulated with no means of proofing them against originals?
The answer is very important.
Now take a look up above to the TOPIC QUESTION: If the bible is god's handbook for man, why is it such gobbletygook?
The answer is this:
Too many people with vastly different opinions have been mixed into a reconstructed soup that consists of part history, part myth, part legend, part fanciful imagination and part wishful thinking along with a heavy dose of genius and insanity!
Why WOULDN'T such a construction be gobbletygook?
What else could it possibly be?
First - are you speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus Son of God? Many scholars (not all, I concede) agree that there is enough evidence of an historical Jesus. I think that if Jesus is a myth, then John, Paul, Matthew, Peter - all those who were witnesses to Christ - are mythical also. It seems unlikely that they would be willing to die for a myth that they, themselves, had perpetuated.
John, Paul, Matthew and Peter are names familiar to all christians. But, the identity of the writers who penned the New Testament are not necessarily the eyewitnesses who walked, talked and listened to Jesus. We are told that we are reading the Gospel "according to" so and so. We are supposed to link actual people to the events recounted. Do we have a way of verifying it? No.
Saul of Tarsus was blinded and heard voices. He wrote letters. He made changes to Judaism in the name of Jesus. He had confrontations with Peter and James in Jersalem. How do we know any of this is factual? How would we? We have to take Paul's words for it that he could raise people from the dead, don't we? What else are you willing to let somebody tell you about themselves and believe it?
There was a writer named Papias who contacted as many of the apostles and disciples who were still alive so that he could conduct face to face interviews with them. He wrote down details of what they said to him. The Church later condemned his writings! It did NOT match their officially accepted writings. Who do we believe and why?
Let's face it. We spent years of our lives (as many do) studying every word in the bible. We memorized and recited and spoke about and taught them. WHY WOULD WE willingly let go of all that time and effort easily?
Who of us is strong enough to just call "bullshit" and accept that their time, effort and minds have been totally wasted?
I can understand the reluctance to take such a massive loss!
But, honesty requires hard choices when cold facts are examined. Anything else is intellectual poison and a total trap.
It is never too late to re-examine the actual facts and compre them to vague claims that cannot be proved.
The lazy man wants things just the way he wants them without any pain or effort.
Change is tough.
But, necessary.
Terry,
For those Christian groups who insist on literalness, St. Paul's advise to Philemon to return to his Master institutionalized and gave the necessary credentials to Slavery. They now became on par with everyother slave culture, buying and selling humans.
'Heretics', persons with the vision to challenge this 'Scripture' and this horrible practice within Gentile Christian communities set the wheels in motion for free societies to emerge.
So now that period is over, a gobblegook verse is discarded or sermonized 'soft', remember hearing Talks about being a good employee or employer. We couldn't just say the verse was horrible, we found our own way to make it palitable.
