by Moxy 53 Replies latest watchtower bible
rebel...
I am at the stage where I don't know anything any more.
You sound like me...I am so confused about all of this creation and Satan and Chrrist and all the Bible stuff....
I too believe there is much in the Bible that is good, ten commandments and more....
I have sent you an e-mail....
Well my take on it is like this:
I don't doubt a real and personal God (whether you think of Him as an "it" or higher force, whatever).
The next logical step would be that if He shows interest in His creation He would communicate with them. I'm not going to support that foundation, but that is where I'm going to start from, because I believe it.
I see the Bible as a collections of writings, where people try to express those communications. Often these are in the context of who and what they were. Ok, and there's more than a bit of history thrown in, from people who were also trying to relate God to the world around them. How many actually claim that God spoke "such and such" words to them? Then you have some timeless truisms, like the Sermon on the Mount. All in all there's a lot to be said for it, but I'm going to hang with Logical, on this one.
I enjoy more than just the 66 books, of the Authorised Canon, and think that the Catholic (and then the Protestant) traditions have much to answer for, in their discrimination. A lot of the benefits depend on the angle you approach it from.
Hey Little toe
Thanks for your imput.
I have a question for you.....not a sarcastic one either.
Have you heard of the "ugarits'? They are a people older than the hebrews, said to have worshiped Yahweh, Jehovah.......FIRST. There God (Jehovah), was a warrior God however. It is said that the Jews(hebrew) adopted their God and their beliefs. There is info. on them if you simply type the name into the address bar.
What would you think about the Bible if you found this to be true?
If you have questions on this......pick on donkey! He's the one who shared it first and informed me.
Gumby
Wouldn't change a thing.
As I see it the bible and religion are just signposts.
Unfortunately people come to rely on religion as... religion.
A personal relationship supercedes these things, and so they just add to the experience, rather than being an end to themselves.
Thanks LT for responding,
A personal relationship ...............with who? If it is Christ....and the Bible is held in suspicion, how can it be Christ? I can understand your belief in God........but if the bible has many holes in it......is christ one of the "holes"?
I'm off to work now ....and it's rainin like a bad-dog.See ya guys
I can see what you mean about "Christ", but if you view him AS God, then it might help. Personally that was one of the steps that helped me. He became the next step on the road (John.17:3), so to speak - a personal face to an invisible God.
I'm looking forward to finding more out about "ugarits"...
I don't think that anyone can reason their way into a belief in the Bible as being of divine origin. Sure, one can -- after the fact of belief -- bring up all sorts of reasonable and 'reasonable' notions to justify one's belief, but when a fair, objective study is made, there are so many holes left to plug that non-belief is what a reasoned approach inevitably leads to.
Bible believers cannot answer simple questions like, Why did God create a world in which macroscopic life suffered a billion years of violent predation before mankind appeared? How can such a God be called "loving, just" and so forth -- all the qualities we humans find attractive? Of course, believers come up with all sorts of silly justifications and excuses not to even think about this problem, but they're easy to spot. One Christian told me that he views animals as unfeeling robots, so the pain that a prey animal suffers when being eaten alive doesn't concern him. He claimed that animals don't even feel pain. After some discussion and I pointed out that animals certainly do feel pain -- he raises animals himself and certainly knows this -- he started mumbling and changed the subject.
Another problem is what belief in the Bible (or any other work claiming to contain divine knowledge) virtually always leads to: death and destruction on a massive scale, or digusting practices. We all know what JW-style fundamentalism produces -- broken families, mental instability, emotional turmoil, and so forth. It does the same in many other Christian religions. In fact, it seems to be a truism that the stronger a religion's committment to "true belief", the more radical, cult-like and dangerous it is. History is full of examples of believers running wild and killing people who don't believe exactly as they do. In this, the Bible is correct: By their fruits you will know them. What "fruits" does a strong, fundamentalist style belief tend to produce?
The young-earth creationists are a good example of the lunatic ideas that people can come up with in order to justify their predetermined belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry Morris (founder of the Institute for Creation Research) has a degree in hydrology alright, but when it comes to the Bible he lays aside much of his scientific training and brings to bear only what appears to help support his YEC beliefs. For example, in his first major book (The Genesis Flood, with John Whitcomb, 1961), Morris tried to explain the "vapor canopy" theory (this notion was later borrowed by the JWs). According to Morris and company, before Noah's Flood the earth was surrounded by a canopy of water vapor that provided an insulating blanket that kept the earth much warmer and milder in weather than today. But there are massive problems with this view -- problems that Morris, with his scientific training, should have seen immediately but obviously did not, or ignored. For example, Morris argued that it was easy to see how massive quantities of water vapor could be suspended high in the atmosphere. Scientists had recently discovered that the atmosphere above about 80 miles was extremely hot, about 3000 degrees Fahrenheit, and everyone knows that hot air holds far more water vapor than cool air does. Problem solved! But wait. Morris ignored the simple fact that the atmosphere at 80 miles up is so thin that just another 50 miles more and you can put up an orbiting satellite. So how much water vapor could be up there under approximately present conditions? About enough to frost a window glass. Furthermore, the reason that the atmosphere at that altitude is hot is precisely because it is so thin that cosmic rays and other sources of high energy are able to get through what little air there is and be absorbed by the air molecules, which heats them greatly. A layer of air/vapor thick enough to make a flood would necessariy be too thick to allow such energetic particles through. How can someone with a degree in hydrology fail to note such elementary things about water and air? Morris also forgot that something would have to hold up any suspended water vapor. This, of course, would have to be the pressure of the atmosphere below it, and so the pressure at the earth's surface would have to be the same as the pressure at the bottom of a flooded earth. Naturally Morris never even hinted at these problems. Reading Morris's writings is much like reading Watchtower writings on science from the 1960s and 1970s -- they're full of misunderstandings and half-truths. No surprise, since the mentality is the same, and Watchtower writers borrowed freely, but usually without attribution, from Morris.
So I agree with hooberus, that anyone with sufficient interest should read several of Henry Morris's writings. Those with even the faintest knowledge of science will come away shaking their heads.
Like the YEC's, Bible defenders usually argue, not to explain apparent problems with their beliefs, but to explain away real problems. While I have no doubt that these people tell themselves that they are being honest, in reality their prior devotion to their beliefs causes them to deceive themselves, and so they teach nonsense in the name of God, and do it with clear consciences. Once again, we have the JWs as a prime example here. Of course, sometimes believers run up against something that they can't explain away even to themselves, and so, instead of doing what a rational being ought to do, they simply put aside the problem and pretend it doesn't exist. This is the sort of deliberate self-deception that almost all true believers must resort to at some time in their lives. They do it because to do the rational thing would be to abandon a lifetime of belief in something precious to them, and quite likely, would result in most of their family and friends abandoning them.
I find too, that most believers in the Bible are woefully ignorant of most things that are not directly related to it, and have difficulty distinguishing fact from mere claims of fact. For example, RWC pointed out that a number of "eyewitnesses" to Jesus' doings died for their beliefs. But how do we know about these things? From the writings of those who claimed to hear what these "eyewitnesses" said. In other words, via hearsay evidence. Why do RWC and others like him not see a problem with such claims? Because they have been trained not to. As for people dying for a claimed miracle, Jesus' followers are not alone. For example, it was in the 1840s or so that the founder of today's B'hai religion supposedly performed miracles witnessed by hundreds of people. All of it was meticulously documented, they claim, so that belief in the prime B'hai prophet is even more justified than belief in the prime Christian prophet. I mean, it's all down there in the writings of eyewitnesses and hearsay witnesses, right?
I hope that readers can see why claims such as there being 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus are entirely valueless.
Now, I certainly think that anyone is free to believe whatever he or she pleases, as long as it hurts no one. But anyone who wants to justify their beliefs must take the consequences for it -- actually using reason and objective facts to justify them. Excuses are transparent and unacceptable.
Ashitaka summed up my feelings well:
For me, if there is a God, on judgement day, he will see my good works, charity, and love for my family, and not care if I washed to my elbows. He wont care about dead rituals or whether I disbelieved an old book or not. If He is there judgeing, it will be by actions based on love, and not because I was afraid of judgement. True love supercedes rhetoric.
In my experience, it is the rare Bible believer who can even understand such sentiments, much less agree with them.
AlanF
I do feel parts of the Bible are inspired not all of it. Those that were responsible for the cataloguing of the different books may have made mistakes.
I think the first 3 chapters of Genesis are inspired, but the translation of the original may be incorrect in different spots. Much of the translation of these first three chapters may be according to preconceived ideas that now are shown to be incorrect.
The amazing thing about the Genesis account is that it can be translated to conform to the evolutionary theories about the universe and life on our planet. The fact that they can be harmonized has been a major factor for me to still put faith in it.
I dont see the Genesis account as teaching Adam was the first man, or that God did an instantaneous creation of the Earth, stars, or existing forms of life. It seems clear that these things were generated over billions of years in some cases (Genesis 2:4).
Even the account of Noah and the flood is not about an earth wide flood. That is the way some may interpret it but not what the Bible was describing.
Nice comments AlanF
You show a patience I lack. I had to take a break for a few months because of mounting frustration. I now tend to wait for signs of genuine inquirery rather than just invitations to challenge. But I am not perfect. When I remember the weight of doubt and the sense of isolation I used to feel, I sometimes leap into the fray to "help." Half truths and misapplication of facts make the world go round it seems. Are you a member of the Skeptic Society? If not, you would enjoy much of their work. A non-profit organization established to test paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. (skeptic.com)
Gumby,
It is interesting you bring up the Ugarate, The God YHWH was a very minor god to the Canaanites, and not the all powerful one that the Hebrews have identified him with, he was actually a brother to Baal, son of El the almighty. But during some time after the 12th century BC/BCE the hebrews looked for a god to guide them through the battles and waring in the land of Canaan and fell upon this YHWH. He was extensively worshipped in the mountains of the area by independent tribes that are suspected to have joined forces to become what is now the Hebrews.Oh he also was suppose to be the God of thunder, lightening and fire, so therefore his usual speaking in thunder and being seen in a fire and such, mentioned throughout the bible.
An ineresting note, is that Moses (if he really ever existed as he is shown in the bible) was suppose to have had the name revealed to him by God himself, yet this name had been used for 100's of years prior to the nomadic hebrews arriveing on the scene.
It is even suspect thatt he Hebrews may not have ever been in Egypt in any large numbers as the bible trie to say, but it is the story of the Hykos people that ruled egypt during about 15-13 century BC that actually had the exidos and that the Hebrew (Mountain peoples) had been allies with them during this period, those that were in Egypt when the Egyptions expelled the Hykos may have been subject to slavery and such, but not in the large numbers mentioned in the bible. I thnk and from what I have researched, the story of the Exidos may have been a way to try and Glorify the expulsion of the Hykos and incorperate into the stories for the hebrew legends.
Seedy
