Must we really hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters?

I see that as appropriate!

 

Tell the forum why you believe in making personal attacks.

 

Talking about my "finite" mind does not provide any evidence that your claimed god exists and the fact is you cannot or will not provide any evidence. Stating that the evidence is all around us (a claim), is not providing evidence. Everything around us is part of a natural world, not a supernatural world. What evidence that is all around us that proves a supernatural God?

My conclusion. The magic man (I use the word man simply from having been raised in the Christian tradition) is something I believe you and others have made up because of religious brainwashing, zero tolerance for ambiguity, a fear of death, and a desire to feel a sense of superiority over other humans who don't share the same religious beliefs. Yes, that sense of superiority is detectable in your comments. As an aside I have to say that one of the things I dislikes about religion is the smug sense of superiority demonstrated by the religious. Tell me one religion whose practitioners, aka believers, do not feel superior to the non-believers.

The truth is at a certain point you will be as dead as I am. Don't kid yourself in thinking you are not finite. Your memories, your personality, everything that is you is a function of your brain. If you sustain brain damage your memories may be gone and your personality may change. When your brain goes completely you will be gone. Or is the God you believe in maintaining some sort of cosmic cloud storage.

Comments stating the finite mind cannot comprehend God, therefore God exists is a logical fallacy, i.e., argument from ignorance. That and wishful thinking.

 

I'm not telling them anything. I was implying your response to Wyrd of Gawd was appropriate. I ignore him myself. Don't be so defensive!

 

Oh, apologies if I misunderstood. Reading posts from a previous day or two is hard to put into context.

 

Christianity teaches "All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." I take that to mean, you and I are in the same boat. It is sinking. We have both been thrown a lifesaving ring. I'm holding on to mine, you turn your back on yours. Has nothing to do with superiority. At least not in this life. Now I will admit, because we are all fallen to human nature, some of the faith may fall prey to the idea they are superior but that is not any more sinful than you alluding to those that see past the ground between your ears as "ignorant". (I think those allusions make you feel superior) We hold up the Bible as the true word of God......we still very often fall short.

You can't even acknowledge anything greater than yourself. That's why when you die, it all goes with you. Ignorance is you want to hold everyone to your standards.

 

I understand. Have been embarrassed by making the same mistake.

 

If the Jesus character was still wiggling on the cross after 2,000 years they might have a point. He isn't. They don't have a point. They are just gullible superstitious people who are on a par with our ancestors of 100,000 years ago. They claim to be Christians but they have never read the fairy tale and know nothing about it except what they have seen in silly Hollywood movies.

 

The Bible which you call the "true word of God" starts off by defining a racial and religious superiority, i.e., a chosen people who in a pre Nazi version of Hitler's Lebensraum are authorized to commit genocide. This concept of a chosen people is rearticulated in the New Testament -- 1 Peter 2:9.

 

Assembled as a single volume, yes. The original Christian scriptures were written in koine greek except for Matthew which was Hebrew and copies of individual books did exist prior to compiling them into one complete translation.

The book of Luke/Acts is a good example. The earliest copy dates to 80-110 AD

I do agree though, the books that make up the bible were translated to Latin and sat on by the church for 1000 years. The old Latin manuscripts became the Latin Vulgate at around 400. It’s not until the Protestant Reformation and then the printing press that you get widespread study of the books as a single volume Even those bibles that use the Greek source material refer heavily to the Latin Vulgate. Some bibles are just adaptations of the King James Version. NIV uses the original Greek texts.

/ramble

 

There is no legitimate copy of any Bible in any language that was written before the committee of storytellers, writers and artists produced three master copies in Latin in the 680s-early 690s. Each book weighed about 75 pounds and one still exists.

The 1611 King James Bible is a revision of the very popular Geneva Bible. The Protestants used the Geneva Bible. The 1611 KJV was written for use by the Anglican Church.

The modern KJV is actually Blaney’s 1769 Revised Oxford Edition of the 1611 KJV, but without the 14 Apocrypha books. You could probably walk to the moon easier than you could find a true original 1611 KJV Bible. You can get a facsimile reproduction.

 

Chosen to be made an example out of! You don't get away with quoting scripture if you don't understand the whole story! Hitler had to pervert the entire Word of God much as you are doing.

 

And in light of what you just shared, I attend Bible studies often where both KJV and NIV are read from. It is easy to follow either and in spite of the difference in translation, the spirit of what is written is remarkably the same!

 

And yet God is as he is, divine and eternal. It pleases me greatly that he hides the sacred by which I am known and favored to have glimpsed. I luxuriate in the thickness of ignorance and my lack of formal or extended education in religion or dogma. And yet not so much in that density as in the simplicity of the intimate truth that God lives. It is good that man does not command God and heaven. Lest we spoil that as we have ourselves. Like his cloak which the guards gambled away at his feet, we have remnants of his words in testimony, bandied and sported about by the drunken, mischievous, cruel, and sophisticated, which do not combine to honor. Yes, I am nothing as well. God is my light, my foundation and sustenance. As to contrariness, I esteem no cruelty in Gods charity. All that he has ever done has been for mankind. Even to the laying down of his own life. No, the cruelty is ours. His heart is goodness. It is my prayer that people could see that fact and be thankful to God rather than to chastise him for their own lack of peace. We have murdered his Prophets, put him to death, and mocked his words. Is there no end to our wickedness? Why do we allow ourselves to be culled to the adversary of our souls and think it astute.

 

Since you seem to have a very good understanding of the wisdom God has laid out in His Word, why don't you give us your assessment of why God foretold of and allowed about 2/3's of his chosen people to be slaughtered and taken into captivity into Babylon? Sounds to me like they were subject to the same reaping and sowing applications that apply to all human beings. Even Hitler had the opportunity to learn and study from the scripture but instead he chose to selectively use what served his purpose much like you do.
Personally, I feel very blessed that I never had to take part in being the "original " chosen people. It is much more appealing for me to learn from their mistakes and to be "grafted into" the chosen!

 

Boy....I can really appreciate those words. Well worth repeating. "to those who have ears, let them hear!"

 

This is explained by Deuteronomy 28. They effed up.

“The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth.

 

He's speaking to those conceived and reborn thru baptism and the gift of the holy ghost, and who know and trust in their savior Jesus Christ. And that same invitation is to all. It is no more exclusive than ones own choice. And certainly no call to genocide. Peter goes on: 12 Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

 

Calling for empirical evidence of God is like requesting a flower to be made from the use of a hammer, or a refrigerator to cook dinner. The science of mortality and death cannot fathom eternal life. It is incongruous. It is science that fails because it isn't designed for that. Why would one set aside ones higher nature and trust in the tool of science if not to close ones eyes so as to say there is nothing to see. Science cannot measure, verify, or fathom our higher natures of conscience and love. Yet we employ that capacity all the days of our lives. The nature of God and the gospel of salvation can only be approached and measured thru our higher nature.

 

Of course......not so special in the earthly sense were they? There is no way we could ever see them as a "superior race". Jew, Gentile, male, female.....we are all of equal value.

 

That prophecy turned out to be so accurate, some have to wonder if the prophecies in Deuteronomy were written after the Babylonian captivity.

 

The version of KJV used today has definitely reduced the number of poorly translated verses that were included in the originals. The other thing to keep in mind is that it’s sponsor funded the translation with the need to affirm legitimacy of the Anglican Church.

The other thing I find fascinating about King James is that he also authored Daemonologie which sought to convince people of the existence of witchcraft during a time period when people were tried and executed for witchcraft in great numbers.

It’s a time in history when Europe and England and the English colonies were caught in the grasp of mass delusion.

 

To be honest with you, the question you are bringing up is almost not worth discussing here.
It is a question that has been asked and answered many times before, and it mostly comes down to an issue of translation, context, and interpretation.
You can find detailed answers to this in plenty of other places.

 

God has more than often used men of clay feet to preserve His Word.

 

And they even make Popes do the same

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