Bible Questions?

In the eyes of a believer can morality exist without the bible?

 

Yes, but which morality will we end up choosing? Atheists can be moral, but they all have their own viewpoints on what is moral. One atheist can be a pacifist, while another can support the war on terror.

 

You skipped over pretty important parts. It seems like you are not skipping the parts of other religions yet you skip the parts of Christianity. Why pick and choose with the Bible and not pick and choose with the rest?

If you want to understand Christianity, you can't skip over parts as you did. It's meant to be looked at as a whole otherwise the message will allude us.

The very reason you believe that there is no such thing as wickedness is the very reason why you are left open to accepting pretty nasty things in life. Which leaves us open to accepting the greed of companies such as mccdonalds because we should just accept their perceptive and accept their freedom to choose how to gain wealth instead of saying, "You know what, your company not only destroys the environment, but our health. You push products on us, and onto kids, as to continue your profits without any remorse as to what this means to our lives as a whole". All I can say to that is if we don't believe that such things as wickedness exists then we leave ourselves open to just treating everything as just a matter of perceptive and not something that is truly irrational, illogical, wicked, greedy, and disgusting.

The very reason you believe that peace is only obtainable on the individual level leaves you open to accepting the way things are because 'that's just how they are and the sooner we accept it the better'. The very reason you see it this way is the reason why we are left to believe that no paradise can be achieved worldwide but only can be achieved at the individual level. Meanwhile, we still have death, pain, suffering, and wickedness (what you don't believe in) and these things continue on forever because you see them as just a part of life. But paradise is more than what is inside, but what is around you and others.

Personally, a truly loving God would offer us more than pain and suffering and a means to accept these so called 'inevitabilities' of life or 'natural cycles'. You just assume that death is a natural cycle and not something that resulted in a sin. I think that's one of the most crude lies that any religion can muster. That we are the way we are and we just just accept it and treat it as some kind of grand wisdom. Meanwhile, the Gods of these religions offer nothing to bring us salvation from this suffering. It's just, "Here you go guys, you should be lucky enough to obtain any information from your great and wise God... welp, cya later, hope that you can find inner peace. LOVE YOU ALL! *POOF* P.S. Don't forget to write."

I am sorry for being blunt like this, but it just bugs me to see people just accepting that pain, suffering, etc all exist because God loves us so much and not something that God is planning to get us out of the mess that we originally have gotten ourselves into by our decisions of going against Gods wishes. You can go into the temptation of the tree, but if God told us, "Don't hit that dog with a baseball bat because the dog will bite your face and kill you" then it's pretty ridiculous to go up to that dog and doing what he asked you not to for your own good. Also, I am beginning to think that God did not create that tree but was something that Satan himself planted, but even if it wasn't... if your creator tells you to not touch something otherwise you will die then touching it is beyond stupid.

Yes, there is a lot of good, solid, wisdom behind what you have said, but there is more to it than just accepting the world that we live in as a part of life. When we remove the idea of the foundations of where wickedness derives then that leads us away from a deeper connection to God, the world, others, inner vision, et al. The questions that OWB raises are the questions that most religions seek to answer. But when we sift through them all, there can only be one truth behind it. What IS the origins to these questions and how can we liberate ourselves from them?

It has been said, that there is only 1 and 0. Sure, there are gray areas, but they are usually just creative ways of bringing up another question, but eventually that gray area, once picked apart, leads us to either a one or a zero. This is something that Jesus has said, btw.

 

You think this doesn't apply to Christians?
Or are there just a zillion denominations for no reason.

 

Because I don't need to know the name of every father in Jesus' lineage?

lol, I understand Christianity quite well.

Here you have made the same mistake that OlderWaterBrother did. I, personally, do find things bad, or distasteful. But what I find good and bad isn't saying a whole lot about perception in general, is it? And perception in general is what I was talking about.

They are a part of life. They are a fundamental part of the entire life experience, and by reflecting there counterparts and creating duality, a foundation for life is created. You seek to avoid death, pain, suffering, and wickedness, but without these things there is no life, no pleasure, no happiness, and no good. That is just the nature of reality, and you will never have one without the other until you transcend them both.

These are all your personal beliefs. You think death is some horrible, horrible thing, that we have sowed for ourselves because we failed God's original mind game of temptation. Death is not only a natural process, but also necessary to life itself. Why demonize death? What is the alternative? To endlessly cling to the Ego, the individual self you have constructed, forever and ever and eons and all of time? What's the point? What is happiness without sadness, what is pleasure without pain, and what is life without death?

Wouldn't really matter anyways, since God created the thing that would result in our death by touching, and created Satan.

 

I am an absolutist. I believe in ultimate good and ultimate evil. We can be moral without the Bible because our "good" comes from God.

This is not to say that only theists can be good, but that goodness is God breathed whether you believe or not.

Our good actions come from love, our bad actions come from a general disregard for other people (usually).

 

Can you cite this?

It is interesting, but I am skeptical of your source as Jesus Christ.

 

There is a reason, and that reason is due to people creating their own meanings from the Bible rather than letting the Bible interpret itself.

It wouldn't apply to Christians if those Christians had faith in the message of the Bible. It's like with King Nebukenezzar, after having the meaning of the dream revealed to him, he goes out and creates a statue made completely of gold because he could not accept what was explained to him. He did not like the message so he twisted it to fit his own desires. When this happens, expect calamity.

Btw, I am in lines with Ukr with morality. I believe atheists and theists alike are doing Gods will, whether or not they want to acknowledge it. Just saying that as a side note.

 

It's easy to see why you've skipped over large parts of the Bible and only believe the parts that "matter"?

Skipping over parts that don’t matter, like Satan's first lie, where he told Eve; “YOU positively will not die.”

That makes it easy to believe all this about; “As for death, I don't really know why God would need to do something about that. Death is a natural process, and simply a transition into something else. One could say that life is only the preparation for death.” which springs from a belief that Satan’s first lie is really true.

Almost all religions, religious writings and teachings, other than the Bible and true Christianity, teach Satan’s first lie; “YOU positively will not die.” they teach an immortal soul, reincarnation or that everybody goes to heaven or a “hell” where they’ll live forever etc but it all comes down to just another version of Satan’s first lie; “YOU positively will not die.”

 

I guess it depends on what you mean by morality but there are many systems of morality based on human reasoning some better than others.

 

You think you do but you really don’t, you think you understand the words but as def zeppelin pointed out the message has alluded you.

Happiness without sadness, is happiness, pleasure without pain, is pleasure and life without death, is life.

God created cliffs too but most people are quite happy to live their whole lives without feeling the need to jump to their death from one.

As for Satan this has been discussed before, whereas God did create the angelic person that became Satan, he was not created that way and chose for himself to become Satan by misusing his free will.

 

I've given the reason that there is a zillion denominations but no one liked the answer.

 

Whereas I don't know what scripture def zeppelin has in mind, this one at Matthew 12:30 where Jesus says; "He that is not on my side is against me, and he that does not gather with me scatters." seems to go along with what he's saying. Jesus appears to to be saying there is no middle ground, no gray area, no sitting on the fence, either you're with him or you're against him.

 

The Bible cannot interpret itself. Hoatzin and OlderWaterBrother already had quite an extensive debate about this. Ultimately, the Bible is a book, and it needs YOU to be interpreted. I mean, honestly, if you have a Bible just sitting on the shelf at home, closed, who is interpreting it? Is it just sitting there on your bookcase, figuring itself out?
No, it can't be interpreted until someone reads it.

 

Where did I say that I didn't read genesis?
I should have known that you would use that statement to basically decide which parts I have and haven't read for me.

 

I did understand. But, guess what, just because I understand something doesn't mean I have to jump into the pool of belief. See, you think I don't understand, because I don't agree with you. But this really isn't any reflection of if I understand or not. I was a Christian for a very, very long time, and completely understand every point of view you have def and expressed.

It isn't though. They rely on each other to give rise to their own definitions. They become meaningless without their opposites.

And this type of thought indicates that God is not omniscient or omnipotent, something that I don't believe.

 

Probably because it was inadequate and completely false.

 

Yes, we did but nothing was settled.

Also, from the illustration you just used, it seems you don't know what was really being discussed.

 

Can't the same be said for the "true" believer?

 

Nice but much like your reading of the Bible, you seem to have missed the message to argue the words.