If you do not believe in God, you must not have read the Bible

The world is worthy of contentment, the problem is with the world man has created for himself.

God does not have flaws and contradictions.

The earth is a paradise, the only problem with it is what man has done with it.

No it is not a flaw. The problem is that Man has rejected the wisdom of God.

So true, the story is about the rejection of God's wisdom and what happens when you do.

No, it is not. God wants what is best for his children and thus has given his children some rules and principles to live their lives by but in no way wants them to be unthinking unreasoning robots.

A father may tell his children not to play in the street, does this prevent them from playing any where else they want or prevent them from choosing what games to play? No, they have many and varied things they can decide to do instead of going against their father and risking their lives.

Paradise will only be paradise if the people that live there want it to be a paradise. No matter how great or paradisaical a place may be, if a gang of thugs is roving it; robbing, stealing, beating up others and killing, it won't be a paradise. So paradise is less a promise or reward for loyalty, as a place where you can immigrate to if you can fulfill the requirements of citizenship.

Yes, false religion is a great tool for corrupt leaders, who use it to control their people. The thing is that those who follow true religion, although they are good citizens, are not easily controlled.

Yes, I agree, the true nature of the Bible is transparent, the trouble is that most people do not take the time to learn for themselves what the Bible says and lazily just let others tell them lies and misconceptions about the Bible.

 

Ignorance and faith are not the same thing, get it right.

 

even worse are those who have read the bible and been appalled by what they've found inside

 

You can try and dodge the question by trying to cast aspersions on me all you want but it doesn't answer the question.

Do you continue believe that men alone wrote the Bible and that they were not carried along in the process by Holy Spirit, thus denying what has been accomplished by Holy Spirit?

 

Taken out of context, I would have to agree that there seems to be much to be appalled by but in context it is only appalling in in what ungodly and lawless people are capable of doing.

 

Why be appalled by something you don't believe in anyway? Because others do? I guess because a certain percentage of those who do carry it out in an annoying way. Which is no reason to be appalled by the bible itself.

 

i'm not sure how one takes a thing out of context when one is reading the entire thing

 

who said i didn't believe in the bible? i can hold it in my hand

i also think large amounts of it are relatively true

the first bit is borrowed mythology, naturally

but that's followed by a lengthy record of historical destruction justified by belief in a god

do you think the genocidal rage of yahweh is something to be proud of?

i'm appalled by carnage wherever i find it . . .

 

I think the same and I did not ment you specifically

 

Some people when they read, skim until they see something that catches their attention and focus on that only, thus not taking it in context.

 

why should there be anything that catches ones attention? in that way?

i don't see that sort of stuff in, say, buddhist texts

 

So then Earth must have been a paradise BEFORE man RIGHT? With the meat eating dinosaurs, asteroid impacts, volcanoes, mas extinctions and all that... Or wait, was that real or was that all Gods deception?

So God either lied, or he LIED!?
Perfect!?

I can't possibly argue with flat out DENIAL!

 

I have not made one slanderous remark against you. I said you cannot tell the difference between the inanimate and the animate objects in the case of the bible and the statement is true unless you are simply pretending that you believe the bible interprets itself. People who cannot distinguish between the real and the imagined have a questionable grasp on reality. I say not one untrue thing here and therefore have not cast aspersions on you. If you are so confident in your view of the world that you would like to accuse me of slander then take it to court.

No man is alone. I do not believe as you have described. I do not believe that a book interprets itself. I do not believe the holy spirit gives the bible any magical properties that you assign to it. I believe all things emanate from god in goodness, so no I do not think of the bible as an accomplishment of the holy spirit. What could possibly there be for god to "accomplish". Why would god the creator have need for accomplishment? It is men who meet with varying degrees of success in their minds.

I do not think of things in terms of accomplishment but relate to them as current emergence. I need do nothing to improve upon the sabbath, only remember it to keep it holy or the perception of it, whole. The conflicts we see in the lives of men are the result of an authority problem. Men see the world in the largest extent as unfinished and it's goodness in contention with evil. That view is the "knowledge of good and evil". The knowledge of good and evil is not knowledge but perception born of judgment. That judgmental perception distorts the view of the "lamp of the body". If the eye be sound, the whole body will be full of light, but if the light in you be darkness, if you insist that there is evil in contention with good, then how great the darkness.

The idea of evil is a biological entities misinterpretation of pain.

 

Actually, a lot of modern archaeologists don't think the carnage happened, or was exaggerated(Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed). Why anybody would make up stories casting themselves and their God as perpetrators of atrocities is a puzzling question, but that view seems to be supported by the available archaeological record. Maybe to give themselves a rep as badasses?

 

Funny, because I HAVE read the bible, as well as went through many years of conformation, church every Sunday, went through extensive theological teachings and I most certainly do NOT believe in any form of God whatsoever.

Yet, most of my Christian friends have not read the bible...

Look, Christians... I'm not here to argue with you, I'm not going to preach to you of the "evils" of religion or whatever, I just want to know... why do you hate me?

Not YOU as in the personalized view of it, just Christians in general do not trust atheists at all... view them as immoral and unrighteous.

Because I most certainly do not hate, or view you any differently based on your belief.

EDIT:
And I know this is a generalization... but it's a whole lot different in a world were you're afraid to display your lack of belief because of a majority of believers who will shun you... and yes. I have experienced this first hand... lost friendships over it, and have seen much discrimination.

 

Maybe it was Satan who lied. C.S. Lewis posits "Satanic corruption of the beasts". Or maybe there was no lie at all. Gregory of Nyassa, Baptist theologian A.H. Strong,and most recently William Dembski propose that the world east of Eden was created as a screwed place in anticipation of the Fall, and that this was actually not the perfect world that God originally created. Or maybe Michael J. Murray is correct in Red With Tooth and Claw that God's purpose in setting up a system that ulitimately leads to intelligent life forms by process of evolution by natural selection must necessarily result in some nastiness along the way, which is outweighed by the result. Or we might go with Origen in what I think is the most plausible solution: to regard the Genesis account as a metaphor for the human struggle with attachments. Paradise is a concept like the "State of Nature" used by seventeenth century social contract theorists. It's an ideal type, not a physical place. But that doesn't make it a lie.

 

It is an effect of cultural indoctrination based on taboo and hero worship, an ego device. They are not as deserving as we are and this elevates us in comparison. Beyond that, people must condemn to justify their unwillingness to forgive.

 

It seems for some that you being an infidel is enough reason... Same thing as some people like to ridicule people with faith just because they think Christ is the real deal.

 

I'm sorry....what does that ^^^ even mean?

 

Buddhist texts do not relate the history of mankind and thus you do not see the story of mans inhumanity to man in them.