Proof that God and Heaven don't exist

Liroy,
you threatened someone, you're obviously getting very frustrated and you're not making much sense...Apparently you don't understand the definition of respect. You can't say you respect someones beliefs one minute and then say "theyre total fucking bullshit" and act like you are superior to them...You seem to enjoy calling people out for ignorance and hypocrisy for minor things, but you are the definition of both.

 

Frustrated with what?
A bunch of christians and christian lovers that are amusing me because they dont want to reply to my questions and statements and all they can do is whine?
Give me a fucking break
It is you that dont make sense, because you just made another pointless post about what I am doing here, but yet you fail to answer all questions that have been asked on the last 3 pages :')

whatshappenin23, I assume you did notice *why* I threatened someone?
She told me she thought my mom was a laugh and that it was very funny that my mother is dying.
I assume you think this is a very christian thing to say?

Besides, it wasnt much of a threat anyway, it was more something to which I was hoping to get a angry reaction and then be able to say: "C'est la vie", and laugh my ass off because she got the same thing she likes to do to other people back at herself, and even then, what she did was quite worse compared to what I did, so please... spare me these posts.

Also, did you notice it is not me, but lovelorned that has been banned for her statements and behaviour here?

Oh yes, I am the deffinition of both while your ignorance has once again prooven to be major over all other things.
Have you not read what I said?
Here we go again:

I DO RESPECT YOUR OPINION, BUT YOU DONT RESPECT MY OPINION, SO WHOSE THE HYPOCRITE?

Perhaps if put it in caps it's easyer for you to understand or to make your brain actually read what it says,
or perhaps I only draw the attention by using foul language, so perhaps I should reformulate it with alot of fucks and shits in it for you to actually read what I am saying?

Jesus christ, it's so hard to get a answer around here,
it's like you have to find a new method to get a real answer here everyday.

 

Ooooh you avoided your ban, little girl?
You know that is illegal right?
This will get you in trouble :-X

Nevertheless,
peace and love and harmony.
Remember those 3 words, you lack those 3 deffinitions.

 

dude...I can respect if your opinion is that you don't believe in God, and you're not a christian. GOOD FOR YOU!!! I don't respect when you say that my beliefs are "total fucking bullshit" and the fact you would say that proves that you really don't respect my beliefs.
I don't understand your use of the word major...maybe your points aren't getting across because of the language barrier Im not sure.
I didn't see what she said about your mum, and im sorry to hear about that...

if you want to know where I stand on the questions you have posed, go back and read my first few posts...I don't feel the need to type everything else all over again, especially when I know you don't even want to hear it.

 

I want to hear it if you want to say it,
the first post doesnt answer all my questions.

And if I feel that your beliefs are total fucking bullshit, or perhaps maybe you think "fairy tail" is a better deffinition (although a fairytail frankly also is bullshit, isnt it? all made up), then I'm very sorry if that is something you cant cope to hear, but ohwell... a opinion can be offensive, cant satisfy everybody can I.

Well,
perhaps you indeed dont understand, but atleast I am trying to make myself clear in your language and make a effort for it.

 

yea Im not blaming you for being dutch...your english is perfect actually. But still, it can be complicated getting some ideas across if it isn't your native tongue.
Anyway, my beliefs arent fairy tales. I don't even believe that Jesus is God incarnate, or God's son or any of that...I believe he was a great man divinely inspired and I feel that if I want to live a good life in tune with the universe and everything, than Jesus is a great role model.
I don't like the word "God" because it does have a lot of connotations that I am aware of, and don't agree with. I don't think God is a man or any sort of being that we can comprehend. I think that "God" is the highest potential we have inside of us, all of our goodness, all of our love, our compassion, happiness, health etc...and I believe this world and life has a purpose. That is God to me. Beyond that, everything else is speculation I think. I think of the Bible that way as well (and many other spiritual writings like the tao, etc...) so I don't take the bible literally. I think there are many good metaphors and poetic ways of expressing basic human truths. For instance, heaven is a place on earth where we are happy, kind, at peace, free, full of love, etc...we get to that place by making wise sound healthy decisions and helping other people lead better lives. You don't do these things for the promise of an afterlife, you do them because you care for others and there is a natural reward for being loving; you feel good about yourself. "hell" is also a place on earth..its a place of hatred, perversion, guilt, shame and bondage. You end up in hell because of the natural consequences of choices you make in life. If you are bitter, resentful, hateful, and unwise in how you treat yourself and others, then eventually you will suffer yourself because of it.
Now of course, most of us live in the in-between...meaning we are not completely full of sin and guilt and shame and lead horrible lives, but we haven't made it to nirvana either. The Tao calls this middle ground the land of 10,000 things (or at least thats how I interpret it) where our egos, and wordly material concerns things keep us bouncing back and forth between stability and chaos.

I think that throughout history, large groups of people have gotten warped ideas about God. Some believed that God existed but chose to defy him and lead sinful lives. Some did not believe in God and lived wonderful lives. Some did not believe in God and used this disbelief to justify immorality. Some believed in God and the afterlife to justify all the horrible things they did in this life which would inevitably be forgiven simply because they believed. Some came to associate God with the church, and never even attempted to have a spiritual life whatsoever. Many simply could not comprehend spiritual things...So yes, religion has been a wrecking ball of sorts during certain historical periods. It has also been a backbone to society in other periods. The good and the bad. That is life.

I know im kinda rambling and getting a bit vague...but im not sure what points you even wanted me to touch in. If you specify, Id be glad to get more specific/into greater detail.

 

isnt this a mute subject . . . for both sides?

 

But I should add this, because when you're talking about the Bible, its a bit of a complicated matter...The catholic church decided which writings would be included, and essentially manipulated the book in many ways to make it line up with the way they wanted to run their church and society. But the Early Christians who obviously were very influential in the creation of the new testament were persecuted for their beliefs. You know, killed. So when they communicated (through letters, some of which you might know, made it into the bible) they had to be discreet and speak in codes. They passed down coded information for several generations before it ever got put into writing...From this, much was omitted (gospel of Judas, etc...)
And just think, have you ever played the game where one kid whispers something in the ear of his neighbor and etc etc til the whisper makes it all the way to the other side of the room...what happens?? some completely new word has made its way into the chain. Some crucial words were lost. The meaning has all but been lost. Now imagine persecuted christians playing this game for a couple centuries...you can figure it out. As with any other work, You also must consider who the Bibles intended audience was, the context (time period/society) it was written in, etc...
Every published work is subject to scrutiny, and the bible is not exempt. But as a critic, you must give charitable interpretations to ensure you don't skip over something worthy. Take Aristotles works for instance...LITTERED with more innacuracies then you can keep count of. But would you say that Aristotles ideas as a whole were "total fucking bullshit." well, you'd have to be ignoring his influence on every scientific field, philosophy, mathematics and the arts along with all of his valid points which, despite all the invalid ones, were nevertheless many.

 

Good post. Not only do I agree with it, but it got us back on track instead of the escallating spiral of insults and personal attacks that was going nowhere. If there aren't any basic ground rules of civility on Hip Forums, there should be. I think it's kind of basic that we don't insult people's mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, girlfriends, etc., and try to keep from getting personal. Those are what the law calls "fighting words", and the courts don't even consider them protected speech. Having these discussions can be fun, and it helps me to get feedback for ideas that seem much more brilliant when I keep them to myself. But it's not worth getting lathered up about. We've never even met each other, so why should anyone care what another says?

 

I must learn where you learned your biblical scholarship, was it in "Crazy Conspiricy College"? I don't even know how to respond to your claims that the "secret code letters" made it into the NT? Care to enlighten me because I do not know about them.

Did you know that many of the non-canonical gospels were written somewhere in the 2nd and 3rd C., quite a time after Jesus' death?

I think it is safe to say that 1 Thess. is the earliest book of the NT canon written somewhere in the 40's or 50's of the 1st C. The last was probably Revelation, at at the end of the 1st Century, some even like to date it earlier than that in the 60's.

At that time there was no "Centrist" church. I think it is quite an uneducated response to claim the "catholic" church manipulated the book. In my quite secular Early Chrsitian writings class (as an example of how secular it is, our text book "Who wrote the New Testament" and then the subtitle is something about Mythmaking" basically argues that Paul made it up as he went) even it tends to agree that the canon in the NT was well established prior to the 4th C. canonization process by then then Mainline church.

On a side note about Oral tradition: go tell any Native that his oral tradition is bunk because it isn't written down. Or reciters of the Vedas. Great measures are taken to ensure that the oral tradition is preserved perfectly. More revisions were probably made AFTER them being written because the media could disperse much more quickly and be retained for a longer time so less emphasis had to be placed on memorization.

 

So I take it you think Ehrman's books are a lot of hooey? I'm sure that if you told "any Native that his oral tradition is bunk because it isn't written down", he'd be outraged. But would he be right? Your counterintuitive suggestion that oral traditions are more trustworthy than written ones might be true, but I'd like to see more evidence than the "stands to reason" argument you present. There are enough discrepancies in the different canonical gospels to warrant the suspicion that replication wasn't 100%. The "secret code letters" notion is a stretch, but that shouldn't discredit the rest of the arguments.

 

In reading about his work (just now) you notice that his theories apply to the "Church Fathers" and not really what I'd call "Early Christianity". Yes it is Early Christianity but it is hardly the beginning of the texts.

I was under the impression that what he was refering to in his post was what Ehrman calls "proto orthodox christianity".

but yes, I still do think it is more then not hooey. Some of his things were correct. Yes Marcion had a seperate text ( Edit: Sorry, i said he was killed but he wasn't ), but I do not think that the Church Fathers were activly editing and changing all of the NT canon texts.

 

Why?

 

There is no evidence of it. We have copies of the texts that date back to when Ehrman claims the editing to be taking place (namely in the 1st C.) such as Paul's leters and all 4 of the canon gospels.

"n addition to the four canonical gospels there have been other gospels that were not accepted into the canon. Generally these were not accepted due to doubt over the authorship, the time frame between the original writing and the events described, or content that was at odds with orthodoxy. For example, if a gospel claimed to be written by James, yet was authored in the second century, clearly authorship was not authentic. This differs from the four canonical gospels which historians agree were authored before 100."

yess, it is from wikipedia (the scum of the earth) but I don't care.


and i guess i subscribe to the more traditional a little because of my faith...

 

are you catholic??
Anyway, I should have rephrased that...I didn't mean to combine coded letters and the letters that made it into the NT. But you know, the council of nicea happened in the 4th century AD, and the church BURNED many of the texts and added the idea that Jesus and God were the same. I know that some scholars think that Mark in particular had certain parts ommitted. The reason they did this was to unify an empire...if that isn't manipulation, you tell me what is.
Oral tradition is fine with me, but you have to distinguish between people who could openly practice their spiritual beliefs and people who were largely persecuted and secretive. Its a little harder to keep an oral tradition going when you have to fly under the radar. Not to mention, this does not take away from the fact that there would inevitably be discrepancies on what the original message was. Especially since Jesus spoke largely in metaphors...if someone didn't truly grasp the intended message than they probably were more likely to foul it up.

Anyway, my point here is NOT to unfairly criticize the Bible, but quite the contrary...it is to get some people to open their eyes and look at the historical implications. To put the writings in context. And to take an educated look at something they don't understand rather than just blindly criticize it. Just because something isn't PERFECT does not make it completely useless, and surely finding a mistake in a book written by humans does not discredit an entire religion, nor does it disprove the existence of God (doesn't do that by a long shot) so I just hope people can grasp that idea.

 

oh and maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to say "the catholic church" but I guess Im just prescribing to the idea that the catholic church teaches, that they are the church of peter, the rock of Jesus. I dont necessarily agree with that, so I should have just said "the church." anyway, forgive me. I'm not a biblical scholar, just someone who spent time trying to figure things out after questioning my faith for a while. I ultimately came back around with a better attitude then before and more solid beliefs, and of course some theories on christian history.

 

Well it is my understanding that is is pretty well documented that Mark had portiond ADDED to it, namely the ressurection stories. In the earlies manuscripts, the women find the empty tomb and run away frightened to tell the others.

I agree that people shouldn't turn to the bible without reading it critically like any literature. It is a literature that folllows highly constructed folmulas. That is one reason why I am joining the RCC (roman catholic church) is because they do not deny, but accept a critical analysis of the bible and the world. They openly say that the bible is not a scientific document and isn't meant to answer scientific questions.

So yeah, to you first question, i am technically not Catholic (not baptised) but i am in the RCIa which is the process for Adults to be baptised and confirmed and initiated into the Chruch.

 

No problem. Without questioning, faith becomes stale and eventually dies. Without internal pressure and questioning, reforms would have never taken place within the Catholic Churches during the 1960's

 

Awwww look at you! All this attention you're getting!

Christmas has come early hasn't it?

:]

 

Attention, yet no answers or points to proove him wrong.
back again are we? *sigh*