I'm conflicted about the Bible. Will you discuss it with me?

[MHz]

I'm going to list a few more random thoughts about my conflicted understanding of the Bible. Almost everything I point out could become a thread of its own, but I'm trying to focus on the overall difficulty of making sense of the various challenges posed by the scriptures themselves.

It is true that some topics are more involved than others however some longer passages like Eze:37:1-12 can be understood about as fast as you can read it. In the separating of vision an reality would two examples show that there is a vision and a reality. Two visions are given that also come with explanations, if the explanations cover how it plays out for 'the inhabitants of the earth' can that be used as a 'general rule as to how things play out'? The vision of the harlot in Revelation comes with an explanation and Daniel 7 has an explanation. The explanations still use 'figurative language' but at least you have the way it is meant in those situations. Apply some info from other verses and the harlot and the kings are identified a little more while leaving their identies a mystery until the deception is over. What i get from the vision before I read the explanation is different from what I get if I read it again after having read the explanations (and having a general idea of what it meant)

-There appear to be two versions of the creation story. Genesis 1 does not appear to be consistent with Genesis 2. This is the very beginning of the "book of life." Why would God allow an inconsistency at all, much less when the reader is first beginning with the story?

Ge:1 is the birth of the heaven and the earth, that includes Angelic beings and Ge:2 only covers Adam and a small portion of Eden (Eden = Earth) Garden = the small area bordered by the mentioned rivers. In the previous creation days the area outside the Garden area developed and only the garden area was without 'the mist'. Once Adam was born according to the Ge:1 time-line (could be the beginning of the day for Adam and the end of the day for Eve) In that 6th day the garden caught up to what the rest of Eden looked like so that by the end of the 6th day God was gone on a day of rest and Adam and Eve just started their honey-moon and just before the end of God's day of rest the incident with the tree took place.

-Most Christians I know believe that Adam and Eve were real people. They believe we all descended from them. I was taught this in every church I ever attended. Furthermore, these churches insisted that Adam's sin led to a curse upon all mankind. This is a huge conflict for me. Am I to accept that the God of the universe would condemn an entire creation for the act of one man literally eating a piece of fruit?

It means that for God to obsolve Adam of the sin and cause him to be resurrected then everybody related to Adam would also have to be judged at the same time. The event more or less happens like that but it falls in a sequence, men that are going to be made immortal and sinless are only 'created' when there is no sinners in the world and nothing alive ever dies. That is when 'nothing can go wrong, what could go wrong is all in the past at that point. To sin before that means you die, at the worst you go to hell for 1,000 years, to sin after being given immortality means you end up in the fiery lake. It would seem that God has the 'formula' just right if salvation for mankind runs at 100%. A thing called .by the skin of the teeth was even used to how close some could come to 'missing the happy ending'.

-How many people died in the flood? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Tens of millions?

Depends how productive fallen angels were. The 120 year rule given in Ge:6 would indicate each child could have about 100 children each in an average lifetime. Children of the fallen angels had 6 fingers and 6 toes and were considerably larger than 5 fingered man. If a 'female giant' had babies that were the size of normal human babies then she may have had 'litters' and that means many more in the 1500 years that period covered. Given the flood was (said to be) worldwide I see no reason to doubt the fallen angels and giants inhabited the same areas. That helps define how Revelation plays out as the Beast from the Pit is a fallen angel that was active on earth during that time.

We're told that the waters covered the entire earth. We're told that God was angered by the sin he saw and sent this flood as punishment.

That isn't what it says precisely, it says that God was 'grieved' by how wicked men had become. Men were not the rulers before the flood, they were ruled over by the Giants who were related to fallen angels. They were former Angels and when created as part of heaven prior to the earth being created they came under Law from God. The same one given to men in Re:21 when they become immortal. Angels are not given in marriage in this heaven so having children means they will go to the lake along with any 6 fingered children they made. Since they were the 'government' they 'paid the price. Jude is all about fallen angels and giants, they are the 'ungodly men' of days of old. As to how many there were the verse below is how many holy angels it took to put them in the Pit.

De:33:2:
And he said,
The LORD came from Sinai,
and rose up from Seir unto them;
he shined forth from mount Paran,
and he came with ten thousands of saints:
from his right hand went a fiery law for them.

To get an idea of how Go9d felt compare it to Jesus and the way He felt when being accused by Mary of 'letting her brother die' by delaying the journey for two days after He knew Lazarus was sick and you get an idea of what grief is. It is a lunp in the throat, for God and the flood it was 'guilt' for creating man and beast and seei9ng what fallen angels could do to that. Noah was the last perfect 5 fingered man, that is why the flood came, if it came to zero then a Messiah could not be born to bring mankind back from the grave. That became possible when He loved some of them when He was here earlier.

But when the waters receded, sin was still present and continues to this day. What are we to make of this mass slaughter which appears to have served no purpose but to appease an angry God?

At the exodus any remaining giants were extincted, that brought with it a change in Law, the 10 Commandments took over from the Re:21 Law.

How can the God who presumably personifies love be capable of such hate and vengeance?

If it was the only way to assure Jesus was born and through all men are redeemed, even the 5 fingered ones who had life prior to the flood, then how is it cruel. Allowing 5 fingered man to go extinct would have been what a cruel God would have done.

Could it be possible that it was not a literal event, but a metaphorical description of a spiritual construct?

Literal in every gory detail, their resurrection is also literal in every glorious detail so it balances out somewhat.

If so, how do we reconcile that with the historical lineage that the Bible clearly traces back to Noah's family?

Just a few more thoughts that vex me in my quest for understanding.

NP, I went through a similar phase some time back.

Neither does evolution.

Wasn't the evolution trail supposed to go fish becomes animal becomes bird and man type of trail compared to air, sea, land developing life almost independently of each other.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

-There appear to be two versions of the creation story. Genesis 1 does not appear to be consistent with Genesis 2.

They're not consistent with reality either, the order of events is wrong. Don't worry about it, this is myth and legend from two different authors or traditions, not to be taken literally.

Most Christians I know believe that Adam and Eve were real people. They believe we all descended from them. I was taught this in every church I ever attended.

And that too is wrong, that's not what happened. Humans descend from a common ancestor we share with chimpanzees, the lines diverged several million years ago.

Furthermore, these churches insisted that Adam's sin led to a curse upon all mankind. This is a huge conflict for me. Am I to accept that the God of the universe would condemn an entire creation for the act of one man literally eating a piece of fruit?

Not the entire creation, just the humans, and yes, that's one of the central dogmas of Christianity, the notion of original sin. I think it's an evil idea, personally.

How many people died in the flood?

That story's not literally true either. If there had been a global flood in Old Testament times there would be clear signs of it in the geological record all over the planet. There isn't, therefore it didn't happen, unless one is prepared to invoke a miraculous wiping away of the evidence. And if that's an acceptable explanation, then everything else that vexes you will admit of a similar one about the mysterious and unknowable ways of the deity, which really doesn't explain anything at all.

Could it be possible that it was not a literal event, but a metaphorical description of a spiritual construct?

It certainly wasn't a literal event, but I don't think it's a spiritual construct either, there are much simpler explanations. Almost every culture has a flood story of some sort, but in less developed times than these a person or tribe's whole world would have been circumscribed within a relatively small area, and if it floods it would certainly look like the whole world was flooded. Besides, the biblical flood story closely parallels an older one from a Babylonian tale called the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is probably where the biblical writers got it from.

Just a few more thoughts that vex me in my quest for understanding.

It appears to me from what you've posted so far that your vexation is due to difficulties in sorting out what's literally true from what's not. That can be a tough nut to crack, and take MHz with a grain of salt, he insists it's all literally true and correct and, as you can see, generates elaborate analyses trying to reconcile it all with itself and reality. I take the view that none of it can be taken literally unless it's corroborated by other evidence outside the Bible. It was not written to be a scientifically or historically accurate document, it exists largely for certain social, cultural, political, and didactic purposes, which it serves admirably, but taking too much of it literally is a path to confusion because, as you noted in the two creation stories, it is not internally consistent. It frequently references places and events and people that we know from other sources were real (Jesus BTW is not one of them) and it also references things, like a global flood and the walls of Jericho falling down, that we know from other sources were not real. They were invented for other purposes.

Since first beginning this thread, I've been warned repeatedly about the radicals who would swoop in to chastise me. Yet, there are almost forty posts thus far and no sign of any harsh critics.
Curious.

I don't find it so. If you look at the threads where that's happened, you'll see it was generally the original poster coming across as judgmental, self-righteous, condemnatory, or otherwise just plain stupid, that set the tone. You've been much more civilized. Or maybe we're just all still on our best behaviour since you're new here.

 

[damngrumpy]

First of all my take is that the Bible is as much a political document as anything else.
Christ was political, he was preaching against the sins of an extreme right wing empire.
Yes, the Roman Empire was fascist and that is as right wing as one gets. In today's
terms it ranked up there with Hitlers National Socialism which was right wing not
left as many believe.
The Bible was written after Christs death of course and was not meant as a Jewish
document. That is where the problems begin. Christ himself referred to himself as
a Jew. He was a reformer of the faith much like Martin Luther became in Christianity.
There we anywhere from a dozen to two dozen gospels written by not only the 12
apostles but others like Mary Magdalene as well. Timothy, was another one who is
said to have written from the left of center.
In the end it came down to four books of the Bible, Mathew, Mark, Luke and John.
They were the four left standing in a church that was mainly occupied by Gentiles
as the Jews did not buy into the Messiah thing at all. The four books have a lot of
disagreement in places that reflects the political positions of evangelical fervor that
was going on. In the end a master compromise was consented to in order to not
split the new church and religion. It had to be promoted and sold and there was no
turning back. It also surprises me that today's evangelicals won't compromise on
anything yet the very book they found their indivisible truth on is perhaps the greatest
compromise ever made. That is my take on it anyway

 

[Conflicted]

Thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to weigh in with your thoughts. Time will not allow me to personally respond to each reply I get, so please don't assume that I don't value it if I use general responses, instead. It's the only way I can keep up.

There are obviously many religions in the world, but Christianity is the only one I give credence to. I readily admit that I haven't studied other religions and have no idea how each may be similar or different. So why am I willing to grant preeminence to Christianity? I honestly don't know. This leads me to share some additional thoughts about Christians and the typical views they seem to hold, as compared to my own. These are more along the line of general observations.

-In the statement above I said "I honestly don't know." I say this a lot when attempting to discuss my views of Christianity with other people. I say it because it's true. I have far more questions than answers. I often find that Christians consider this to be an unacceptable position. They insist that I either agree with their assumptions or firmly state another prevailing sentiment. When I simply confess that "I don't know" something for certain, I find that everything else I have to say from that point forward tends to become irrelevant for some reason. Why? I embrace truth. I value truth above all else. When I say, "I don't know", I'm being truthful. I would think my Christian friends would respect me for that, but they typically don't. More often than not, their mindset becomes infiltrated with condescension or contempt. We don't seem to share the same respect for truth.
-I crave a peaceful existence. Not only for myself, but for everyone. I guess it's a rather utopian desire, but it's genuine. Perhaps that's why I find myself drawn to Christianity. The heavenly promises of Revelation 21:4 envision a world where pain and sorrow are vanquished for all time. I would hope that Christians covet this ideal as much as I do, but I seldom find that to be the case. On the contrary, I find that turmoil seems to have no greater sponsor than the Christian community. I'm appalled at the number of Christians who wish to use force to impose their values on others. This concern is compounded by the nature of their values. Many see it as a noble cause to use the tools of bigotry and racism to demand conformity in our society. They even go so far as to glorify the use of violence, authoritarianism and wars to impose conformity on other peoples and cultures around the world. They do not love peace as I do. They do not value the virtues of love, tolerance and forgiveness in the same way that I do. I don't understand it.
- I even find myself at odds with Christians on the matter of justice. For instance, I am morally opposed to capital punishment. I view it as an "eye for an eye" and I believe that is inconsistent with the teachings of Christ. To strap a murderer down on a gurney and inject poison into his body until he stops breathing is just another murder, in my humble opinion. That is vengeance, not justice. Some will argue that it is a life for a life, so therefore it is justice. However, justice is meant to be a blessing, is it not? How can the deliberate, unnecessary death of another human being be considered a virtuous thing? There are many ways to exact punishment. How do we morally condemn killing...by killing a killer?
-This leads me to the ultimate "justice" embraced by most churches and most Christians I've known. That justice would be "Hell." This is presumably a place where untold legions of human beings will spend all eternity writhing in anguish and torment as a literal fire burns their bodies without even the hope of death as an escape from their unending torture. I'd like to ask everyone reading this to take a moment to walk in their kitchen and turn on their stove. Just turn on one burner and let it get red hot. Once it becomes red hot, please place your hand flat down on the burner for as long as you can stand it. Have someone time it for us and report back with the results so we can see how long you were able to withstand the agony. I'm being facetious, of course. None of you would be so foolish as to do this. The mere suggestion is insane, isn't it? Yet, many churches insist that burning alive, without even the mercy of death, will be used as an instrument of justice against all those who fail to meet God's expectations. Think of your worst enemy. Think of some really bad people you know. Think of the most evil person you've ever heard about. How long could you watch them as they literally burned alive? If God said He would immediately stop the torment at the instant you gave the command, how long would it take? How long could you condone such a thing? How long could you convince yourself that it's a just and deserved punishment? Even if you could walk away and didn't have to watch it, could you let it go on forever? Even if you could silence the sound so you didn't have to hear the screams of unspeakable misery, could you let it go on forever? I could never condone such barbaric activity, not even unto death, much less for eternity. Should I conclude that God is a monster? Should I conclude that I possess more compassion than my creator? That would be illogical. Where did my compassion come from if not from my creator? If a mere human such as myself would have to say "NO!", why would I assume that my creator is not capable of at least the same degree of pity as I am? This is why I cannot reconcile Christianity with a literal hell. I don't know what hell really is, but I do not believe that it is an eternal dungeon of torture for the pleasure of a merciless god of vengeance. Why anyone would believe that our creator is such a being perplexes me. But, what perplexes me even more, is that anyone would deem such a being worthy of worship when the entire essence of Christianity is the antithesis of evil. How could a literal hell not be considered the product of evil when mere mortals continue to debate the proper punishment of even the harshest transgressions committed against themselves?

 

[Spade]

You give "preeminence" to Christianity because you were born into a "Christian "culture. If you were born in a Buddhist country, you would look at Christianity as a collection of absurd myths and contradictions.
PS
Capital punishment is as contrary to the early teachings of Christianity as you can get. So are war and other forms of violence. And, hell is an absurdity in the extreme.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Well now Conflicted, your post #44 certainly sounds familiar. I grew up in a very Christian household and received the standard teachings at my mother's knee, so to speak. I just uncritically accepted them as true, as children generally do, but on attaining the age of reason I began to ask the same questions you're asking. I presume that's just a subset of them, it certainly was for me. And I couldn't get any sensible answers either, instead I got anger, rejection, threats, repression, and denial, same as you seem to have received. Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that this stuff couldn't possibly be true, and I'm sure my original beliefs were heavily corroded by an education in science. I became apostate, rejected it all, and ended up at the atheist position as a fairly young man. In all the decades since I've continued to study and think and talk about these matters with anybody who's interested, because I think they're important. I too am interested in what's true, and I believe this guy gets it exactly right in the last 60 seconds of this clip.
Christopher Hitchens at his best (1) - YouTube

 

[Spade]

Jesus was a Buddhist Monk BBC Documentary - YouTube

 

[Conflicted]

I still find it odd that I haven't been swarmed by a mob of Christians yet. It's actually a little disappointing. I find it more interesting to engage people who believe in something than those who believe in...well...nothing.

Agnostics are generally torn between believing and not believing. The jury is still out for them. But true agnostics can't remain agnostics for long. To do so would draw into question their ability to reason. We inevitably "lean" one way or the other when it comes to a belief in a higher power. You would have to practically be a mental zombie not to migrate to one school of thought or the other.

Then there are the atheists. Some of you present yourselves as such. I respect your stated position, but view it with suspicion. You have to remember that I do believe we are created beings. As created beings, I suspect there is at least a subconscious connection with our creator on some level, so I tend to view atheism as an act of autonomy, more than anything else.

In my humble opinion, atheism is the hardest belief system to rationalize. To assume that the existence of mankind, and all the marvels of nature, are simply the product of some cosmic lottery, requires more faith than any religion I can imagine. There is nothing that tortures logic more than the effort to prohibit wonder. It's akin to dismissing the works of Picasso and da vinci as the result of a paint factory explosion.

I find some atheists as bitter, some as arrogant, but few who are content. I mean no offense. I'm simply offering observations from my own encounters and discussions. I admit to painting with a broad brush here, so I'll elaborate just a bit.

The bitter atheists usually have a chip on their shoulder due to the injustice of life. They're angry on the inside and shaking their fist on the outside. Their refusal to believe in a higher power is more an act of spite, than a genuine conviction. It doesn't take long for their hostility to surface when asked to explain their conclusions. My dad is an atheist. I don't know him well because we've lived separate lives since he and my mother divorced when I was very young. My dad witnessed his own father's suicide. I've often wondered if that might be part of his contempt for any thought process regarding spiritual things.

The arrogant atheist is a different breed. These are the intellectuals who seek to impress us all with their erudite enlightenment. The arrogant atheist tends to be a scholarly elitist who takes pleasure in chastising the very notion of intelligent design. They speak in a condescending manner, as if to imply that they are annoyed by the willingness of the masses to forfeit the right to deem Man as a god in his own right. Though they can no more prove the absence of a creator than I can the existence of one, they argue their position with the same fervent superiority as their most fanatical religious counterparts.

I've met very few atheists who seem to be genuinely content with their beliefs. To be a "genuine" atheist, you have to "genuinely" believe that this is all there is. We live--we die--end of story. It takes a remarkable degree of indifference to be genuinely content with such a conclusion. But, who am I to say that such people can't exist.

Just as believers rely on various books of teachings to back them up, non-believers rely on science. I make no effort to dismiss the benefit of science; there's no need to. Science is an excellent tool for explaining things, but it's absolutely worthless when attempting to prove, or disprove, matters of higher order. If you're an atheist, and you want to debate me with science, save yourself the trouble. It's a non-starter for me.

Well, I guess this post seems to be "birdwalking" since I started this thread over conflictions with the Bible, but for me it's all relevant.

 

[lone wolf]

Oh, if you chum the waters just right, you'll be set upon....

Some folk - myself included - have faith enough to not be god. My opinion of the Bible is among all the chaff, there is the odd kernel of useful material

 

[Spade]

You are right; lots of chaff, the occasional kernel. But, that is true of the Qu'ran, Vedas, First nations beliefs, and so on.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

In my humble opinion, atheism is the hardest belief system to rationalize. To assume that the existence of mankind, and all the marvels of nature, are simply the product of some cosmic lottery, requires more faith than any religion I can imagine. There is nothing that tortures logic more than the effort to prohibit wonder. It's akin to dismissing the works of Picasso and da vinci as the result of a paint factory explosion.

Atheism is not a belief system, neither does it assume that everything is a result of a cosmic lottery, nor does it prohibit wonder. The roots of the word simply mean without god, it's an absence of a particular belief system, and it's no more difficult to rationalize than what I'm pretty confident is your lack of belief in Mithras, Zeus, Apollo, Thor, Wotan, and the Grand Panjandrum Up The Mountain. Atheists merely believe in one less deity than you do, and when you truly understand why you don't believe in any of those other gods, you'll understand why atheists don't believe in yours.

 

[JLM]

You are right; lots of chaff, the occasional kernel. But, that is true of the Qu'ran, Vedas, First nations beliefs, and so on.

I think the strong point of the Bible is advise on how to live and the weakness is the inaccuracy of historical events.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I think the strong point of the Bible is advise on how to live...

Read Leviticus and Deuteronomy lately?

 

[JLM]

Read Leviticus and Deuteronomy lately?

Probably never! I don't believe that is where you find the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule.

 

[Cliffy]

From your rant, it appears that you want some Christians to come on here and prove the validity of their beliefs so you can sleep easy at night without having to give it another thought. There is one possibility you do not seem to consider and that is a spiritual life as opposed to a religious one. The main difference I see between the two is that one (a spiritual live) requires faith and the other (a religious life) requires belief. One (religion) requires holding onto a rock (belief) the other requires letting go of rocks and learning how to swim in the stream of life. One rewards you in the after life, the other in the present. One requires an omnipotent (and despotic) god the other does not (gods are optional). One requires an open mind, the other a closed one. One requires living in the here and now and the other requires living for the after life.

You can still believe in a creator and leave yourself open to the lessons life has to offer. We live in a world full of wonder and beauty that really requires us to be present and alert all the time to fully appreciate it. Spending your time buried in an ancient book, analyzing every word is to miss out on life, unless you would prefer to be like Mhz and think life is not worth living and that studying the bible is his ticket to a better life after this one of which there are no guarantees. If you believe that you were put on this earth by a creator, does it make sense that such a creator would want you to view this life as sinful and deprived, full of demons and temptation? Or would you want to see this life as a wonderful experience full of bliss? Is your creator benevolent or malevolent?

 

[Cliffy]

Try this on for size. An alternative to being a slave to another master.

Your Consciousness Creats Your Reality - YouTube

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Probably never! I don't believe that is where you find the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule.

No, but you'll find around 600 other rules for living correctly, many of them senseless and repellant, and a lot of them illegal in any civilized place.

 

[JLM]

No, but you'll find around 600 other rules for living correctly, many of them senseless and repellant, and a lot of them illegal in any civilized place.

For different people in different times under different conditions! :smile:

 

[Dexter Sinister]

For different people in different times under different conditions! :smile:

Indeed, exactly the point, those old rules are no longer relevant, if they ever were, but people continue to cherry pick them to support a position when they have no legitimate arguments. I've heard local Christian people argue, for example, that the Harry Potter books not be permitted in school libraries on the strength of Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," to which I responded with the hope that they never have a stubborn and rebellious son (perhaps one who reads the forbidden books anyway), as there's a passage in Deuteronomy 21 that requires the men of the city to stone him to death.

 

[gerryh]

Indeed, exactly the point, those old rules are no longer relevant, if they ever were, but people continue to cherry pick them to support a position when they have no legitimate arguments. I've heard local Christian people argue, for example, that the Harry Potter books not be permitted in school libraries on the strength of Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," to which I responded with the hope that they never have a stubborn and rebellious son (perhaps one who reads the forbidden books anyway), as there's a passage in Deuteronomy 21 that requires the men of the city to stone him to death.

Those old "rules" were thrown out by Christs new covenant.

I still find it odd that I haven't been swarmed by a mob of Christians yet. It's actually a little disappointing. I find it more interesting to engage people who believe in something than those who believe in...well...nothing.

I answered, you chose to ignore.