The Valuable Things In The Christian Package

[Guest funky_uncle]

Hi, new member here. I'm on an agnostic journey and I have no idea where I'll land.

 

I see that many people who reject christianity do so because of certain aspects of it, like the belief in hell, or because they discover that supposedly spiritual experiences turned out to be only emotional. I also see arguments against "what the bible teaches".

 

But that shows me that you've accepted the notion that christianity must be either just like the christians around you believe, or not true at all. Take the whole thing with the bible being "the word of God" for example. Why is that? I've debated a lot of (fellow) believers about that idea, and I believe it's nothing more than a christian dogma, and assumption. The bible itself doesn't say it's the "word of God" - in fact the bible doesn't even mention the bible as we know it.

 

I'm just mentioning this because I think we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. For example, whether God is real or not, the concept of grace has absolutely, and in reality, transformed my life. I used to be a legalist, with all the bondage and guilt it entails, until I had "a revelation of grace" which gave me a whole new, positive, look on myself and on God. And now that I've started to doubt if God is even real, the message/concept of grace still means the world to me. Grace and love works even apart from christianity, even apart from faith at all.

 

I might end up as an atheist personally, but I'm going to stay in christian circles trying to attribute to a better, more constructive christianity. Even if I'll have to be somehow dishonest 8a lot of people would stop listening to me if they knew I'm a doubter). But my point is that there's potential there - in the bible, in the congregations. They can be used for good. I just have to take care not to be overwhelmed by bitterness over christians and disappointment with God.

[Taphophilia]

Hi funky,

 

Welcome to Ex-C!!!

 

I didn't reject Christianity for the reasons above. This site explains why I no longer accept Christianity. http://www.pocm.info/

 

Here is the thing, funky, no one has ever seen the Bible as it was originally written. Not even the people who were writing it. By the time the last of the books were being written, the earlier ones were already worn out and copied. We don't have first hand copies, or even second hand copies, what we have are copies of copies of copies that are, in most cases, centuries removed from the originals. We could go back to the originals and see how the texts were changed, which we know they were because there are more differences in the copies that we have than are words in the New Testament, but we don't have them. They have been lost to history, Furthermore, we don't know what they said.

 

Also, some of the letters by Paul are not even by Paul. They are forgeries. Paul is believed to have died in 64AD during the Neronian persecution and some of the books attributed to him were written into the second century.

 

How can you trust a book that has been changed significantly and we don't know what it originally said, has forgeries in it, and adopts myths into it from other religions of the time?

 

Furthermore, the Bible wasn't even compiled until after 400 AD and has gone through many revisions and cuts until the 17th century.

 

Taph

[Guest funky_uncle]

Hi funky,

 

Welcome to Ex-C!!!

Thanks! I'm not used to meeting atheism and friendliness in the same place...

 

Here is the thing, funky, no one has ever seen the Bible as it was originally written. Not even the people who were writing it. By the time the last of the books were being written, the earlier ones were already worn out and copied. We don't have first hand copies, or even second hand copies, what we have are copies of copies of copies that are, in most cases, centuries removed from the originals. We could go back to the originals and see how the texts were changed, which we know they were because there are more differences in the copies that we have than are words in the New Testament, but we don't have them. They have been lost to history, Furthermore, we don't know what they said.

 

Also, some of the letters by Paul are not even by Paul. They are forgeries. Paul is believed to have died in 64AD during the Neronian persecution and some of the books attributed to him were written into the second century.

Many christians acknowledge that, though. They'll agree that we simply don't know who wrote certain letters in the NT. And of course, when someone "follows the bible" they are in reality following their interpretation of a translation of a version of it... and if you ask them, hardly anyone can tell you why they regard the Lutheran version of the bible to be the "infallible word of God" and not the Catholic version, for example.

 

But then again, the picture is bigger than that; not all christians think like that. For me, as a believer (presently agnostic and possibly atheist in the future), the bible didn't have to be infallible, because unlike most of my fellow believers, I would trust in God Himself, not in a book written about him. The bible, I figure, isn't God writing a message to men. It's men writing down their experience with God. Christians will nag about "taking the bible literally" or at least seriously, while they themselves completely ignore who wrote it, when it was written, who it was written to, and indeed what it IS that is written there. The bible is history, poetry, personal letters, prophecy, philosophy, etc - and for the most part, it says so itself! Like "this is the story about king Abdamubullah" etc etc.

 

How can you trust a book that has been changed significantly and we don't know what it originally said, has forgeries in it, and adopts myths into it from other religions of the time?

Well, I don't.

 

Not anymore. But that's just my point - rejecting the idea that the bible is infallible, for instance, doesn't mean you have to reject God, or every idea or attitude found in christianity. I browsed through the site you linked to, and while it can be used to "debunk" christianity as The One True Faith, it could also be taken as a sign that there just might be something to some of those stories. The Flood, for example, is a story found in many different cultures and beliefs. Could that possibly be a sign that it might be true somehow? What if God is GREATER than christianity or any other way of defining him/her?

[Taphophilia]

Funky,

 

We are not all atheists here. I hung onto god for a long while, just not the Christian god.

 

If you want to read a better book than the bible try "A Course In Miracles". It was after I deconverted that I read it. Even though, I don't believe in god anymore, there are a lot of things in the book that I still subscribe to.

 

Well, as far as the flood, Egypt is a much older civilization than when the flood could have taken place and Egyptians were prolific chroniclers. There is no mention of Egyptian civilization ever being interrupted by a catastrophic flood. So, a global flood is out of the question.

 

The origin of the biblical flood story dates back to 2900 BC. It's even older than Gigamesh and that epic was more than likely taken from the story.

 

The reconstructed legend is this:

 

Ziusudra reigned for ten years as king of Shuruppak, a Sumerian city then on the Euphrates River. Ziusudra's reign was at the end of the Jemdet Nasr period that ended with the flood of 2900 BC. Then as now, river barges were used for transporting cargo on the Euphrates River. This cargo included livestock, beer, wine, textiles, lumber, stone, metals, dried fish, vegetable oil, and other cargo. In June about 2900 BC during the annual inundation of the Euphrates River, the river was at crest stage. A six-day thunderstorm caused the river to rise about 15 cubits (22 feet) higher and overflow the levees. By the time the river began to rise, it was already too late to evacuate to the foothills of the mountains 110 miles away. Ziusudra boarded one the the barges that was already loaded with cargo being transported to market. The runaway barge floated down the Euphrates River into the Persian Gulf and grounded in an estuary at the mouth of the river. After moving to dry land, Ziusudra offered a sacrifice to a Sumerian god on an alter at the top of a temple ziggurat, an artificial hill. Later, story tellers mistranslated the ambiguous word for hill as mountain. The story tellers then erroneously assumed that the nearby barge must have grounded on top of a mountain.

 

Not only was the ambiguous word for hill or country mistranslated as mountain, the words that identified the flood as a river flood were changed to indicate an ocean deluge. The archaic number signs in which the Genesis 5 numbers and Noah's age were recorded, were mistranslated which made them about ten times their original value. The "flood" of Genesis 6-7 was confused with the "waters" of Genesis 8. A journey on foot to Mount Judi in the Mountains of Ararat was confused with a journey on the water of the Persian Gulf. The numbers in the Sumerian King List were also mistraslated by an ancient scribe.

[gradstu09]

All the valuable things, as you term them, may be found in any other religion and in philosophy. Christianity does not have a monopoly on them, and the trash that's bundled with the valuable things more than overwhelms them.

[Ouroboros]

Thanks! I'm not used to meeting atheism and friendliness in the same place...

I guess you just haven't been here long enough!

[Antlerman]

What if God is GREATER than christianity or any other way of defining him/her?

Welcome funky_uncle. I can see having a lot of meaningful discussion with you here. I technically consider myself an atheist, though certainly not in the hard-core rationalist sense. I do see some value in what you're saying here, and have considered things in that light as well, without necessarily accepting "God" as a separate "Being" of sorts that exists outside us. Complex to explain in a few short sentences which I'll only spend a brief time on here.

 

But I agree, "God" is greater than what those who actually use the system to find "God". All of these are just signs to point to something greater, and to hold up the sign itself as the "Truth" or the destination, is frankly tantamount to idolatry and supplants its purpose as a sign with something else that works against what it's supposed to help lead one to. I'm always referencing elsewhere to things I've said to explain myself, so I'll not make an exception here. You can spend some time in this debate I had with a Christian where it touches on some of the thoughts surrounding this: http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?showtopic=20121 (my opening thoughts are quoted inside post #3)

 

I'm thoroughly enjoying a beautiful day sitting outside at my parents house right now, reveling in the beauty of life, and as I return home from this brief break from work, I'll spend some more time in discussion with you if you should wish.

[The-Captain]

The bible, I figure, isn't God writing a message to men. It's men writing down their experience with God. Christians will nag about "taking the bible literally" or at least seriously, while they themselves completely ignore who wrote it, when it was written, who it was written to, and indeed what it IS that is written there. The bible is history, poetry, personal letters, prophecy, philosophy, etc - and for the most part, it says so itself! Like "this is the story about king Abdamubullah" etc etc.

 

That's an interesting thought...

 

Question then, what is that God anyway? I tend to think of it more as men's experience with what they call God.

 

Oh and BTW welcome to the site.