'owl' said:

Excuse me sherlock, how did you come to that conclusion based on what I said? The sermon of the mountain accounts pretty much for my first statement. The amount of pedophile priests for the second in relation to the first. And the third is just a personal appreciation.

In what way does the sermon on the mount tell you why your life is miserable?

Which part of the sermon on the mount doesn't sound like a beautiful (yet possibly utopic) advice to you?

'tstrimple' said:

So you're saying that the Apocrypha don't exist and that the construction of the bible was not a long, drawn out political process? I'm not saying the existing gospels aren't accurate compared to their original document, I'm saying that the Church picked the gospels that most supported them while leaving out dozens of other texts that were just as "accurate" as those included in the bible.

You are jumping to a conclusion that is not entirely accurate. Books are added or left out of different versions of the Bible for similar reasons that a basic chemistry book doesn't contain sections on astro-physics. The Bible is meant to be the divinely inspired word of God written by man. It makes sense that only the books that are believed to be divinely inspired be in there. You are more than welcome to compile your own version of the bible with every gospel and every scripture ever written

The bible is really a political construction of its integration as the state religion of the Roman Empire after Constantine. Ever wonder why Christmas is in December, yet his birth was supposed to be contemporaneous with lambings? Chalk that one up to Saturnalia.
And damn near every major religion is like that. Confucianism and Buddhism were likewise constantly edited, recompiled and reinterpreted in China

Which part of the sermon on the mount doesn't sound like a beautiful (yet possibly utopic) advice to you?

how does that correlate to telling you why you are miserable?

'owl' said:

Which part of the sermon on the mount doesn't sound like a beautiful (yet possibly utopic) advice to you?

how does that correlate to telling you why you are miserable?

According to Jebus, worring about what you'll eat and what you will wear tomorrow is an incesesary concern. Pretty much the kind of concern that make most of us miserable.
How does that not correlates to what I was saying? Or more importantly, why didn't you see the relation?

According to Jebus, worring about what you'll eat and what you will wear tomorrow is an incesesary concern. Pretty much the kind of concern that make most of us miserable.
How does that not correlates to what I was saying? Or more importantly, why didn't you see the relation?

telling someone something that will make them less miserable is not the same as telling them why they are miserable.

"good" by what standards and who gets to say that standard is valid/correct? That's the thing and I never will understand this argument.

We have been through this again, haven't we?

Ok, example...Say person A is a "good Christian".Behaves *exactly* like a good Christian would do. That is, pray to God the "correct way"(whatever that means), respect his family and others, try to help whenever others ask for his help, use his talents to help other people and himself of course. Of course he/she will make mistakes too. Now, imagine the same person, doing the exact same things, but not caring about religion, that is, not go out of his way to "convert" people into atheists, but just doesn't show interest in the whole "God" thing either. According to your religtion, how do you classify that person? Is it even possible that this person has already been given the "grace" by God and doesn't know it, because religion in their eyes seems a bit monolithic? I'm only asking this time, I know you feel strongly about your religion and I'm just interested to hear the answer on this.
Scripture is very clear on the subject. A person is not condemned because of their behavior. They're condemned because of their rejection of God and his gift of salvation to cover their sin.

If you believe God as stated in the Bible is real, then believing what you've stated here is silly because the Bible says your belief is invalid. You can't have it both ways.

The Bible does mention people that have "the Law written in their hearts", doesn't it Machaira?

Yes, but in context those people are Christians.

Let's not kid ourselves. Religion and words written in books cannot make you "experience" God. They can only confirm what you already feel, and of course that's a big thing, but it's a means, not the end. And the choise of religion is most times cultural and based in your upbringing. It would be *much* better if some people tried to find where the 3 great monotheistic religions(Islam, Judaism, Christianism) converge, instead of the other way around. Jesus specifically mentioned those that are able to reconcile great past differences as "blessed" and "children of God".

Source and context?

Of course, Jesus is arguably the most irrelevant character in most Christian doctrine today

If a church's doctrine doesn't talk about Jesus, I'd question their "Christianity".

'owl' said:

According to Jebus, worring about what you'll eat and what you will wear tomorrow is an incesesary concern. Pretty much the kind of concern that make most of us miserable.
How does that not correlates to what I was saying? Or more importantly, why didn't you see the relation?

telling someone something that will make them less miserable is not the same as telling them why they are miserable.

If I told you "do not catch yourself on fire" in order to avoid being miserable, wouldn't you consider "catching yourself on fire" the reason of being miserable?


Maybe for nitpickers like you it should be worded a little clearer like: "If you don't want to be miserable do not catch yourself on fire. Because catching yourself on fire is the reason why you feel miserable". Just to be safe that everyone will get it.

That makes sense for you now uh?

'tstrimple' said:

So you're saying that the Apocrypha don't exist and that the construction of the bible was not a long, drawn out political process? I'm not saying the existing gospels aren't accurate compared to their original document, I'm saying that the Church picked the gospels that most supported them while leaving out dozens of other texts that were just as "accurate" as those included in the bible.

You are jumping to a conclusion that is not entirely accurate. Books are added or left out of different versions of the Bible for similar reasons that a basic chemistry book doesn't contain sections on astro-physics. The Bible is meant to be the divinely inspired word of God written by man. It makes sense that only the books that are believed to be divinely inspired be in there. You are more than welcome to compile your own version of the bible with every gospel and every scripture ever written

And it's men with an agenda who determine what is divinely inspired. Never mind the fact that there were many factions of the Christian faith that all had their own views on what was divinely inspired and what wasn't. What you read as the bible today is just the version the winners decided on, nothing else. If you're secure enough in your beliefs to do some research on the subject, you should really read about some of the work that biblical scholars have done.

If I told you "do not catch yourself on fire" in order to avoid being miserable, wouldn't you consider "catching yourself on fire" the reason of being miserable?

not if I'm drowning. The advice "do not catch yourself on fire" is a good lesson for a drowning person on how to make their life better, but being on fire is in no way their problem.

And it's men with an agenda who determine what is divinely inspired. Never mind the fact that there were many factions of the Christian faith that all had their own views on what was divinely inspired and what wasn't. What you read as the bible today is just the version the winners decided on, nothing else. If you're secure enough in your beliefs to do some research on the subject, you should really read about some of the work that biblical scholars have done.

it's people with agendas that do everything. People with agendas do theoretical physics, run wallstreet, rule the world, write music, dig ditches, enforce the law, break the law, cook food, teach others, and even make games.

Do you hold them at such a high standard? When you go to a steakhouse do you storm into the kitchens shouting, "HEY NOW CHEF GUY! What's your agenda putting this steak here in front of me like this? Are you trying to corrupt me in an attempt to take over the planet with delicious flavor? I have it on good authority that you use only certain cuts of beef on your menu. Why don't you include all the other parts of cow? Why not other animals? Do you have something against rabbits or various types of fowl? Where's the manager... I bet he's in on this. He's probably trying to put that nice sushi place down the road out of business. Speaking of! Why the hell don't you serve sushi so we can all decide for ourselves what we want to eat?! Fascists..."

Is it so hard to believe that people who dedicate their lives to spreading the word of God might just have the agenda to spread the word of God? Why search for something more complicated?