Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

This is the thread I said I'd start on page fifteen of the same-sex marraige thread. It was discussed a lot, so I thought it deserved its own space.

Anyway, what proof is there of historical significance of the Holy Bible? It was written by Paul many years after the death of Jesus, so I don't see how it could be the word of God. Even so, wasn't it written at a different time for a different kind of people? How can we be so sure that it must be followed word for word today (especially with all the translation issues)?

Also, the more we worship the bible, the less of a boundary there is going to be between church and state, and the more people are going to have to worship something we don't want to.

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I totally agree. For all we know (now I'm not saying this is true) the Bible could have been written by a couple of fiction writers. I can imagine it now:

JOSH: Okay... okay... so now this "Jesus" guy starts walking on water.
JEFF: No way, man! Nobody would believe that!
JOSH: It's just a story, dude. Not a religion!
JEFF: Oh, yeah, I forgot, man, sorry...

If we do believe the word of the Bible, it should be detached from the government, definitely.

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ROFL.

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What does ROFL stand for?

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171st POST ANNIVERSARY!!!

It means "that's really funny."

Actually, it stands for "Rolling on the floor laughing", but like any good bit of jargon, the abbreviation has superceded that which it abbreviates. I was not actually rolling on the floor, nor was I even laughing out loud. But I got a good chuckle out of it.

..actually, I think what was most funny about it is that I have a couple friends who are writing a fan-fiction novella together (QAF, if you must know), and they have conversations exactly like that.

I think it would make a great comic strip.

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Roling on the floor laughing. I think IJ left out the t.

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The T is silent. Or, um, missing. There's not supposed to be a T in the abbreviation.

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Back On Topic:

Toast Paint.

Anywho, the Bible WASN'T written by one person. Only a few books of the new testament were written by Paul, and those books were letters to believers and churces regarding how to walk an effective Christian life.

Here's where my beliefs come in, so be warned. If you're not a Christian you're probably not gonna believe this, so you won't my feelings if you say something along those lines.

The bible is the breathed word of God. It's not just words written by many people, it's alive, and it is life.

Many people bring up the argument about "the bible conflicting itself", but usually the chapters and verses cited are taken completely out of context.

You asked about the significance of the Bible, so there you go. To Christians, that's what it is.

Just because you asked... I made one.

http://www.angelfire.com/yt3/homsar/How-to-Write-the-Bible-1.gif

sorry about the link not working. Just copy the url into the address bar

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Wasn't there a big meeting at some point in time to decide just what books would make up the bible? Imagine what was left out, could have been insignificant things, or could have been something that would have completely changed what Christianity would have became. Who knows what secrets are locked away in the vatican.

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Yeah, most of that stuff was taken out by the Protestants...so the Vatican would have precious little to do with it, now wouldn't they...

Anyway, the stuff that was deemed "non-canon" is generally referred to as the "Apocrypha" and you can pick it up at any Barnes & Noble...

Well, that last line was more of a general statement than anything else. The Catholic church ruled over Europe, less now than they did before mind you, for a good long time. In many instances, they ruled with an iron fist. So it's safe to assume they could have wiped out any ideas that conflicted their own, and records of this could be archived somewhere in the Vatican...

But wait, I thought Catholicism came before Protestants?

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Dr. Zaius, since you seem to be much more intelligent than that, I'll assume your question regarding the chonological order of Protestantism and Catholocism was sarcasm.

And yes, there were several meetings where it was decided what "made the cut" for the Bible. No doubt things were left out or changed to agree with the ideas of those doing the changing. In other cases, compromises were made to satisfy everyone (which of course we know means that it satisfied no one).

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You assume incorrectly. All the flavors of Christianity are the same to me, I haven't made much of an effort to learn the difference...

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The problem I have is not with the Bible itself, just that people take the bible word-for-word, and force others to do as they do.

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Anyone who believes in everything in the bible word for word is just naive. It's all a metaphor for how to live a "good" life and how to make God happy, etc.

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You left out Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, James, and Jude. All of them except Mark and Luke knew Jesus personally and wrote from personal experience. Luke, however, did extensive research before writing his gospel.


That is a very good question. My response is that truth does not change, even when culture, language, and heritage do.


That’s why we study Hebrew and Greek in seminary, so we don’t have to rely on translations. But even so, the vast majority of English translations out there (with a few rare exceptions, like the New World Translation) are plenty good enough for laymen to study. The translation issue is not nearly as drastic as some people make it out to be.


Fiction writers who were willing to be killed for believing what they wrote? That makes no sense.


There were actually several early church councils that discussed this very topic. Most of what was left out were books of which the authorship could not be verified (for example, the Gospel of Peter). Most of these books can be found in what is called The Apocrypha. In fact, many Catholic and Episcopal Bibles have The Apocrypha in them. Even they consider them only good enough for reading and not on equal par with the Bible itself.


Naïve? I expect an apology for that insult, Evin. First of all, you don’t know what struggles I’ve faced in my life. You have no idea of the path I have trod on my spiritual journey. I’d love for you to come on down to Laclede Groves sometime and tell some of my patients (and I do mean competent ones) just how naïve you think they are. Forgive my anger, but you honestly have no right to call anyone naïve.

As for the “metaphor for how to live a good life”: you might want to take note that the primary theme of Scripture is not what we can do for God, but what God has done for us. Forgiveness, mercy, sacrificial death, and all that. The problem with the whole "metaphor" argument is that, if it is a metaphor, it is one firmly grounded in history.

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I'm sorry if I offended you, but I was merely taking about some parts of the bible. Most parts, I agree, are completely believable and are probably true. But you must admit that not every single bit of the bible is word for word truth, right? I'm sorry I came off sounding so harsh. I should have said "SOME of the bible is metaphor and should not be taken literally.

As for the umlaut, I merely didn't have time to type it into microsoft word and copy and paste etcetera. Sorry for the confusion that will certainly ensue due to lack of umlaut .

(Oh... and my name isn't Erin )

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Actually, I composed this response in Word, and Word put the double-dot thingies in.

Thank you. While I would agree there are some pretty unbelievable things in the Bible, I still believe them. If God exists (and I believe he does), then just about anything could happen (and probably did). For example, if God created the universe, then why would he have any difficulty raising the dead?

But there's more than that. St. Paul makes it very clear that, unless God does perform miracles (specifically the resurrection of the dead), then faith in him is entirely pointless. The Bible isn't about merely living a good life; it's about trusting in this miraculous God, including those things that seem unbelievable, like parting the seas or turning water into wine.

But God does not expect us to follow blindly. That's why he sent many witnesses. As I reminded Rick earlier, at least six different writers actually saw the resurrected Jesus (and no, I'm not even counting Mark and Luke). And of these six writers, five of them were tortured and killed for actually believing what they wrote. The exception was St. John, who alone of all the apostles lived to die of natural causes.

But the reason I refute the whole naive thing is because, particularly over the past year, I have tread some really interesting places (and mostly unpleasant, I might add) in my spiritual life. If Buz is around, he could share with you some of his experiences. He and I are veterans of intense spiritual battle. To us, there is nothing naive about our faith.

Anyway, I also apologize for losing my temper in that other post.

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Oh. That's what I was talking about when I said umlauts (they're also called tremas) They looked somehow boldened to me, so I thought you were correcting my spelling



That's another thing about the bible that irks me. If God ressurected the dead and parted the sea and turned water into wine, why doesn't he do any of that stuff anymore? I mean, I know that supposedly this society has "turned its back on God" or whatever, but there were plenty of Israelites that turned their back on God (i.e. the 40 days of spying on Canaan) but he still performed miracles for them.

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Ummm...in 1997 a shepred boy was looking for his sheep in Isreal and came across a bunch of 2000 year old scrolls in a cave inside a jar that turned out to be an early bible, when scientist translated it, it was 99.9 the same as the current bible!

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Remember your special and unique, but so is everyone else, so your not all that diffrent!

The Roman historian Flavius Joesphus historically recorded Jesus' death in about 33 AD. For a book read, I'd suggest "The Case for Christ", "The Case for Faith", and "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel, which are basically full of historical, prophetic, psychiatric, & scientific proof of the Bible, especially Jesus Christ.

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Well no one can doubt that Jesus Christ existed, because he did, but I don't see how there can be "scietific proof" of Jesus Christ being the son of God. It's about faith, not science. You can't really scientifically prove anything about religion, or scientifically disprove it for that matter.

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I think that's part of the problem. People want "scientific" proof (whatever that means), but in the end, we can only believe, not prove. Even the best evidence can only take you so far.

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How do you know that He doesn't? It never gets reported in the newspaper, it never hits CNN, but it still happens.

I remember last year, there was a man that was raised from the dead in South Africa, I believe. I'll look up the testimony and post it on here some time.

I've personally seen people healed, I've personally seen miracles happen.

Just because you haven't heard about them, doesn't mean they don't happen.

That was my mistake; I think we can move on from this topic.



I’m going to try as hard as I can to not offend you. How do you know that the bible is the truth? What proof is there that the bible is true? ? That’s what this thread is all about. Show me proof that the bible is as relevant today as it was in 100 A.D.

Like I’ve said before, there is nothing wrong with people using the bible as a general guide. In fact, the fact that Christianity caused you to overcome great personal trouble, Didymus, proves that religion is a very good thing (for most people). I know there are parts of The Bible that few Christians follow, but I don’t know the New Testament, so I can’t point them out for you. If someone else could, I’d appreciate it. My point is, it angers me when Christians use outdated references to the bible to help ban gay marriage as opposed to ending world hunger.

On a semi-related note, I also don’t see the big deal about “going to church” every week and how people who go to church and don’t do much are better than people who don’t go to church and do great things. In fact, I’ll start a new thread on going to church. It’ll be a spin-off of a spin-off thread!



Show me proof of this event and I’ll believe you.



All right, I’ll level with you that translation of the bible is not a huge issue here.





Is Didymus lacking worldly experience and understanding? Just because you believe in the bible are you lacking worldly experience and understanding? The answer is no; in fact, Didymus is the opposite of naïve; he is downright mature.



Miracles happen every day, Evin. When loved ones are sick, people pray for them, and they miraculously get better. When life is lost because people abuse drugs and alcohol, God gives them hope and strength, and sometimes, they recover. In fact, I’m going to start another new “Getting to Know You” thread about personal miracles, just to prove that they happen every day.



How could Jesus have died thirty-three years before he was born?



The thing is if God exists, he created a world of science. Therefore, religion and science must be very well connected. What puzzles me is that with his miraculous powers, why has God limited the Earth to pure science, where everything makes complete sense? Was it a gift to simple humans? The only way to explain this is with a third new thread about Science vs. Religion. Wow, three new threads based on one post (sorry about the length)!

Word of Advice: If you compose a post in Microsoft Word, the curvy parentheses you get in Word won’t work for quoting in BBC Code. Be sure to adjust the curvy parentheses to the straight ones in the workbox before posting (this gave me some trouble this morning).

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What's really going to bake your noodle later is what happened between 1AD and 1BC? (Sorry guys, just trolling, move along..)

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I didn't mean that Didymus was naïve, because I know he isn't. What I meant was that there are clearly some parts of the bible that are metaphors, and anyone who believes every single word of the bible as literal truth is naïve. Again, sorry if I offended you Didymus.


That's the other thing. Why do you think that they're miracles from God? (I'm not saying that they aren't, I'm just making a counter arguement.) If nobody else on earth believed in miracles, neither would you. I don't pray for people, I help them. There's a very big difference. I personally don't believe that praying for them is as good as helping them. Rather than just sitting in my room and praying to God that someone gets better, I go and visit them and help them have a good time. That's what being a friend is about for me. And they get better when you help them feel like their not a burden. I mean MAYBE praying for something helps, but making someone feel good DEFINITELY helps. I like the definitely more than the maybe.


It would be much more comforting to live in a world where God could make anything happen and he did, right? Well, God doesn't explode planets and he doesn't make things levitate. That's what makes me think: "How do we know he can?" I'm gonna get a little abstract here, so bear with me.

In Social Studies, when learning about Segregation, I learned about a phychologist named Gordon Allport. Gordon Allport was one of the first to come up with the theory that children learn hatred from a very young age. If you teach your children to hate African Americans, they'll hate African Americans. If you teach your children to hate Jews, they'll hate Jews. Now, what if you teach your children to believe in God? They'll believe in God. Now, I'm not saying that the belief in God is wrong, but what if this faith, this conviction that most of us have that there is a God, is only because of everyone around us taught us to believe?

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Gah! Scroll up and read my response to this very issue.



Hmm. Imma have to disagree with you here. I was never taught to believe in God, yet now at 22 years old, I do. I didn't believe in God for quite a while, but I met a few people who constantly displayed God's love, and they showed me Truth.

Personally, I don't think that your point holds water. And I also think this should probably be merged into the "Can a (Christian) God Exist" thread.

I did read your post. How do you know that the people you've seen "healed" aren't by God, but are really "healed" by your friendship? Isn't it nicer to think of it that way?

I didn't mean just parents - the people around you "brainwash" you into believing what they want you to believe. If everone around you believed that 2 + 2 = 5, then you'd start to believe it too.

NOTE: I actually DO believe in God, I'm just making a counter arguement. See how all y'alls hold up

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