Adder, bone up a little before you make a statement. Ever heard of verbal inspiration?

lol, uga buga African Religion.

I'm an atheist, though I was raised uga buga. (No, not really)

I said "written by God". Not "inspired by / quoted from God".
I admit I don't have a whole lotta faith in taking the bible literaly {after all, it was origional written without punctuation which makes it very open to interpretation beyond current language use. It has also been translated endlessly}. Nothing is going to make me think that a dictated version of something is as reliable as a hard copy by the origional producer. There is human error.

Statikk HDM, I hadn't heard of "verbal inspiration". After checking its meaning, I had heard the concept before. Again, there is still human error. If a person was 'possesed' by God/Holy Spirit, then that person could make a scripture that would be as good as His word IMO. Anything short of that... probably not as good.
This is something we did in Religion in 2nd year of Secondary School {equivalent to High School, around 4 years before college}. If you ask someone to say something, they'll tool the vocabulary to the audience or formality expected/wanted. The counter arguement is that people though Scripture too important to alter astheticaly.

...I still side with "God didn't say that. God said something to someone who passed on the message, which was written down and translated a good few times before it reached you"

It can't get any clearer than passages saying things like "All scripture is God-breathed and useful" or "Men wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit". The bible says that it is inspired by God and the Holy Spirit and entirely true throughout. While that statement is certainly debatable the fact that the Bible repeated and clearly makes such statements isn't.

And the fact the bible has been amended notably since the Dead Sea Scrolls says that there's error. Heck, one of the differences between Protestism and Catholisim is the placement of a comma; a comma which didn't exist in the origional writings of the bible.

Thats not what I mean. I mean scientific impossibilities, absurdities, and contradictions in the text itself.
Check this out:
http://www.ffrf.org/books/lfif/?t=stone
Its about how absurd and contradictoy the story of the Easter resurrection is. This guy says what I've thought even from my days of being a Christian:
The Easter story is the most confusing cluster**** ever put to page.

Actually, what most scholars noted was the fact that very little has changed. There were some scrolls that told the same stories in different ways but those that were the same as the bible are remarkably similar - generally no changes at all in 2000 years.

If you want to point fingers due to changes in the bible, point to craptastic translators who say stuff about Moses having horns and somesuch.

Anybody else think Moses is overrated? He was a murderer, a braggart, an ingrate and worst of all a terrible leader. He sucked so bad that the Jews were constantly mutinying and pissing off God, which led the Jews in the desert to be slammed with one curse after the next and ultimately be denied passage into the promised land. And while we are on that, the land of milk and honey? More like the land of sandy death and car bombs.

Hmmm...

Murderer - it was justifyably homocide; killing a slave-master who was beating someone to death.
Braggart - not sure what you mean by this; he's often called the most modest man who ever lived.
Ingrate - I assume you meant the whole 'beating a stone' incident. Never really understood that one myself
Terrible leader - perhaps. He was definately too forgiving of their foibles.

But Israel is the land of milk and honey. Car bombs and sandy death is just a bonus.:D

[/me getting overdefensive]

Moses had a cool name, Stat, show some respect.

I like the whole Moses story, 'cos all of it can be explained Scientifically (Burning bush aside), which makes people either believe more or believe less.

...that is all.

Im a christain. WOOH GO JESUS! :p

WOOH GO LIONS! :p

Okay, a guy writes a book calling himself the most modest man on earth and you believe him rather than burst with laughter? Talk about tooting your own horn! Also, that murder was not justified. The Bible says its okay to beat a slave, look it up! Moses sees something fairly common, an overseer presumably giving a slave a few whip cracks, and flies off the handle. And if this killing was so justified and honorable why did he act like a sneaky bastard when he did it? Look this way, look that way, hide the body in the dirt, and act like nothing happened. Right. Real honorable. If you read a little further you see that Saint Moses tries to stick his nose into some business that it shouldn't be in and some Hebrew with 10 pound balls calls Moses on his shit even after watching Moses kill somebody. Now thats HONOR, baby.
Braggart:Yes, the stone thing. And the whole attitude he exerts during the whole Pentateuch. Why didn't God let Moses into the promised land? Because Moses was a dick and was always talking himself up and taking glory from God. I believe only a select few were allowed into the promised land so on that count Moses was a failure. He also let the Israelites slip frequently into idolatry and break the rules. I can't believe Moses is so idolized, everybody, even muslims, thinks he's such hot shit. Me, I see him as Israel's own little version of George W. Bush.

Recently someone has been writing stuff in the skies of Florida.

"Jesus loves you"; "U + God"; "The rapture is coming!" are all firm favourites.

Has any one else heard of Jack Chick? He does these horrible little cartoons condemming anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus.

The other day my brother sowed me a Childrens' site made by christians. In the fan art page an 11 year old had drawn an animal that represented Jesus throwing a Hindu girl into hell.

That terrifyed me.

- Rexy

children should be out of any faith till they are old enough to decide where they belong.

My cosent (9 year old boy)and his class have had a faith subject {or how do you call that} when priest was telling them that god made earth animals etc. Then my cosent asked him who made god. Priest : Sit down and shut up!
*no comments*

No faith in elementry schools!!!! Kids are just being confused!!!!

-me

I don't believe religion should be in schools (excluding things like Bible Club, religious studies classes), but it's up to the parents to decide whether they want their children to grow up in a religious environment or not.

Religion is not something that should be taught, period. Religion is something you need to experience.

Of course it should be taught, but only at high school and college levels, when (most) students can make decisions for themselves and classes are voluntary.

Whether you're a devout believer or just someone who thinks that religion is the most destructive invention man has ever created, there is no denying that it's a huge part of human studies. Practically every culture has a dominant religion; you can better understand a culture if you understand their belief system.

I can't even see atheists having a problem with Religious Studies. To them, it's just another mythology class. :p

I personally find the whole subject extremely fascinating.

EDIT: Now that I look at Havoc's post again, I think I completely misinterpreted what he was trying to say, but that's OK because I think my little shpeel on Religious Studies is still relevant. XP

Yeah I've heard of Jack Chick. Dark Dungeons anybody?
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp
You can see from the very beginning that Chick doesn't know shit about D&D. From the Light spell that blinds a monster, to the thief dying before he can search for a trap and then the poison killing him, the line "You're dead, you don't exist anymore." Yeah, right, they'd just have her roll up a new character. It gets sillier as you read on, if you can believe that.
About the religion in school thing:Recently UCLA has announced that it wouldn't give accredation to schools that taught I.D. or creationism as science rather than a philosophy or social studies class outside of science. I say good for them. "God did it" is not science.

What I meant was that it should not be taught as a forced subject like Math or English. Some schools over here have it as a steady period for twice a week, forcing you to learn about it. Instead they should make it some after school activity or something. If people want to get involved, they will get involved. If they think it's a load of bullcrap, then they won't go. It should be as easy as that. But unfortunatly the church is still sliding the bible up everyone's asses unasked.

But hey, I went to a christian school for almost 12 years in total and I came out unharmed. :).

7 years in a Christian school to realize it was all a bunch of death-fearing baloney. Those (in)Doctrine(ate) teachers are good.

If all the christians you know fear death, then they're not true Christians.
I don't fear death and neither do any other christian that I know. For us christians, we know we're going to a better place after we do die.

I use to think the bible was full of balony, but when I became a christian then born-again, I started to understand more about it.

The parts that get me really interested is everything about spirits. There are spirits everywhere, there are lots of different spirits. More than one spirit can inhabit one body. Pain can be a spirit, fear can be a spirit, dissabilities can be spirits, even death is a spirit.

To know that christians have the same power as Jesus has (of course Jesus still being the almighty), we can help remove evil spirits from bodies and heal pain and dissability. And in alot of times death can be revearsed.

If you realy believe that, then I have a question for you.

You say that a true Christian does not fear death and that when you do eventualy die you go to a better place. What is stopping you from just killing yourself and get it over with? If I would believe that, I would do anything to get out of this shithole we call earth.

"What is stopping you from just killing yourself and get it over with? If I would believe that, I would do anything to get out of this shithole we call earth."

Suicide is a mortal sin, Chuckles.

I've always said, however, that if i ever got Cancer i wouldn't accept medical treatment. ...well, that's if i continue not to feel guilt over family going "Merrr! Get Chemo!"

Quiet, Wench *Slap*

Okay so... suicide is a mortal sin. But even then, are Christians then actualy hoping to die as soon as possible?

I knew you were going to ask that question, havoc.

I don't really know the bible that well, but the pastor of my church once said that 'no where in the bible does it say about suicide being a sin.'
Christians can commit suicide and still go to heaven. The reason we don't is because life on earth is a gift from god and he wants us to live on here as they do in heaven. That's why it says in the Lords Prayer; 'on earth as it is in heaven.'
Then when we do die, the better life will be for eternity.

The longest life that is recorded in the bible is something like 960. I can't remember who it was, i'll have to look it up.

Well then with the crap thats going on now everywhere I'm surprised Christians arn't massively commiting suicide (that would be fun :D).
And if life (as it is now) is a GIFT from god, then he is one person I am not inviting on my birthday!

You're right there, Havoc. There are so many christians, so few lions.

Jesus is described as being like a lion in a few scriptures (That's why (I think) Aslan's a lion in Narnia).
I've heard a few different services talking about being a lion like Jesus, they're very interesting. You may even get something from it, Havoc ;)

I've shot bigger animals then lions

Anyway yeah Nath I know that Arpachshad or something lived 438 years, I don't believe it but my brother-in-law is always trying to convert me by telling me these stories.

I'm not familiar with Arpachshad or something. But people in the old testament did live for hundreds of years.

Death is a spirit brought on by sin. It's the only certainty in our lives because we have sinned and we do sin. The reason people like Noah, Moses, Jeremiah and Adam lived for so long is because they lived by faith and faith alone.

If your brother-in-law is trying to convert you by telling stories of people who lived for a long time, and it isn't working, (I assume he's a Christian) you should ask him about the thing that got me interested in it all, spirits. I mentioned it earlier on. Spirits are incredible things. If he doesn't know much about them, you can always ask me. Send me a PM. The same goes with everyone else who would like to know.

Don't you ever insult big cats again! Ever ever ever! *Cries* :(.

Even though I'm sure a service would be very interesting, I couldn't go to it without messing the entire thing up. At the very least I'l burst out into laughter :P. So me going into a church for any other reason then mocking it = bad idea.
Not that I wouldn't enjoy completely ruining a service, but even I have my morals. One of them is to respect what others want to believe in as long as it doesn't bother me. Something Christians have yet to learn.

If life is so ****ing precious why did God repeatedly call for slaughter, enslavement, and infanticide? What God does speaks so loudly I can't even hear what the tyrant is saying.

The bible is a book full of contradictions. And thats exactly what they should call it: Big Book of Contradictions.

Or, to keep the word B.I.B.L.E: Big Idiotic Book Lacking Erotics

"I don't really know the bible that well, but the pastor of my church once said that 'no where in the bible does it say about suicide being a sin.'"

Oh, the commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' must've been a made-up thing. ...like Santa. ...or Equal Rights for Negroids.

See, that's what I don't get about many of the christians I've met; how can you be so sure that you're going to the better place?

And if your response is to say that you've accepted Christ as your saviour and that he died for your sins, then I say that that is an immoral viewpoint because it immediately gives you free reign to do whatever you want as long as you recant before you die.

In Judiasm there is the concept that there is no repentance without restitution; if you've wronged someone you must do your best the make it up to them. Prayer to God can only absolve personal sins but interpersonal sins (ie wronging another person) must involve some sort of apology.

Judaism is the best of a bad lot anyway. At least its considered bad to convert people, and it recognises peoples freedom to choose what they want to be (except obviously in the case of forcing religion onto children, but every religion does that). And even though they somewhat arrogantly believe themselves superior, they don't go around killing everyone else because of it. :p

Oh noez! I posted in a religion thread!

"how can you be so sure that you're going to the better place?"

...anything would be better than the shissen-holen that we currently fester in.

Actually hes muslim, but it doesn't matter to me I'm wasn't a christian in the first place my mom just made my go to sunday school when I was like 9, I'm way to materialistic and selfish to ever be saved =)

Never fear, John! I'll save you!

In my never-ending and somewhat tedious (for others, I mean) pursuit of the truth regarding my people, I must point out that the whole "Chosen People" thing has been taken completely out of context. 'Chosen' doesn't necessarily mean 'favourite'. It means chosen to bear the responsibility of the Torah - Jews must follow 613 commandments rather than just 7 that everone else is instructed with.