Blind Faith

Originally posted by sonship

mostly fairy tales with a dash of decent philosophical directives. fairy tales that people with strong faith don't have the balls to call them what they are. Fairy tales that sometimes are in direct contradiction to those decent philosophical and moral directives.

As an example of your skill in seperating fairy tale from good philosoph ...[text shortened]... philosophical and moral directives" verses. You can just use verse number to make your analysis.

what is the point of this?


you want to see if can separate what is probable from what is obviously false from what is obviously true from what is meant to be taken as a metaphor?


who judges if i am correct? if i am, what does that prove? if i can't do that with John (which is a rather decent gospel), does it mean i am incorrect in saying that noah's flood is an idiotic fairy tale (also morally repugnant) already proven wrong beyond doubt by various fields of science?


EDIT: in case it is not obvious, i refuse to do that pointless exercise but i am curious what reason you had for asking.

Originally posted by FMF
People with strong faith are not afraid to do things like torch churches, mosques, and temples, to behead people for religious reasons, to murder abortion doctors, to predict or wish upon others eternal agony and torture, to strap on explosives and sacrifice themselves to kill people, to allow their children to die for want of medical procedures, and so on and s ...[text shortened]... ople of strong faith than they do with people of weak faith; I say this as an unbeliever myself.

Boy, oh boy, do you have this backward. It is those of weak faith who do those things. Those things are the will of man, not the will of God. Strong faith enables one to do the will of God. Weak faith takes their own fears and claims the will of God is against those things they are afraid of. Pope Urban was of weak faith and therefore sent Christians throughout Europe to die in the Crusades, killing many Arabs in the process. With strong faith, these weak things become unnecessary.

And naturally unbelievers have a bigger beef with those of strong faith, or those they perceive as having strong faith, blaming evil on the faith... they consider the faith of others a threat to them. But they either do not see or do not care that all evil is a product of evil men, and that is most often backed up with weak faith. Fear is a product of weak faith and it is that fear which leads men to kill other men. Those of strong faith are bolstered by the will of God, making the killing of other men unnecessary.

Look around you at those people killing others, either systematically or even randomly. Those are the ones with weak faith. Strong faith has no need of killing, just as the will of God has no need of killing. Those of strong faith are not out killing others, they're in church praying for those of weak faith that they become stronger and learn to know the true will of God and have less fear in their lives to drive their evil actions.

Originally posted by Suzianne

Boy, oh boy, do you have this backward. It is those of weak faith who do those things. Those things are the will of man, not the will of God. Strong faith enables one to do the will of God. Weak faith takes their own fears and claims the will of God is against those things they are afraid of. Pope Urban was of weak faith and therefore sent Christians throughout Europe to die in the Crusades, killing many Arabs in the process. With strong faith, these weak things become unnecessary.

And naturally unbelievers have a bigger beef with those of strong faith, or those they perceive as having strong faith, blaming evil on the faith... they consider the faith of others a threat to them. But they either do not see or do not care that all evil is a product of evil men, and that is most often backed up with weak faith. Fear is a product of weak faith and it is that fear which leads men to kill other men. Those of strong faith are bolstered by the will of God, making the killing of other men unnecessary.

Look around you at those people killing others, either systematically or even randomly. Those are the ones with weak faith. Strong faith has no need of killing, just as the will of God has no need of killing. Those of strong faith are not out killing others, they're in church praying for those of weak faith that they become stronger and learn to know the true will of God and have less fear in their lives to drive their evil actions.

I think you have made your case clearly but I also think it is you who has this backward.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
what is the point of this?


you want to see if can separate what is probable from what is obviously false from what is obviously true from what is meant to be taken as a metaphor?


who judges if i am correct? if i am, what does that prove? if i can't do that with John (which is a rather decent gospel), does it mean i am incorrect in saying that noa ...[text shortened]... obvious, i refuse to do that pointless exercise but i am curious what reason you had for asking.

This is quite strange, because I never hear anyone of faith call anything in the Bible a "fairy tale". This is the wording of the atheist.

I also do not hear them calling any part of the Bible "false", even those parts they may not believe happened as written. "False" is also the wording of the atheist.

How can you possibly believe you have the right and the ability to judge God? How can you sit there in your comfy chair and call God "morally repugnant"?

And you wonder why I ask you "Exactly why are you a Christian?" What is it, exactly, that you base your faith on? Are you one of these "Cino"s (Christian in name only) who will say "Lord, Lord", expecting to enter Heaven, without doing, or even caring about, the will of the Father? Christ himself quoted scripture and believed in the truth of scripture. Surely this must be good enough for you, too?

I suspect the problem here is that you cannot square God's will with your own will, when what you should be doing is subjecting your will to God's will.

Or are you one of these Christians who claim to love Jesus but have no love for God, the Father?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi

what is the point of this?

My point is to get down to specifics. It is easy to blow a lot of hot air generalizations. I asked you to apply your skill on two chapters and you won't.

This leads me to assume maybe you're just blowing a lot of hot air on the alledged the mixture of fairy tale and good philosophical / moral teaching in the New Testament.

you want to see if can separate what is probable from what is obviously false from what is obviously true from what is meant to be taken as a metaphor?

I wanted to see you apply your sense of discrimination to separate worthy good philosophical and moral teaching from fairy tale in two chapters I chose somewhat arbitrarily.

It puzzles me a little that people who boldly make such a claim aren't willing to demonstrate these points of distinction in specific terms.

Then again some rocking chair skeptics don't bother even reading two chapters of the Gospel of John, let alone really studying them.

who judges if i am correct? if i am, what does that prove? if i can't do that with John (which is a rather decent gospel), does it mean i am incorrect in saying that noah's flood is an idiotic fairy tale (also morally repugnant) already proven wrong beyond doubt by various fields of science?

Since you won't do it or can't do it for John chapters 5 and 6, I guess it would be safer for you to now fall back on criticizing Genesis 6 on the flood. That is interesting.

But what I ASKED for, according to your bold claim, was to demonstrate your reasoning for separating fairy tale from good philosophical/moral teaching in John ... just for an example, chapters 5 and 6.

I'm not going to get you to even try I suppose.
So I'll make some comment about your example of the flood of Noah.

Jesus refers to the flood of Noah in Matthew 24:37.

"For just as the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day in which Noah entered into the ark, And they did not know that judgment was coming until the flood came and took all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

Jesus is teaching about the dangers of being too preoccupied with daily matters that one is befuddled or in a stupor about the impending judgment of God which is about to be unleashed upon the world. He is teaching the dangers of being caught off guard morally, too distracted by even legitimate affairs of human life to pay attention to need of escaping through God's approval for His righteous judgment.

I am curious. Do you think that this is one of the good philosophical / moral teachings of Jesus ?

Yes?
No?

Don't be too afraid to be caught. I'm curious about how you evaluate this teaching of Jesus.

And if it is bad philosophical / moral instruction, why?
I mean even if you subtract the supernatural element out (ie, the second coming of Christ) still the word about vigilance is good in the case of world calamity suddenly falling upon the unaware and negligent.

And if it is good teaching, how do you account that Jesus is basing this good teaching on something entirely fictional which mankind has NO business assuming EVER occurred in the first place, ie. Noah's flood ?

Jesus is not talking to children there. He is not teaching something like a lesson based on the Mother Goose story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. He seems to be appealing to history.

"For just as the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be."

Are you saying good philosophical/moral teaching there is both based on a fairy tale (Noah's flood) and has as its application another fairy tale ( the second coming of Christ)?

Or are you saying the teaching is not good in any regard?
And if that is the case, why not ?

EDIT: in case it is not obvious, i refuse to do that pointless exercise but i am curious what reason you had for asking.

And it should be similarly obvious to you, that I am not surprised at your refusal.

But give this last post a crack at a comment.
It is discussional and I really don't see what you have to lose.
At least you are spared the agony of having to actually READ two chapters of the Gospel of John.

Originally posted by sonship

what is the point of this?

My point is to get down to specifics. It is easy to blow a lot of hot air generalizations. I asked you to apply your skill on two chapters and you won't.

This leads me to assume maybe you're just blowing a lot of hot air on the alledged the mixture of fairy tale and good philosophical / moral teaching i ...[text shortened]... t you are spared the agony of having to actually READ two chapters of the Gospel of John.

" Jesus refers to the flood of Noah"
yes, jesus came to teach the ignorant savages about morality. he didn't covered anything scientific because we could find that out on our own (and we did)

he used the story of noah to paint a picture the ignorant savages could comprehend.

he had a limited amount of time, lots of morality messages to communicate and lots of places to go to ON FOOT. do you think he had to bother to explain "btw, guys, you know that noah's flood didn't actually happened, right?".


the message of that fragment is "be fukin nice, all the time, because you don't know how much time you have left"
is the message invalidated in any way just because we know for a fact that noah's flood didn't happen?

Originally posted by Suzianne
This is quite strange, because I never hear anyone of faith call anything in the Bible a "fairy tale". This is the wording of the atheist.

I also do not hear them calling any part of the Bible "false", even those parts they may not believe happened as written. "False" is also the wording of the atheist.

How can you possibly believe you have the righ ...[text shortened]... Or are you one of these Christians who claim to love Jesus but have no love for God, the Father?

"This is quite strange, because I never hear anyone of faith call anything in the Bible a "fairy tale". This is the wording of the atheist."
that is because you live in your own pretty world and you don't expose yourself to other opinions.

many jews are quite aware that the OT is not to be taken literally and they ONLY have the OT. vatican's offician position is that the earth is old and that evolution happened.
lots of theists who identify themselves as christians are not conflicted with cringing at the horribleness of the genocide of the canaanites or the pre flood humans. luckily there is hard evidence the flood never happened and there is no evidence the israelites actually murdered all the canaanites so we, non-psychotic theists, don't have to deal with the possibility of a murderous supreme being.


"How can you possibly believe you have the right and the ability to judge God?"
luckily, i don't have to deal with that problem because the horrible acts of the bible never happened. i only have to deal with paul's misogyny and john's (or whoever wrote revelations) senility or drug induced hallucinations.

if, by absurd, noah's flood actually happened, i would be in trouble because i would find it repugnant to declare faith and love for a god so unworthy of being loved.



"Christ himself quoted scripture and believed in the truth of scripture."
while erasing most of the laws given in the OT. tell me, why would the supreme, eternal being, change his mind in just 2000 years? ( less than a blink of an eye for him). do you think he considered necessary to stone little girls to death at one time, but not 2000 years later? luckily, this too can be easily explained with the savages of moses invented some laws and the way god chose to correct those laws was to send his son to earth.


"I suspect the problem here is that you cannot square God's will with your own will, when what you should be doing is subjecting your will to God's will."
by dismissing the horrible parts of the Old testament, that is exactly what i am doing. i am explaining the evil of the old testament away and retain just the teachings of christ. because i am a CHRISTian. unlike some


"Or are you one of these Christians who claim to love Jesus but have no love for God, the Father?"
since god, the father, never caused the flood (i know this for a fact) and never gave the laws of the OT (i also know this for a fact because jesus struck down those laws), i have no problem loving god, the father, too.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi

" Jesus refers to the flood of Noah"
yes, jesus came to teach the ignorant savages about morality. he didn't covered anything scientific because we could find that out on our own (and we did)

Do you have your ad homs lined up ?
The whole audience was composed of "ignorant savages" quite inferior to yourself no doubt.

The fitness of the audience as compared to you was not my concern. I know you have an exalted opinion of your own moral superiority to perhaps the entire first century audience there.

What I was looking for was if the teaching of Matthew 24:37-39 is for you a philosophical/moral good teaching. Let me see if this becomes more clear.

he used the story of noah to paint a picture the ignorant savages could comprehend.

You appear quite arrogant and self righteously condescending. In the passage Jesus does not refer to things which are so "ignorant and savage" per se. Rather his warning is about quite legitimate human matters such as -

"they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage"

Are these your "ignorant and savage" activities Jesus needs to correct them about ?

So considering your comment, I would say that it is true that the generation of Noah was totally given over to violence. And the Scriptures says - "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Gen. 6:5)

But in Matthew 24:37-39 we see Jesus emphasizing not the violence and wickedness but the distraction of being preoccupied with rather mundane and legitimate interprizes of worldly life.

The generation may have been morally better, not particularly being savage and ignorant as you charge. But they were still in danger of just being befuddled and stupefied, too busy buying, selling, marrying to be prepared for the change of the age and Christ's second coming.

I ask you if this was a good philosophical / moral directive and you AD HOM the entire audience, glaring down your self righteous spectacles that they were - oh so much more savage and ignorant than yourself, who I suppose needed no such lesson from Jesus.

he had a limited amount of time, lots of morality messages to communicate and lots of places to go to ON FOOT. do you think he had to bother to explain "btw, guys, you know that noah's flood didn't actually happened, right?".

At other points in His ministry He took the time to tell the audience that "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35) . I don't see why His attitude about the only "Scripture" they had in Matthew 24 would have been different.

Jesus reminds and assumes that the audience realized the veracity of Scripture when He said " and Scripture cannot be broken " to the Jews in John 10. Do you have some reason why He would count the same Hebrew Bible to be broken by declaring the Genesis flood as untrue?

He believed it.
He assumed and reminded that His audience also believed it.

Furthermore, Jesus said that the people under the preaching of Jonah would stand in the judgment with the present audience of that generation listening to Him.

"Ninevite men will stand up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold something greater than Jonah is here." (Matt. 12:41)

This proves that Jesus believed and taught as history the story of Jonah - the big fish and all else. Why would Jesus say that fictitious people would stand in the judgment along with real people?

He would warn that REAL people of the story of Jonah would appear at the judgment before God along with REAL people of His contemporary generation.

If He regarded Jonah as true history there's no reason to doubt that He regarded Genesis as true history as well ... "and Scripture cannot be broken."

Jesus also regarded the Genesis 19 story of the judgment Sodom to be history. If they had been exposed to what His contempory audience had witnessed in His ministry, He says the city would have continued to exist to that time.

" And you Capernaum, who have been exalted to heaven, to Hades you will be brought down. For if the works of power which took place in you had taken place in Sodom, it would have remained until today." (Matt. 10:23)

Can you explain why Jesus would teach that a fictitious place, fictitiously judged, mythologically judged would have conceivably continued to exist to His day? He didn't stop to explain it was a myth in Genesis 19. Rather He indicated that it was serious history to be considered.

the message of that fragment is "be fukin nice, all the time, because you don't know how much time you have left"
is the message invalidated in any way just because we know for a fact that noah's flood didn't happen?

As entertaining as your sarcasm is, the evidence is that Jesus took Genesis seriously. Noah's flood and the destruction of Sodom He teaches as history regardless of how you take them.

In Matthew 10:15 Jesus speaks of the people of Sodom faring better in some future judgment then His contemporary audience.

"Truly I say to you, It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." (Matt. 10:15)

So I see that Jesus Christ took Genesis as serious history.

So far at best, I think you have "good" philosophical / moral directives given by Someone who believed the stories of Noah's flood and Jonah and Sodom and Gomorah.

At least you have to admit that HE seemed to have believed these stories.

Now you say WE KNOW no flood of Noah happened. I don't know that. My position is that if it was good enough for Jesus it must be good to believe.

That is not to assume every and any Creationist explanation in their exposition of what happened globally and so-on has to be what must be believed. But the basic account of a flood dealing with the "world" of that age, I have no reason to doubt.

Deal with the fact that Jesus believed Genesis and taught your philosophical / moral lessons out of it. Were these lessons good or bad?

If you trust them to have been good, then instead of imagining Jesus was too busy to argue with them like a modern day Internet Infidel, He simply grounded His teaching in what He and many of the Jews listening believed.

Now was the teaching of Matthew 24:37-39 "good" philosophical / moral teaching ?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
"This is quite strange, because I never hear anyone of faith call anything in the Bible a "fairy tale". This is the wording of the atheist."
that is because you live in your own pretty world and you don't expose yourself to other opinions.

many jews are quite aware that the OT is not to be taken literally and they ONLY have the OT. vatican's offician p ...[text shortened]... for a fact because jesus struck down those laws), i have no problem loving god, the father, too.

I'm utterly speechless. Clearly, you have your own version of the truth and you're willing to spit on God and His Word in order to keep your own version foremost in your faith.

A faith which is clearly miniscule and without substance. You speak of a minimal faith (your own faith, certainly not a faith in God) with your words, but you do not feel even that minimal faith in your heart. And the amazing part is that you see scripture such as Matthew 7 describing anyone and everyone except you, when it is precisely your type of "Christian" Jesus is talking about in this chapter.

You cannot love God without respecting Him and His Word.


"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." -- Matthew 7:20, KJV

Originally posted by FMF
I think you have made your case clearly but I also think it is you who has this backward.

Of course you do.

You and Zahlanzi have much in common, it seems.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Of course you do.

You and Zahlanzi have much in common, it seems.

I don't know about that as I haven't read any of his posts but, as for what you said, I found your explanation of what you think is the difference between strong and weak faith, when it comes to extremists and fundamentalists, to be entirely based on the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I'm utterly speechless. Clearly, you have your own version of the truth and you're willing to spit on God and His Word in order to keep your own version foremost in your faith.

A faith which is clearly miniscule and without substance. You speak of a minimal faith (your own faith, certainly not a faith in God) with your words, but you do not feel even t ...[text shortened]... ting Him and His Word.


"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." -- Matthew 7:20, KJV

There are a number of good scientific reasons for thinking that the flood described in Genesis 7 did not happen. Genesis 6 refers to giants and there is no scientific evidence for that. So, either the scientific account of pre-history is correct and the early chapters of Genesis contain a mythology or science has it wrong and the early books of Genesis are historically accurate.

If someone accepts that the early books of the Bible do not present an accurate portrayal of history then there is no reason for them to associate the events described there with God. So I don't think you are correct in accusing Zahlanzi of not respecting his God. It is simply that he does not think that the Bible represents the unadulterated word of God.

If it does represent the unadulterated word of God then you cannot consistently claim to believe the scientific narrative with regard to the big bang, no flood, and the known history of Egypt, there is no record of 10 plagues hitting Egypt outside of the Bible or any evidence for that at all.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I'm utterly speechless. Clearly, you have your own version of the truth and you're willing to spit on God and His Word in order to keep your own version foremost in your faith.

A faith which is clearly miniscule and without substance. You speak of a minimal faith (your own faith, certainly not a faith in God) with your words, but you do not feel even t ...[text shortened]... ting Him and His Word.


"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." -- Matthew 7:20, KJV

"Clearly, you have your own version of the truth and you're willing to spit on God and His Word in order to keep your own version foremost in your faith."

god is good. killing people in the flood is evil.
you would rather think that god killed the entire population of the earth just because he was lazy to fix it instead of thinking that god might have had better stuff to do than smite the idiots that invented that story and lied that god told them to write it.

you would rather think that god gave a bunch of horrible laws (stoning little girls among them) instead of thinking that god just let the lies pile up and have jesus dismantle them all in one swing

Originally posted by DeepThought
There are a number of good scientific reasons for thinking that the flood described in Genesis 7 did not happen. Genesis 6 refers to giants and there is no scientific evidence for that. So, either the scientific account of pre-history is correct and the early chapters of Genesis contain a mythology or science has it wrong and the early books of Genesis ...[text shortened]... e is no record of 10 plagues hitting Egypt outside of the Bible or any evidence for that at all.

ANCIENT GIANTS existed

YouTube

Originally posted by DeepThought

There are a number of good scientific reasons for thinking that the flood described in Genesis 7 did not happen. Genesis 6 refers to giants and there is no scientific evidence for that.

Everyone knows that Nephilim means "giants". Right ? Wrong.
That's what the King James says in Genesis 6:4.

What about some other translations?

English Standard Version
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

New American Standard Bible
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.

International Standard Version
The Nephilim were on the earth at that time (and also immediately afterward), when those divine beings were having sexual relations with those human women, who gave birth to children for them. These children became the heroes and legendary figures of ancient times.

NET Bible
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God were having sexual relations with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, as well as later, when the sons of God slept with the daughters of other humans and had children by them. These children were famous long ago.

Nephilim is said by many language scholars to mean "fallen ones".

According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, the basic etymology of the word Nephilim is "dub[ious]", and various suggested interpretations are "all very precarious".[5]

The majority of ancient biblical versions, including the Septuagint, Theodotion, Latin Vulgate, Samaritan Targum, Targum Onkelos and Targum Neofiti, interpret the word to mean "giants".[6] Symmachus translates it as "the violent ones"[7][8][9] and Aquila's translation has been interpreted to mean either "the fallen ones"[7] or "the ones falling [upon their enemies]"

So were there giants in the earth ?
Well the Watusi in Africa are pretty tall people. Some would say they are giant size. That's today.

I don't see why there could not be some bigger than usual people in the Old Testament times.