h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*edit*

"chooses" not "choose"

The only bit that is truly the word of God is the ten commandments, as they were handed down by the big man himself.

The Ten Commandments? Which set?

Check it out, Moses goes up the Mountain, comes back with a set of ten(ish), then he goes back up and gets a different ten!

Old joke: "The good news is I got Him down to ten. The bad news is adultery is still out".

Hed

Well, we are only told God handed them down himself aren`t we. Besides, they have also undergone a few changes.

What with all the mountaineering in the last century or so, I am suprised we haven't been given the Ten Commandments Version 2.0 yet.

All he did was change the license agreement so we refused to update.

Bill Gates = God?

Lots of Bible believers on this thread, naturally. What fascinates me as an agnostic is why you believe that whatever is in the Bible is true. (I'm with Louis Armstrong, who sung, It ain't necessarily so).
Since a great deal of what is in it is highly improbable, you must have some very good reason for believing that it is true. What IS your evidence ? There are two reasons that I can think of, neither of them capable of having any real validity.

a) Someone told you that it was true and you didn't require any more evidence than that. You just have a strong psychological feeling, and don't need any external evidence. In this case, religion is very largely a matter of geography - the predominant culture of where you are raised. In Europe, Judeo-Christian. In the Middle East, Jewish or Islam. In India, Hindu or Sikh. In Salt Lake City, Latter Day Saints. In certain Pacific islands - Johnny Cargo cults. And so on, and so on.

b) You have experienced some psychological phenomenon whereby you believe you heard a voice in your head that you believed was God, or an angel etc. Or you think you have seen something, or that you have experienced a miracle.

Neither of these 'reasons', it seems to me, are sufficiently strong evidence, viewed objectively, to believe in something against all the improbabilities inherent in all the major religious belief systems.

But if you have real evidence, prepare to state it now. Preferably before you get too near to the edge of the world and fall off.

Sorry if this has been covered, but being lazy, I haven't gone back over the previous threads.

Fascinating fact came to light in the phrase "The Gospel Truth". If you look at the gospels according to the four apostles, they all differ in many ways. If someone says Gospel Truth, then to which gospel do they refer? Is not the second Testament a combination of the Gospels, so how does that work? Just ignore the bits that you don't like? The new testament is tantamount to fiction isn't it? To be summed up by the phrase ...

"You're making it up!!". How Monty Python is that?

"Lots of Bible believers on this thread, naturally."
by Al Symer

? Where? Did I miss them? I think I saw one,maybe two.
If there were more we'd normally be up to a hundred or more posts by now.
*rechecks thread*

As a point of fact, the gospels make up the first 4 of the 27 books of the New Testament. Matthew, Mark & Luke are the "synoptic gospels", because they purport to present a synopsis of Jesus' life and teachings. John's Gospel doesn't bother with the full story, and concentrates on the teachings.

The Gospel of Thomas, on the other hand, got lost until they found the Nag Hammadi, and has been quietly ignored ever since.

Milo I am not sure what you mean by the bible editing has stopped, so this may not apply. There are new versions coming out all the time. There is a gender nuetral one and many more types of language altered ones.

Hi Abbi

Gender Neutral huh? What does Leviticus look like now? Maybe they just left it out?

That's why I questioned what was meant by "editing"

Good question Moonglum, makes me want to find a copy!
Maybe one is online!

Having rechecked the thread myself, I have to admit that your are absolutely right, Abbi (your Post 50). Excuse my state of terminal confusion. But if anyone does want to put forward any evidence ....

What I meant was we don't have Leviticuses writing entire new chapters for the main denominations any more. Or Levitici or whatever.

I understand, right Milo.

Evidence that is convincing to one person means nothing to another. An aquaintance of mine said that he belived in god because he experiences a feeling that is more powerfull and beutiful than anything else he has ever experienced when he is close to god.
I found this argument unconvincing, if I need to experience this feeling in order to start beliving and I need to belive in order to experience this feeling then the argument is circular and gets me nowhere.

This 'evidence' cannot convince me and is of no use to anyone other than the aquaintance to whom I refer. Nonetheless it is sufficient to sustain his faith and I can see how that would be so - not everyone who holds beliefs can explain their faith to the satisfaction of a third party, that does not make them any less valid.

In response to Al Symer....

I'm not a Christian (I'm a humanist who believes in a God of some kind -long story....), but I must disagree with you.

If someone has experienced (b), that seems to me to be a good reason to believe in God. I have experienced something (not seen or heard) that I'm not prepared to share here, but which I struggle to explain in any other way. Obviously this won't convince anyone else, but I don't see why it's irrational for such an experience to form a basis for a belief in a God of some kind. I don't see why other explanations for this phenomena are any more likely than God. I don't infer any particular religion from this experience - remember that you can't argue against the existence of God just by pointing out flaws and inconsistencies in major religions. There are plenty of people who believe in God, but who don't subscribe to any particular religion.

Otto