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

This might be the core of this particular (bad) apple. A christian belives the Bible is the Truth. A non-christian belives the Bible is somewhere between an interesting historical document and a fraud. To a nonchristian it is silly to use the Bible as, umh, gospel in a discussion. Everything must be doubted.
A biblical translation with annotanions and notes from the translator shows the work of translation in progress. On the other hand, a translation without annotations show the translator has faith in his own work. (I'm not saying the former hasn't faith in his work, though...)
So what is the best? For the researcher, I'm sure an annotated bible is best. With such a book, the researcher can see the thoughtprocesses and possibly come with his own conclusions. For the Christian I'm not that sure. An unannotated Bible seems more "correct", and it's hard to accept something as the Word of God, if it's presented with three different translations and a bunch more interpretations....

I don't know. I lost my thought somewhere. You figure it out.

Populus is probably more like it though...

It might just have been that the people writing the bible didn't consider women to be important enough to be mentioned (other than Eve, who was made as a copy of a man)

Please don't take this as me being religious, I'm an agnostic. I'm just playing God's advocate.

3

JOTD: Why can't you be a non-conformist like everybody else?

At the time where the bible was writen, women wasn't considered as important as man. They we're considered, well much like furniture

Aristoteles: Woman is where the seed of man grows. Woman is earth. Earth is cold. Life is warm. Ergo: Woman is a failed species.

Not it means anything anymore...Just thought I'd add that bit.



The church based itself heavily on Aristotelic philosophy by the way. (Well, Platonic philosophy too, dependant on what priest/monk you asked, by that's besides the point)

I don’t think any one has yet
given a reason why it is
worth wile to study the bible?
What proof that the bible
was written under gods instruction.
If it is for the sake of finding out
historically what people have believed
then why would it matter what
text we studied what is there
that makes the Bible so
relevant?

The Western World is largely influenced by christian thought. Our greatest philosophers were allmost all christians. Europe was defined by the catholic church during the middle ages. It's a book with much relevance to us westerners. You may not like it, but much of the values that you and I have find roots in the Bible. I just feel the religion is no longer needed to point people in the right direction. Modern philosophy does now what the church did then when it comes to ethics. At least that's what I belive.

Did I digress? Oh dear...

For eg - practically the whole of probability theory was thought up by a pair of xtian theologians...

Well scientists (remember the last thousand years or so scientists and philosophers have been two different kinds of people) have always been at odds with the standing society. Astronomers made the earth a tiny speck of dust when it had used to be the centre of the universe. Bilogists turned humans into animals when we were used to being "superior being". Mathematicians...well, they're a rare breed. No use in talking about them...

As I have only scanned a small sample of this forum, please forgive me if this has already been mentioned. Are any of the stories in the new testement actually written in the time of christ. Seems to me an account written 100 or more years later looses some veracity, let alone in the translations. I'll not mention the nicean council etc.
Oh g'day to you Colonel.

Rocket (defender of the faithless)

We are God.

We were created in his image. Not literally, but in our ability to create and destroy.

We will soon create a new world on Mars by releasing greenhouse gases into its barely existant atmosphere to warm the planet. These gases will be the by-products of minerals and carbon naturally existing there. Once we can raise its equatorial temperature above freezing, the planet will be fit for habitation - first by plantlife, to filter the carbon, and then by animals once enough nitrogen and oxygen are present.

In the hundreds of years required to accomplish this task, we will learn to harness the power of wormholes to travel beyond the solar system.

We will do to other planets as we plan to do to Mars.

We will settle the galaxy. We may even travel beyond it.

If we don't kill ourselves beforehand.

"Our greatest philosophers were allmost all christians." - Who? Our greatest thinkers were almost universally at least heretics, be they Deists, Hermetics, or outright agnostics and atheists. Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, James Madison... ALL the great founding American thinkers were non Christians. And we can continue that particular list to include Albert Einstein, who is often misrepresented as a believer, to his great distress. Heap on there Mark Twain while you're at it. As for the rest of the Western world... Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Adam Smith,... heretics all, and more than I could possibly name besides. Christianity clouds thinking, so they had to turn to positive, mind-freeing theologies like Hermeticism, Deism, or Unitarianism in order to achieve greatness.

"Objectivity has to do with the way a project is managed, not its outcome." - An objectively managed project has an objective outcome. If a scholar comes to a certain point and says "It's really not possible to determine what is going on here.. there are only two little fragments that shed light on this, and both are contradictory," then that shows an objective mind who is unwilling to make major leaps to defend his agenda. The NIV writers simply reject the one they don't like, and pass it off as uncontrovertible fact. It isn't, and it is irresponsible scholarship. We rely on these people to be honest, because we can't go back and read the originals ourselves. My bible writers are fairly honest.. they do offer certain ontological justifications for certain things, but when the truth is unknowable, or in doubt, they acknowledge it.

"I don't claim to have all the answers. I simply believe that God does have them." - I don't claim to have all the answers, either, but I do claim that Christianity has NO answers. God has the answers... that's a cop out. Whenever people say "God moves in mysterious ways," what they're really saying is "Things are happening right now that don't fit with the preconception of a benevolent, controlling deity, but more like he really doesn't give a fart about what goes on here, despite my supplications and generous donations to his worldy institutions." Rebecca cannot justify the bears episode because she cannot justify it with her conception of god, and so simply says "He must have his reasons." If the evidence shows that he is not who he says he is, then he is not who he says he is. And this is only the ONE episode of hundreds in the bible that we could discuss where god is being a spiteful, jealous, dangerous, childish deity.

Rocket Rod:
Just wanted to say that some of the bible have been writen inside the eye-withness period (up to 70-years after the event). And there are many scrolls not included in the bible that supports some of the events in the bible.

ex.
There was prominent a man called Jesus around year 0, but I think he was 'just' a great leader of some sort. Back then, any christian was the son of God, actually some still use that phrase.

ex.
Many clues point towards The Garden of Eden, and the-smart-guys are figuring its possition out.

ect. ect.

Okay I will exept that all the
bits about people in the bible
are true (though i dout it)
But why should we exept it as the
word of God over and above posting
number 281 on this forum ? It was
writtern only a few days ago so it
must be much more accurate!

Oh dear, I've angered the Colonel!
Well, my defence:
As usuall I have taken my mouth too full. Isaac Newton was supposedly an alchemist (so I've heard, might be wrong) and in that probably a bit heretic. Leonardi da Vinci worked on Sundays (heretic). You could have mentioned Copernicus (destroying the geosentric worldview).
On the other hand, Descartes tried to prove Gods existance (and in his own twisted universe, he did it), Thomas Aquinas and Augustin were both great leaders in the old church. Hume, Kant. You get my point.
You mention mostly scientists, while I spoke about about philosophers. There is a slight difference, but I wont press the matter. I realize my posting wasn't clear enough and withdraw it. New position:
"Many great philosophers have been christian or at the least inspired by christian thought. This is one reason why the Bible is important to the western world, even to nonbelivers like myself. Our society is to a degree built up around the book, and some of our leaders still belive what is written to be true. Understanding of the Bible can lead to greater understanding of history, and demystification can (hopefully, eventually) rid the world of the bigotry and violence caused by strange, xenophobic, uncertain and fraudulent translations/interpretations of the Bible. I apologize for the long sentence. I feel the Bible should be regarded as one of the really important Causes in historical research, having among other things the Church, the Crusades and Mystification of Sex as Effects."

JAR, happy now?

People believe in God for many reasons:

1) They are easily lead
2) They are in a deluded state of mind
3) Many were taught the doctrines of a religion from an early age and were never informed that it is just a belief and not truth (some would call that brainwashing)
4) They fear their own mortality therefore grasp onto the notion of a mystical force that will insure their immortality.

My English teacher, back in days of yore at school told us a really interesting interpretation of the five loaves and three fishes story.She wanted to demonstrate how the relevance of the bible has changed over time.
She said:
We weren't actually expected to believe that everybody in the congregation had gone out for the day totally unprepared,without food. They were just being selfish and the miracle was that when the little boy (in a rather vomit inducing but cute way) got out his food and was prepared to share, everybody else learnt the value of sharing. They subsequently got out their food and shared with the people who had come unprepared and there was plenty to go around and the scraps.
She said it was interesting to note how the original readers of the bible would have been satisfied with being in awe of the miracle,yet todays readers have a need to actually understand what is going on in order to appreciate it.

Hello Fuorescence you sound like an interesting person. What do you think about the middle east crises.

JAR, there are some who would argue that the Bible *is* " strange, xenophobic, uncertain, and fraudulent." If they believe that, then surely there is no interpretation that would alleviate the confusion.

"Mystification of Sex as Effects"? And that would be...?

Isaac Newton was an alchemist, true, which was a practice of the followers of the Hermetic movement, which largely motivated the Renaissance. Da Vinci was the same, as was Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler, to name a few. Even Blaise Pascal was very wishy-washy in his faith, and could justify it with nothing better than Pascal's Wager.

I'm not familar with the work of Descartes so much, so I'll let you have him, but I am curious to know why you included Thomas Aquinas and Augustine as "great thinkers." They were great proselytizers, and that is about all. Da Vinci amazed the world with beautiful works of art and inventions that were ahead of his time, and his acheivements are rivaled by those of Newton, Galileo, Franklin, and Einstein. What did Aquinas or Augustine ever accomplish, other than the production of reams of dogma, most of it invented on the spot? And, correct me if I am wrong (I often get him confused with Thomas More) but was it Aquinas who wrote that imbecilic "6 Reasons We Know There is a God"?