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

Many people are in ageement with the theory that Bible Stories are fictional.
Let's take the 'old testament' ..

So a collection of people have written stories about Prophets and their lives.
Why did they do this ? What did they gain from it ?
It seems to me that many people, including the Prophets, lost their
wealth and lives, from believing in God.

Having studied these 'stories', whether they are consistant or not**,
I concluded that there is a strong chance that there is some truth
in them.

The common criticism that mankind 'make up' God, because they need something to believe in,
I can understand. When humans are enjoying their lives and they feel secure in their nation,
it is easy to reject 'truth' on that basis.
However, if anybody 'falls down' and needs help, then by sincerely seeking truth about
'the Lord of the Universe', they will find it.
ie. Just knock, and you will be answered

..

** That is consistant with themselves and/or scientific theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7798943.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_Flood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh

in the OT there is no mention of Satan until the Jews have been held in bondage in Babylon

Satan or the deceiver/accuser being a Babylonian concept and entering the Jewish consciousness there .......

why was it the serpent and not Satan that tempted eve??

why was it Satan and not the serpent that heaped torment upon Job??

the romans crucified Jesus

why according to the "roman" catholic church are the jews to blame???????????????

Hi Taff

Answering your 1st. point,
I consider the serpent and satan/devil, to be one and the same.
Something to do with language & translation ?

I don't know much about the 'roman catholic' position on crucifixion, but
I found this page:
http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/education/magisterium_crucifixion.htm

There is a lot of controversy regards what became of Jesus after being arrested by 'the Romans'.
It's a huge subject in itself. Whether senior members of the Jews of that time corroborated
with Pontius Pilate, I don't know, but it seems quite plausible.

<<I consider the serpent and Satan/devil, to be one and the same.
Something to do with language & translation ?>>

that is blatantly wrong!!!!!!

as punishment for seducing eve god cursed the serpent to crawl on his belly for eternity, he chopped his legs off, and made all his descendants just as cursed(Divine evolution in action),

every representation of Satan shows him with legs.did the church get that wrong as well

he would get the crap kicked out of him by all the other demons if he were a "demon with different needs"

you are just editing history to fit your beliefs

and as to my first point,

what about the tower of babel???????

these new skyscrapers are not dedicated to the glory of god but to the vanity of man????

>> these new skyscrapers are not dedicated to the glory of god <<
Taff, I thought that I'd answered that already:

F19585?thread=6210107&post=74110702#p74110702

>> god cursed the serpent to crawl on his belly for eternity <<

Yes, I know you will say I'm interpreting to fit my belief, but

1). eternity -->
2). God cursed -->
3). he/it was humiliated -->

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i thought you were refering to the first gulf war and the aftermath,

with all the burning wells some days the wind would shift and day would become night as the clouds of noxious fumes blocked out the sun.

then driving through the burning oilfields, the only thing missing was nobody was carrying pitchforks

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so you don't take the written word of the lord as the truth then?????

F19585?thread=5985941&post=74166987#p74166987

We have the written word of 'the Lord'.
We also have many other Scriptures of various ages ..

Jesus wept

Taff,

God doesn't 'favour' Christians over Jews etc.
God 'loves' the whole of mankind according to their deeds.
God doesn't favour one Prophet over another, in the same way.

God doesn't favour, say, America over Africa ...

It's us, humankind! We are sick! We are arrogant! If you look at my 'personal space', you will see that I believe in ALL the revelations.

I don't make a distinction between the Prophets, they were all sent by
Almighty God.

so what is the point of this thread?????????

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air,
and over the cattle, over all the earth..." (Genesis 1:26).

Man, of course, by no means possesses all the powers, characteristics and attributes of the great Creator God.
Throughout the Bible the relationship of God to man is represented as that of a father to his children.
And children usually have a strong resemblance to their parents. And God wants us to be even more like Him,
as close to perfection as possible.

did we have god given free will before or after eve ate the apple???

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It's rather that bible stories shouldn't be accepted as true without the same sort of critical examination as other texts. Generally speaking, they don't stand up too well to such examination, though the results are far from uniform.

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To answer that with any certainty you would need to know who wrote the stories, and when (and whether there were older sources for them), and at the moment scholars are by no means in agreement about this. The commonest view would be that the majority were written during the Babylonian exile, but some place the time as the Persian period.

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Some truth certainly. But what kind of truth?

Noggin