That being said, if Jesus was addressing prayer concerning spiritual needs in this text, the flaw doesn't come from those words, but people's interpretation of his words.
The Bible is flawless, inerrant and contains no contradictions, but in my opinion you are correct that it is not 100% literal. There are fictional stories, but they reveal a universal truth. The book of Genesis tells us that God created the universe, man brought sin into it, and that a band with a drummer as the lead singer can be commercially viable. The fact that the story is not what actually happened does not make it errant. There is plenty evidence to support that the book of Job is not the telling of actual events, but is a play that teaches us that bad things can happen to good people.
you explained why you believe in evolution, you didnt need to explain that part, because there is evidence. the part that doest make sense is that you think god was behind it. why not just believe in reason and evidence entirely and forget about god ?
many legends and myths teach a lesson or make a moral statement of some sort. that doesnt make them "important" in any way. morality is derived from reason. reason is what is important. if you mean that the bible is imporant to teach very stupid people simple moral lessons then that is pretty condescending.
I'm not going to derail this thread, but I've already pointed out a couple of dozen biblical flaws, errors, and contradictions in earlier threads. Start a new one, I'll take you on. :wink: You are correct that Job and the parables of Jesus are among many morality plays in the Bible.
Of course it does. Anthropology and sociology are not among your interests, I presume. Whatever are you talking about? There is nothing concerning "reason" in the definition of the concept: morality –noun 1. conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct. 2. moral quality or character. 3. virtue in sexual matters; chastity. 4. a doctrine or system of morals. 5. moral instruction; a moral lesson, precept, discourse, or utterance. Nope, not a synonym, either: morality –noun chastity, conduct, decency, ethicality, ethicalness, gentleness, godliness, goodness, habits, honesty, honor, ideals, incorruptibility, incorruption, integrity, justice, manners, moral code, morals, mores, philosophy, principle, principles, probity, purity, rectitude, righteousness, rightness, saintliness, standards, uprightness, virtue Both are important and either are mutually exclusive. Wise up martin. The Bible was written two millenia ago and is a compilation from two earlier millenia of oral tradition in an illiterate society. Simple moral lessons for a simple people. A case can be made that the Bible, while a cherished icon of the early church, may no longer be entirely relevant to a much more sophisticated modern people. But to characterize it as "condescending" or the people who venerate it as "stupid" is, well . . . stupid and condescending.
right "important" like any other urban legend. important like the tooth fairy is important. important like muhammad is important. but not important in any rea sense as far as determining anything about the universe. you dont need to show me a dictionary definition every time you misunderstand what i am saying. i know what morals are. i am tlaking about the source of morals, reason. morals do not come from an ancient book. they come from rational people who decide what is important to keeping humans happy. i said morals are "derived" from reason. if i said beer is derived from barley and hops would you try to proive me wrong with synonyms of beer? cmon man, read what i say instead of mindlessly researching definitions for everything. where do youthink morals come from if not our ability as humans to reason what is right and wrong? exactly i agree. we are both condescending. simple people cant escape the myths of an ancient book, i am glad we agree here, and i am glad you stopped playing mr nice guy for one second. that case can be made, but the simpletons arent buying it. you can help me make fun of them if you want. you misunderstood me. i dont have any problem with you being condescending to people who live by the rules of ancient myths. you should be.
Jesus, I feel had the why and the way. Any other alternative is death and it's lights out. His teachings show you how you can live your life in a positive way. When you use his general teachings such as generosity, compassion and love to guide your life, your bestowed great karma/blessings. I think those are one in the same. I have seen through direct observation that the good things you do come back to you ten fold. You reap what you sow. I think our creator said, from here on out, your on your own. good luck and have fun! I have given you all the tools you need to explore and learn the secrets of the magnificent universe I have created for you. Love is the one gift our creator gave us to hopefully, someday, bring us all together so we can reach out to find him. Love is the gift our creator gave to keep us from killing ourselves long ago. Our creator is screaming at us, I AM Here! Come and Find Me! Only together as a team can you do so! Help each other! Don't be spoiled children laying on the ground for me to come save you from your terrible lives in a rapture or miracle. Look at the beautiful planet I have created for you and you cry wishing to leave it thinking it is a horrible place. It is not a horrible place, only you have made it so. Use the wonderful minds I gave you instead of waiting for me to come rescue you. Come to me! I am here! Jesus was a very special man in tune with with the force but he was a man, a brilliant man, don't confuse the lessons of jesus with the man made churches of corrupt or self serving agenda driven religions. Jesus was a perfect man and led a perfect life from accounts. Jesus, I feel had the why to spiritual salvation. Any other alternative is death and it's lights out. His teachings show you how you can live your life in a positive way. When you use his general teachings such as truth, generosity, compassion and love to guide your life, your bestowed great karma/blessings. I think those are one in the same. I have seen through direct observation on a daily basis that the good things you do comeback to you ten fold. You reap what you sow on this planet. The rest of the bible I take with a grain of salt. The Jews set themselves up as Gods chosen people and I have a problem with that. We are all the children of of our creator, no one more than any other. Jesus just happend to be a jew. The universe was created with the potential for life incorporated into its structure. Whomever or whatever created us, designed the universe perfectly. It is governed by natural laws and everything happens in it's own time and in it's own way. Miracles, as in the creator snapping his fingers and having Adam and Eve appear is highly unlikely. The theory of a six thousand year old earth that baptist preachers are irresponsibly teaching our young people is also not true. I would have paid good money to see Noah getting the T-Rex's on board the ark and I also missed the part where he stopped of at Australia to drop off the Kangaroos and the duckbilled platypus. I would say this: Ockham's Razor applies herein. Would it make more sense that a supernatural God would create the world in seven days, and have done so in merely 6,000 years, only to leave evidence of far older events on Earth for mankind to discover; or, rather, that God did not in fact create the Earth only 6,000 years ago? What would be the sense of leaving even the faintest hint that the Earth was billions of years old? Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do Albert Einstein also offers a good Deistic description of God: "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." Galileo once prophetically said, "The bible is about how to get to heaven, not about how the heavens work." Sadly, he was censured nonetheless. I have no particular axe to grind with religion other than a lot of it is untruthful and deceitful but there are some that do a lot of good out there, those that help the people that can't help themselves. Religion is what flew those jets into the twin towers, pentagon and in Pennsylvania. One doesn't need religion to be spiritual. Your relationship with you and your conscience is deeply personal between you and the creator. We are on our own to grow and develop and no hand will affect that other than our own. Open your eyes and look around you, we are here and we can evolve as a species and reach great heights or go the other direction. We've been given a free hand and I hope we as a people can reach our potential. I am of the opinion that the universe stems from one single miracle using the following definition for miracle. a marvelous event manifesting a supernatural act of God wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn Thusly the creation of our universe. I think we are alone as in our creator will not swoop down and save us in a divine miracle, we witnessed this on 911. I'm sure here were many rightious people on board those aircraft and in those buildings. According to many religions, a miracle is an intervention by God in the universe. One must keep in mind that in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and in other faiths people have substantially different definitions of the word miracle. Even within a specific religion there is often more than one usage of the term. I have never seen anything in my life that could be called a miracle by using the definition of a direct intervention by a deity. Although at times I could have sworn that there was a gaurdian angel on my shoulder. All we can observe is the established order and we have to use that as our baseline. Of course we don't know all of it. Let's use the fictional story of War of the Worlds for an example to show my point. For me a direct intervention miracle would have been for God to intervene by wiping out the Martians or making them change their minds about attacking us. Why he would wait that long, I don't know but that arrogantly presumes that he thinks like a human. Is the Martians attacking us the natural order? If God had to rush in and save us that would mean that a mistake was made that needed correcting. That the Martians were killed by our air, food and water, does that make it a miracle by direct intervention by God but in a roundabout way? The creators pre-planning saved us so could it be said it was by the direct hand of God. This discussion has made me realize that, yes, it could be truthfully said that we were saved by the direct hand of God as he accounted for this possibility. It was not an intervention from the sky miracle and boom the Martins were gone. Sorry if I used a bad analogy but it was working for me as I'm having to take another look at what might be defined as a miracle. I tend to think of the universe as being on autopilot, let me explain. To me the universe is a perfect garden. When the perfect garden was created it was fertilized and seeded with everything it would need to grow and mature. Does a perfect garden need a caretaker who intervenes whenever it might need help and if the garden was perfect, would it need a caretaker. And does a perfect garden need to be harvested or will it harvest itself? Yes, that's why I said in my above post, the only time God is going to get involved is at the very beginning and the very end, planting and harvest. Our discussion has me thinking though on whether God is actively tending the developing garden or were enough defenses and resources made available to see it through on it's own until harvest time. Could these defenses and resources be called miracles because they involve the direct hand of god in their creation but they do it in a natural way? People ask, how could God let this or that happen I think the only time the creator is going to get involved is at the very beginning and at the very end. To do anything else would be to disturb the natural order and we would be little more than puppets. That's why I don't believe in prophecies, that would mean that all things are already laid out and there is nothing we can do to change them, just puppets playing out the play. We are on our own to achive our own salvation as a race and hopefully someday reach out and be able to touch the face of our creator. In our hearts we know the way, and that way can only be achieved through love and understanding of each other as humans, only then can we move forward. At this time in our history things look bleak indeed. I am in fear for our human races survival and at current course and speed we will destroy ourselves. Only with the truth the ultimate goal our creator has set for us will be achievable. I pray and meditate that cooler heads will prevail and we need leadership that will be able to explain this truth to all peoples of all relgions and backgrounds. The teachings of Jesus could save us all. I leave you with lyrics from two songs that have great meaning for me Saving me; Prison gates won't open up for me On these hands and knees I'm crawlin' Oh, I reach for you Well I'm terrified of these four walls These iron bars can't hold my soul in All I need is you Come please I'm callin' And oh I scream for you Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin' Show me what it's like To be the last one standing And teach me wrong from right And I'll show you what I can be Say it for me Say it to me And I'll leave this life behind me Say it if it's worth saving me Heaven's gates won't open up for me With these broken wings I'm fallin' And all I see is you These city walls ain't got no love for me I'm on the ledge of the eighteenth story And oh I scream for you Come please I'm callin' And all I need from you Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin' And all I need is you Come please I'm callin' And oh I scream for you Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin', I'm fallin' If Everone Cared: From underneath the trees, we watch the sky Confusing stars for satellites I never dreamed that you'd be mine But here we are, we're here tonight Singing Amen, I'm alive If everyone cared and nobody cried If everyone loved and nobody lied If everyone shared and swallowed their pride We'd see the day when nobody died And in the air the fireflies Our only light in paradise We'll show the world they were wrong And teach them all to sing along Singing Amen I'm alive And as we lie beneath the stars We realize how small we are If they could love like you and me Imagine what the world could be We'd see the day, we'd see the day When nobody died Please view the video 'Saving me' at the Nickleback website, it's very powerful and will help you to understand the point I'm tring to get across. It's the first video at the top right of the website. http://www.nickelback.com/ Here's some images I collected tonight to also help get my point across, if everyone did this on one day, we could see a new beginning as the human race. Thanks for reading this and I wish each and everyone of you the very best. HCT Scientific Zen Deist
