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The True Meaning of the Bible

 
 
 
I from what I’ve seen from RIS, getting to the true meaning of the Bible must be a word by word process. So we better get to work.

Starting with “in” as in “in the beginning” we can get there.
So - we know the in in in the beginning doesn’t mean physical containment, as there was nothing to contain. It’s more like when you’re “in” trouble. Add the context provided by the subsequent word, “ the” and the the clarifies that the in was something unique rather than recurrent.
By this method we can corral the author’s intent in using the word “in”, and thereby gain full understanding of this critical part of the Bible - the beginning, but before we go there we need to address the next word;
The.

Unfortunately, the next word, the, is going to be more difficult.
But if you’ve read this far, you know where this is going;
To TRULY understand the Bible it’s going to take an infinite number of chimpanzees with typewriters an infinite amount of time to ‘splain it to you.
 
Elixir said:
I from what I’ve seen from RIS, getting to the true meaning of the Bible must be a word by word process. So we better get to work.

Starting with “in” as in “in the beginning” we can get there.
So - we know the in in in the beginning doesn’t mean physical containment, as there was nothing to contain. It’s more like when you’re “in” trouble. Add the context provided by the subsequent word, “ the” and the the clarifies that the in was something unique rather than recurrent.
By this method we can corral the author’s intent in using the word “in”, and thereby gain full understanding of this critical part of the Bible - the beginning, but before we go there we need to address the next word;
The.

Unfortunately, the next word, the, is going to be more difficult.
But if you’ve read this far, you know where this is going;
To TRULY understand the Bible it’s going to take an infinite number of chimpanzees with typewriters an infinite amount of time to ‘splain it to you.
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See, this is why I just want to cut straight to the heart of whatever RIS believes. Everyone believes different stuff after all, and having a starting point in the exploration of a specific set of beliefs is often a good idea.

Really though, I just really want to see how "this one" reacts to the foul juxtaposition of my own story, which I would hope you remember the last time I rolled it out? It's the story of my childhood prayer to the universe that, if I had faith in what the Bible said, would have crazy theological implications.
 
Learner said:
The bible has said for eons,
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The Bible hasn't existed "for eons".

Paper hasn't existed for eons.

Language hasn't existed for eons.

Humans haven't existed for eons.

Plants and animals haven't even existed for eons.

The current geological eon started with the Cambrian era, 538 million years ago. A chronological eon is a thousand million years; The use of a 'mere' 538,000,000 years for the Phanerozoic eon is a consequence of geologists wanting to divide paleohistory into four parts by reference to clear event markers, rather than by arbitrary counts of round numbers of years.

The current eon starts with the first fossil evidence of life. Which at the time was mostly unicellular. And was definitely not equipped to write any kind of religious text.

Eons, plural, takes us back to the start of the Proterozoic, some 2,500 million years ago. This eon begins with the first presence of free oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, as a consequence of the emergence of photosynthesis in unicellular organisms such as cyanobacteria.

Eons ago, all life on Earth was in the oceans and tidal regions; Nothing lived on land at all, and most of the life in the oceans was just about to be killed off by the oxygen unleashed by those cyanobacteria.

All of this is well evidenced by geology.

But if you prefer to believe your book, rather than observing reality, then the entire universe has only existed for about 0.0006% of an eon. So either way, a claim that the Bible has said anything "for eons" must be wrong.
 
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RIS said:
aupmanyav said:
Name one contradiction.
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RIS said:
pood said:
I love the “duh” about a book of fairy tales that can and has been interpreted in countless ways, as if your way is a no-brainer. :rolleyes:
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Yeah, maybe tomorrow we'll work on colors, science boy.
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Maybe tomorrow we’ll work on all the ways science has made life better for you, religion boy, including allowing you to peddle your pablum over the internet — you know, the internet created by science.
RIS said:
pood said:
I’d rather read about disputes over quantum mechanics any time, then read people who squabble over the “meanings” in an ancient book of myths and fables that bears no actual relation to reality.
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What's keeping you?
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Nothing. I just find you entertaining, especially that chip on your shoulder the size of Montana that gives away your insecurities about your beliefs.
 
RIS said:
aupmanyav said:
True meaning of Bible

Be a staunch Christian and if you are not one, become one.
Propaganda material, but not well-written, full of contradictions, necessitating apologetics.
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I know you from that other forum. Name one contradiction.
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:rofl:

I believe there is a rather long article on this in the Sec web library.
 
Learner said:
pood said:
Learner said:
pood said:
Learner said:
ideologyhunter said:
\
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The bible has said for eons, humans have within them the 'conscience'. How one acts or reacts to the wellbeing of others; positively or negatively through the 'conscience' is one of the main things up for judgement. Religious or otherwise.
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Conscience is an evolved trait of social animals. Other social animals have it, too. Non-social or eusocial animals don’t. Shrug. Nothing to do with any gods.
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By this understanding, animals have emotions, and they like eating as we do too. This indicates the same manufacturer or source. A creator in my view of course.
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No, it means a universal common ancestor, plus evolution.
 
steve_bank said:
Learner said:
pood said:
Learner said:
The bible has said for eons, humans have within them the 'conscience'. How one acts or reacts to the wellbeing of others; positively or negatively through the 'conscience' is one of the main things up for judgement. Religious or otherwise.
Click to expand...

Conscience is an evolved trait of social animals. Other social animals have it, too. Non-social or eusocial animals don’t. Shrug. Nothing to do with any gods.
Click to expand...
By this understanding, animals have emotions, and they like eating as we do too. This indicates the same manufacturer or source. A creator in my view of course.
Click to expand...
Or evolution which has observational and experimental foundations.Existence of a god is an assumption supported by supposition.
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Evolution is not quite the apt counter-argument to God's existence as it may seem. For example in context: if evolution doesn't have a say either way to aptly address the proposition to whether Alexander-the-Great existed or not, and we do believe he existed. Why would it be any less so for the 'much better' documentation from antiquity for the authors who testify the existence of Jesus? Which In turn..Jesus validates by telling us of Gods existence.
 
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Learner said:
steve_bank said:
Learner said:
pood said:
Learner said:
The bible has said for eons, humans have within them the 'conscience'. How one acts or reacts to the wellbeing of others; positively or negatively through the 'conscience' is one of the main things up for judgement. Religious or otherwise.
Click to expand...

Conscience is an evolved trait of social animals. Other social animals have it, too. Non-social or eusocial animals don’t. Shrug. Nothing to do with any gods.
Click to expand...
By this understanding, animals have emotions, and they like eating as we do too. This indicates the same manufacturer or source. A creator in my view of course.
Click to expand...
Or evolution which has observational and experimental foundations.Existence of a god is an assumption supported by supposition.
Click to expand...
Evolution is not quite the apt counter-argument to God's existence as it may seem. For example in context: if evolution doesn't have a say either way to aptly address the proposition to whether Alexander-the-Great existed or not, and we do believe he existed. Why would it be any less so for the 'much better' documentation from antiquity for the authors of Jesus?
Click to expand...

I don’t know what evolution has to do with either Alexander or Jesus. It’s not true that documentation for Jesus is “much better” than for Alexander. There are no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus’s life, which is extremely surprising given the miracles he was supposed to have done and the alleged resurrection. My understanding is that there were contemporaneous accounts of Alexander which were later lost. Why would you think evolution would have a “say” in who existed or not?
 
Learner said:
The Bible God only ever reacts to those consistently daring to war against Him (and his people) when God always gives several warnings beforehand.
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Oh, balls. Exodus 4 through 14 is a legend about God taking away Pharaoh's free will so that he can devastate Egypt, culminating in his murdering all their first born children.
If you're citing Deut. 20, where he says to offer peace first to a besieged city, he goes on to say that if the city surrenders, its people will be enslaved. (Deut 20 also contains God's list of 6 tribes that are to be utterly exterminated, with no mercy shown to any of them.) The Bible's message to non-Israelites is that, if you're besieged by crazies who insist that your city was promised to them by their god, you must not resist, and if you do, you will all be slaughtered, from infants to elders. This, from the god that today's preachers will tell you loves all of us, that in fact 'nothing can separate us from the love of God.'
Learner said:
Slaves, as I've mentioned on other threads going over old ground, were treated much better than the slaves taken from Africa to the Western nations. Slaves in the bible were mostly bond-servants which their servitude lasted for seven years before being freed as required by the commandments for the Hebrews.
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And you were wrong on those other threads. Lev. 25:44-6 is a textbook definition of chattel slavery. Read it. Am I wrong? Are you ready to concede that Leviticus allows for chattel slavery? Ex. 21:20 allows for hideous beatings of slaves, up to the point of death. Right?
Anyway, if your position is, Well, other slaves in other lands had it worse, that's a weird rationalization. Mankind has come to an agreement, since the 19th century, that enslavement is evil. End of story. It's evil. Believers feel justified in saying that God is allowing an evil that in other lands was more evil?
Learner said:
ideologyhunter said:
No one in the Bible, from start to finish, denies that their deity does this or finds anything grotesque about it.
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That's sort of the interesting thing I found about the bible, which imo refutes the types of rhetorical arguments I often hear, for example,"the bible writers were doctoring the scriptures to make God look ultimately good etc. & etc.".
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Of course they didn't 'doctor' the slavery passages or the genocide. They didn't see anything wrong with it!!
This emperor has no clothes. The scriptures in question are primitive and come from primitive minds. We should know better today. No one today should be schooled by a book that finds genocide and slavery to be excusable.


 
pood said:
Learner said:
steve_bank said:
Learner said:
pood said:
Learner said:
The bible has said for eons, humans have within them the 'conscience'. How one acts or reacts to the wellbeing of others; positively or negatively through the 'conscience' is one of the main things up for judgement. Religious or otherwise.
Click to expand...

Conscience is an evolved trait of social animals. Other social animals have it, too. Non-social or eusocial animals don’t. Shrug. Nothing to do with any gods.
Click to expand...
By this understanding, animals have emotions, and they like eating as we do too. This indicates the same manufacturer or source. A creator in my view of course.
Click to expand...
Or evolution which has observational and experimental foundations.Existence of a god is an assumption supported by supposition.
Click to expand...
Evolution is not quite the apt counter-argument to God's existence as it may seem. For example in context: if evolution doesn't have a say either way to aptly address the proposition to whether Alexander-the-Great existed or not, and we do believe he existed. Why would it be any less so for the 'much better' documentation from antiquity for the authors of Jesus?
Click to expand...

I don’t know what evolution has to do with either Alexander or Jesus. It’s not true that documentation for Jesus is “much better” than for Alexander. There are no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus’s life, which is extremely surprising given the miracles he was supposed to have done and the alleged resurrection. My understanding is that there were contemporaneous accounts of Alexander which were later lost. Why would you think evolution would have a “say” in who existed or not?
Click to expand...
I am highlighting Evolution has NO say to whether God exists or not. It ain't a good argument. My position simply put.. I only became a believer in God's existence through the Gospels i.e. existence of Jesus (without a Jesus, I wouldn't have been be able to grasp the OT). Anyway..If it was ever proven Jesus "didn't exist' that would certainly do it for me - making me atheist.
 
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Learner said:
pood said:
Learner said:
steve_bank said:
Learner said:
pood said:
Learner said:
The bible has said for eons, humans have within them the 'conscience'. How one acts or reacts to the wellbeing of others; positively or negatively through the 'conscience' is one of the main things up for judgement. Religious or otherwise.
Click to expand...

Conscience is an evolved trait of social animals. Other social animals have it, too. Non-social or eusocial animals don’t. Shrug. Nothing to do with any gods.
Click to expand...
By this understanding, animals have emotions, and they like eating as we do too. This indicates the same manufacturer or source. A creator in my view of course.
Click to expand...
Or evolution which has observational and experimental foundations.Existence of a god is an assumption supported by supposition.
Click to expand...
Evolution is not quite the apt counter-argument to God's existence as it may seem. For example in context: if evolution doesn't have a say either way to aptly address the proposition to whether Alexander-the-Great existed or not, and we do believe he existed. Why would it be any less so for the 'much better' documentation from antiquity for the authors of Jesus?
Click to expand...

I don’t know what evolution has to do with either Alexander or Jesus. It’s not true that documentation for Jesus is “much better” than for Alexander. There are no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus’s life, which is extremely surprising given the miracles he was supposed to have done and the alleged resurrection. My understanding is that there were contemporaneous accounts of Alexander which were later lost. Why would you think evolution would have a “say” in who existed or not?
Click to expand...
I am highlighting Evolution has NO say to whether God exists or not. It ain't a good argument. Simply put.. I am only a believer in God's existence through the Gospels i.e. existence of Jesus. If it was proven he didn't exist that would certainly make me atheist.
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Honestly?

Even as an atheist, even if Jesus never existed, I can recognize that the guy wasn't a dummy. I think people *wildly* misinterpret the gospels but all I see in him is an autistic person whose autism allowed them to think deep thoughts about the world, but only through a lens of theological language.

I would prefer you an atheist either way. I think that's actually the solution to Pascal's Wager, and I would wager I've already told you why I think so?

I think true words stand for themselves. No truth fears doubt and reason, because doubt and reason can only improve evidence through revealing falsehood! This means that any truth in the Bible can only be found by putting it through the filter of doubt.

For instance, I think that the most important message of the gospels, and one that survives my astringent doubt, is that we have an obligation to build heaven, today, here, for everyone. Maybe this means inventing technical apotheosis, or a strong AI trained up with an ironclad supporting argument for advising ethical action and to put us in a world of post scarcity with virtual experiences to replace the ones which would normally require harm to execute, or maybe we have to do more work figuring out what "heaven" is supposed to mean before we build something of it.

The thing is, as an atheist, I lack faith in God to give me anything, and I think it doesn't matter even if you are right and the world is going to shit and it's impossible to build the thing, I have to keep realistically trying to defeat that impossibility and do it anyway even knowing I will probably fail.

And I'm going to do all that thinking I get nothing for it, telling and reassuring myself consistently, having *faith* that the only way to have heaven for anyone is for us to build it ourselves because if we don't, we won't build it seriously enough to succeed.
 
The true meaning of the Bible is the same as it has always been;

DON’T BE A DICK OR
GOD WILL GET YOU

This directly raises the question … why do self professed believers come to forums like this, just to disobey God and be a dick?
 
Simple rrspose.

' I think is created everything because animals and humans can both have feelings'

And to that I say that is a subjective view with no material foundation. On the hand evolution as a natural process has a basis in objective scientific theory and observation.

That hi,as evolved as a natural as the sun and solar system forming. No god required.


Cjhristian proofs if god broadly reduce to I look at the world and conclude a god must have created it, therefore god exists.
 
Elixir said:
The true meaning of the Bible is the same as it has always been;

DON’T BE A DICK OR
GOD WILL GET YOU

This directly raises the question … why do self professed believers come to forums like this, just to disobey God and be a dick?
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The above reminds of a verse of 'not what not to do':
Thall shalt not bear false witness...
😜

(sorry just responding to short posts at the moment - I'm on the go)
 
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