Religious people seem to have more bias in these debates.

[Blues Man]

I'm not imagining anything I read it in the bible which is supposed to be the word of god.

But I suppose you think that a god should have to live by the standards he set for us mere mortals right?

The Bible is inspired by God. It was also written by man, filtered we might say. And those men lived thousands of years ago, spoke a different language, had a different perspective. What was their perspective? What was their intent? What did they wish to share with the audience of their own time?

Which is why I found the bible lacking.

 

[Meriweather]

Any more assumptions about me that you need me to set you straight on?

I was referring to the many time throughout history that a religion was forcibly imposed on people.

Relax, I said I was guessing. You must have also missed the word 'perhaps' and the question mark. Your perspective shows; for example the statement that religion was forcibly imposed on people. It wasn't and hasn't been quite that simple. Religion did not--and never has--existed in a vacuum.

 

[toobfreak]

I'm sure the other side has its own bias too, but I think it's different. The difference is religious people seem to need their religion. If they were confronted with proof that their God isn't real I think a lot of them would be very broken on a spiritual and emotional level.

Son, you have NO idea what you are talking about.

 

[Meriweather]

a path

What prevented you from finding it? For example, did you feel the Commandments and/or the Beatitudes did not point a way clearly enough?

 

[Meriweather]

Which is why I found the bible lacking.

What did you want from the Bible?

 

[Blues Man]

Any more assumptions about me that you need me to set you straight on?

I was referring to the many time throughout history that a religion was forcibly imposed on people.

Relax, I said I was guessing. You must have also missed the word 'perhaps' and the question mark. Your perspective shows; for example the statement that religion was forcibly imposed on people. It wasn't and hasn't been quite that simple. Religion did not--and never has--existed in a vacuum.

So you don't think that the Spanish forced their religion on the Aztecs?

Cortes and his armies conquered the Aztecs, razed their temples and superimposed Christianity over the Aztec religions.

The Aztecs literally had Christianity forced on them at the point of a sword.

 

[Blues Man]

a path

What prevented you from finding it? For example, did you feel the Commandments and/or the Beatitudes did not point a way clearly enough?

How do you know I didn't find my own path?

The path I chose isn't Christianity

 

[Meriweather]

So you don't think that the Spanish forced their religion on the Aztecs?

Not what I said. Religion was the least of what was "forced" on the Aztecs. Why are you angry with religion but not the rest?

 

[Blues Man]

Which is why I found the bible lacking.

What did you want from the Bible?

I was looking for some meaning in my life because I grew up rough and was an extremely angry youth and was looking for a way out of a predictable cycle.

 

[Blues Man]

So you don't think that the Spanish forced their religion on the Aztecs?

Not what I said. Religion was the least of what was "forced" on the Aztecs. Why are you angry with religion but not the rest?

I'm not angry at religion.

Religion is a concept nothing more.

I don't get angry at concepts. I just think that religion is too full of contradictions.

 

[Meriweather]

How do you know I didn't find my own path?

Didn't say you hadn't. You said you were searching for a path, not that you hadn't found a path. It appears you did not find the path in the Bible, so I asked about that portion of your search. Listen. I am asking these questions out of sincere interest. You seem to want to pick a fight and I am not interested in that. If you wish to have a conversation, I am all in. If you are looking for a quarrel, I'll move on.

 

[Meriweather]

I was looking for some meaning in my life because I grew up rough and was an extremely angry youth and was looking for a way out of a predictable cycle.

Are you disappointed or angry the Bible wasn't of help?

 

[Blues Man]

How do you know I didn't find my own path?

Didn't say you hadn't. You said you were searching for a path, not that you hadn't found a path. It appears you did not find the path in the Bible, so I asked about that portion of your search. Listen. I am asking these questions out of sincere interest. You seem to want to pick a fight and I am not interested in that. If you wish to have a conversation, I am all in. If you are looking for a quarrel, I'll move on.

words mean things and you asked me "What prevented you from finding it?"

That implies that you think I didn't find a path.

But to answer your question , I stumbled onto the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius when I was 16 and that was the first bit of philodophy that struck a chord with me and did so probably because I was literally living on the streets and struggling to survive. So I read and reread that book then I read Epictetus and others. A little later in my life I met my one of my 2 mentors. He was a welder with a PhD in philosophy and a Buddhist monk. I studied Buddhism with him for several years. So my personal philosophy is a mixture of Stoicism and Buddhism.

 

[Blues Man]

I was looking for some meaning in my life because I grew up rough and was an extremely angry youth and was looking for a way out of a predictable cycle.

Are you disappointed or angry the Bible wasn't of help?

No I just found that despite the verbosity of the bible, it really didn't say much

 

[Meriweather]

words mean things and you asked me "What prevented you from finding it?"

That implies that you think I didn't find a path.

No, that is not what I implied, it was what you inferred. My question should imply I am sincerely interested in why you couldn't find what you were searching for in the Bible.

 

[Meriweather]

I studied Buddhism with him for several years. So my personal philosophy is a mixture of Stoicism and Buddhism.

Both are excellent philosophies.

 

[Meriweather]

No I just found that despite the verbosity of the bible, it really didn't say much

Yes. One of the first things I learned about the Bible was that it isn't all about me. However, from the Hebrew perspective...it launches one into a great atmosphere of thought.

 

[Briss]

If I understand it correctly, a being created humankind; it became angry with what it had created; it then decided to drown the evidence of its flawed creation.

The problem with that story is that it makes the being look like a clay-master who blames the clay for the flaws in the finished product; a being who had yet to learn the truth of the fact that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. A tree is known by its fruit. If we be of god, and we be sinful, what kind of a tree does that make god?

Who wrote the account? When was it written? What was, and still is, a core Middle Eastern belief about God?

The belief held about God is that God is the power behind everything that happens. Some Muslims hold the belief that they cannot even move their little finger each time lest it first be the will of God. Another deeply held religious belief in Biblical times is that God is all good and merciful. How to reconcile these beliefs about God. It is still human nature today, is to examine one's behavior towards the person(s) who has passed on.

The account was written, my man, after the fact--and we can see they felt their behavior had been so bad when held up to the goodness of God it deserved eradication. Take note of Noah's behavior. The most righteous man living at that time said nothing to anyone about their bad behavior; did not warn them of retribution, and afterwards suffered so much from survivor's guilt he became a drunk. One son tried to cover up this dirty linen, the other decided to air it publicly.

Further, they decided in order to prevent the previous evil from surfacing again, everyone should spread out so as not be so readily influenced, However, humans being what we are, people instead began gathering and building the great city of Babylon. So many came in, it became known as the city of many languages, so many languages they no longer understood each other. We are told this is why the great city collapsed. (Remember, people spoke the way they did instead of all the same because it was the will of God, as was everything.)

Moving along through Genesis, is the theme that societies that lacked discipline were doomed to fail. The most obvious sign of an undisciplined society? Loose sexual morals and lack of hospitality.

Note, these are all things our ancient ancestors, barely out of the Stone Age, warned their children and descendants about. Parents, today, still try to do the same: Warn their children of the mistakes they made, hoping the children will learn from them. Doesn't work that well today either, does it?

Children's version: Be good or a flood will wash you away. Don't tell the neighbors your dad drinks. Build a tower, create new languages.

Well, the gist of the message is that the god created humans, giving them the gift of life; humans didn't do with the gift what the god wanted them to do with it (not really a gift then, huh); the god became angry because the freewill creatures it created used their freewill; the god then created a great flood to wipe out the evidence of its flawed creation like a clay-master blaming the clay for the imperfections in his work.

Adding insult to injury, the god decided that it would forgive humans for being exactly what it made them to be only by offering up one of its perfect creations (Jesus) to be tortured and torn apart by its imperfect creations. So now that we know that pain, blood, and suffering is the currency of choice of this being, we don't have to wonder about its true nature.

 

[Meriweather]

Well, the gist of the message is that the god created humans, giving them the gift of life; humans didn't do with the gift what the god wanted them to do with it (not really a gift then, huh); the god became angry because the freewill creatures it created used their freewill; the god then created a great flood to wipe out the evidence of its flawed creation like a clay-master blaming the clay for the imperfections in his work.

Adding insult to injury, the god decided that it would forgive humans for being exactly what it made them to be only by offering up one of its perfect creations (Jesus) to be tortured and torn apart by its imperfect creations. So now that we know that pain, blood, and suffering is the currency of choice of this being, we don't have to wonder about its true nature.

And that is as far as you got with your study?

 

[Blues Man]

words mean things and you asked me "What prevented you from finding it?"

That implies that you think I didn't find a path.

No, that is not what I implied, it was what you inferred. My question should imply I am sincerely interested in why you couldn't find what you were searching for in the Bible.

You asked me what prevented me from finding a path did you not?

you didn't ask me if I found a path.