Author |
|
Thomas Woods Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 June 2004 Location: United States Posts: 1356
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 8:06am | IP Logged | 1
|
post reply
|
|
I went researching and it seems there is some misinterpretation. Even if that excuse is bunk, you have to keep in mind God knows how everyone will end up before they reach that point (he probably even knows every possible outcome multiple time streams exist) So even if they were on the younger side, they may have been damned. I'm sure there was a vastly higher number than 40 kids during the great flood.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
|
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 132303
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 8:08am | IP Logged | 2
|
post reply
|
|
As I have noted before, a disturbing scene (one of many!) in the Russel Crowe NOAH, happens when one of the characters on the ark (Noah himself?) falls overboard, and we see the waters all around filled with thousands of floating corpses. Hadn't thought of that!Also made me wonder where all the dead creatures--human and otherwise--went, when the waters drained away. "It's a metaphor!" cry the believers. Sure. And a few hundred years ago, saying that would have gotten you burnt at the stake.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Michael Penn Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006 Location: United States Posts: 12444
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 8:10am | IP Logged | 3
|
post reply
|
|
The "bible" battles of meaning is odd, well, in sundry ways, but particularly compared from the inside and the outside.
When it comes to the Jewish books of the "bible," we Jews insist that none of it's really relevant to all y'all -- whatever our bullshit is, we keep it in the tribe. So, if a Jew asks, hey, what the hell happened with the bear and those little kids?, we not only have immediate access to the original but also have our own thousands of years of understanding of what is, after all, our texts. Doesn't make it any the less bullshit. But at least we don't foist it on others.
For us, it's fundamentally silly that a Christian would assert that some Jewish text is mistranslated from the original because that same Christian also asserts that everything originally biblically Jewish supports Jesus the Christ, Son, God, Savior, King, etc, i.e., necessarily the whole kit and kabooble of Christianity (er, at least their version, which -- of course! -- is the right one!).
But for the Christian insistence that Jesus matters for every living human soul, what the flipping fuck would anybody but a Yid even remotely care a fig about this obscure little tiny Jewish tale of a bear and little kids and bald taunts?
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 132303
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 8:19am | IP Logged | 4
|
post reply
|
|
As I have said many times, Jesus (if he existed at all) was a Jew, talking to other Jews, about Jewish matters. And--something Christians tend to brush aside--he did NOT come to fix the flaws in the old texts. He didn't think there were any. When asked directly, he said he was not here to change so much as the dot over a single "i" in the Law.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Michael Penn Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006 Location: United States Posts: 12444
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 8:31am | IP Logged | 5
|
post reply
|
|
Jesus (if he existed at all) was a Jew, talking to other Jews
***
Would anybody think translating Shakespeare into 16th century street-level Japanese and then dumping forever the original is a good idea?
Well, Jesus' words -- I mean, the very words of the One and Only Living God and Creator of the Entire Universe!... gone! Poof! Forever! Jesus, GOD HIMSELF, was on earth, for 30 plus years, and nobody -- not even Jesus! -- thought it worthwhile to preserve his actual teachings verbatim?! Instead, everything but for a tiny few stray pieces of Aramaic was translated into patently subpar vernacular then-contemporary Greek, and the original... gone! Poof! Forever!
Oh well...!
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Eric Ladd Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 August 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 4506
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 9:02am | IP Logged | 6
|
post reply
|
|
Is God powerful enough that he can make a rock so heavy not even he can lift it? Is God powerful enough that he can create a message that cannot be misinterpreted?
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 132303
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 10:42am | IP Logged | 7
|
post reply
|
|
The greatest obscenity of the Bible is the way God routinely slaughters us—millions at a time!—for being what he made us to be. Constantly he sets us up to fail—and looking at the state of the world today, I’d have very little trouble believing the OT God was still running things.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Adam Schulman Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017 Posts: 1717
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | 8
|
post reply
|
|
I'm an atheist who doesn't care much if other people are theistic, but I will say this:
I always chuckle at those who think that the Bible says that marriage is supposed to be between one man and one woman. I was raised Jewish. I read the Old Testament (Torah). King Solomon had 700 (ha!) wives. Clearly, marriage is supposed to be between one man and many, many women!
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
DW Zomberg Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 June 2012 Posts: 444
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | 9
|
post reply
|
|
How did Paul put it? Don't get married unless you absolutely can't resist those nasty urges. There's some family values for ya.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Brian Miller Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004 Location: United States Posts: 30901
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | 10
|
post reply
|
|
One thing that sticks with me is how European Jesus is supposed to look when, in actuality, he would resemble those dirty, Skittle Muslims far more than he ever would any white person.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
David Miller Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004 Posts: 3009
|
Posted: 27 February 2019 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | 11
|
post reply
|
|
What I find interesting about Paul is from the evidence of the New Testament, despite his transformation from a homicidal religious maniac to a hallucinating religious maniac being treated as a straightforward redemption narrative, he was clearly mentally ill by our contemporary standards.
Even considering Paul's violence occurred in a culture which allowed and encouraged it, Acts of the Apostles and Paul himself in his letters insist Paul was considered a outlying asshole even in the context of his time. This is something that's been commented on for 2000 years ( here's Billy Graham comparing St. Paul to a serial killer), but I find it more sinister than the apologists do.
The Pharisees might have stoned blasphemers like Stephen at the drop of a hat if they start preaching Christ right up in the authorities' faces at the Temple, but Paul made persecution a vocation.
(Paul's Christian missions were clearly modeled on his anti-Christian mission, but instead of leveraging the Judean religious establishment to impose violence on Jewish Christians, he leveraged the Roman colonial establishment to impose Paulism and Gentiles on Jewish Christians.)
It's unsettling. And then he had a seizure and spent later years raving about meeting a dead rabbi, which doesn't exactly settle lingering questions about his sanity.
Assuming any of it happened, of course...
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
e-mail
|
|
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 132303
|
Posted: 28 February 2019 at 7:28am | IP Logged | 12
|
post reply
|
|
As has been observed, someone who speaks to God is considered devout; someone to whom God speaks is considered psychotic.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|