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Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1645
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| Posted: 26 February 2019 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | 1
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My opinion is that it's childish nonsense. Even if translated with 100% accuracy, the question remains - what exactly does this story teach us, in a book that is supposed to be used to guide our lives? The same with the original story of Noah and the Ark. Irrespective of whether you believe these absurd tales, even if taken only as parables, they're extremely disturbing.
No chance that we could, say, risk using our common sense instead of Middle Eastern fairy tales?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 26 February 2019 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | 2
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I wasn’t ‘calling out ‘mistranslation’’ to protect God’s rep. I was just clarifying what the text actually says. It wasn’t written in English. You can have whatever opinion of God sending a bear to kill some young political toughs harassing an old man. ••• The point is not WHY there are mistranslations, but that they exist at all. The Bible, if true, is the most important book in the universe. It is the manual via which we can save our immortal souls from eternal damnation. Yet this Loving God who sent it down to us cannot even be bothered to make sure we get it in an uncorrupted form.
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 30884
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| Posted: 26 February 2019 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | 3
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It’s supposed to be the LITERAL word of god. You’d think he’d figure out a way to make it where everybody understands what it says.
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Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1645
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| Posted: 26 February 2019 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | 4
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Brian Miller wrote:
| It’s supposed to be the LITERAL word of god. You’d think he’d figure out a way to make it where everybody understands what it says. |
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It's variously described as being "divinely inspired", right up to this claim:
QUOTE:
| it is a record God speaking, it is infallible, it was written to benefit future generations, it is eternal and unchanging, it is powerful, true, a guide for daily living, authoritative, and the Word of God. |
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Setting aside the dubious lesson that mocking bald guys will result in retribution-by-bear, it's kind of scary to imagine God, speaking to us, and to future generations, with words like this:
"slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."
I can only imagine that future generations will look back at us and try not to giggle as they read what a large proportion of the population actually believed.
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Kevin Brown
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 8840
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| Posted: 26 February 2019 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | 5
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JB.... you ok?
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Jim Petersman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 June 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 625
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| Posted: 27 February 2019 at 12:33am | IP Logged | 6
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"It's an old man being harassed by a group of young public servants, who are then killed by God, using bears as his instrument of murder."____________________________________________
I swear, if this isn't in the first 12 issues of Elsewhen, I am going to be pissed! That bald man is clearly Xavier forcing bears to kill congressional interns. "Fuck you and your mutant registration act!"
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35722
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| Posted: 27 February 2019 at 12:44am | IP Logged | 7
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John Byrne wrote:
| The Bible, if true, is the most important book in the universe. It is the manual via which we can save our immortal souls from eternal damnation. Yet this Loving God who sent it down to us cannot even be bothered to make sure we get it in an uncorrupted form. |
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This.
It really frames the entire religious debate for me. Has for nearly 20 years. If there was/is a God that truly wanted all mankind to heed his word, learn from it, so that they could achieve some sort of life everlasting after their death, then you'd think that same God wouldn't make it so easy to screw up "his word" simply based on language or syntax or epoch or history. Somehow this omnipotent being would have the exact same message translated throughout any interpretation of his text such that it was incontrovertible. That would be fair. That would actually represent a real choice.
That's absolutely not the case.
And so we're left with an ad-hoc manual created two millennia ago that has been interpreted well over a thousand different ways that people still, to this day, believe is the actual word of God. Don't say that it isn't because I've got a literal shit ton of relatives who believe that to the letter. And then we've got people who try to shoehorn in their own interpretations on the text to imply that what was written isn't actually what was written because it's just some kind of miscommunication. As if we just ignore what was actually written to accept an interpretation as fact.
Toss it all out. Stop believing in a bearded man in the sky somehow dictating our lives or that any of us are going to "cross over" to see our lost loved ones in some cloud city for eternity. Accept the here and now. Once you realize this is the only life you will ever have, that there isn't one waiting for you where you will live for eternity, only then will you truly be free.
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Robbie Moubert
Byrne Robotics Member
Evertonian
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1484
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| Posted: 27 February 2019 at 3:22am | IP Logged | 8
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Muslims are no better off with the Koran. It's supposed to be the infallible word of Allah but for some reason he chose to reveal it, by proxy, to the illiterate Muhammad whose companions then wrote it down. At least Joseph Smith had his gold plates!
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Mike Devlin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 May 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 242
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| Posted: 27 February 2019 at 4:02am | IP Logged | 9
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Ahh yes, good old Joseph Smith - clearly by his time, The Big G had finally realised the error of his ways. (After much face-palming at his previous foolishness) and presented The Word in nice, (and shiny!), unambiguous form :)
Edited by Mike Devlin on 27 February 2019 at 4:03am
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Shawn Kane
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 3239
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| Posted: 27 February 2019 at 6:53am | IP Logged | 10
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Stop believing in a bearded man in the sky somehow dictating our lives or that any of us are going to "cross over" to see our lost loved ones in some cloud city for eternity.
Not really what I believe but I appreciate the comments expressed in this post.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 27 February 2019 at 6:54am | IP Logged | 11
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Ahh yes, good old Joseph Smith - clearly by his time, The Big G had finally realised the error of his ways. (After much face-palming at his previous foolishness) and presented The Word in nice, (and shiny!), unambiguous form :)••• Unambiguous—and invisible! Only to be seen by those who believe.
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Marc Baptiste
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3655
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| Posted: 27 February 2019 at 7:55am | IP Logged | 12
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Some personal favorites of mine:
The Great Flood - which in an attempt the "cleanse" the Earth of the wicked and unrighteous, murdered the unborn children of pregnant women, newborn babies, the elderly, the infirm, those in comas, the disabled, widows, orphans, toddlers, etc. etc.
The slaughter of the first-borne sons of Egypt as they slept in their beds (ages newborn and up).
Marc
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