[Neraphym]

I've become increasingly bored over the last few days, so I have decided to sit down and reread the entire Bible and make notes of it. First off, let me make this absolutely clear: I am NOT a christian. I am agnostic and do not believe in religion. I am doing this to better understand this religion and to express my interpritations of the Bible, so that others might benefit. I will only criticize parts of the Bible that can be contradicted by science. Miracles are just that; they cannot be defined by science, and I will not attempt to do so. I will be taking everything at face value, rather than distort meaning through extensive and rediculous metaphors. I would be more than happy to discuss and debate any view of the Bible, so please feel free to post your thoughts and concerns. I simply ask that everyone respects and tolerates every view, no matter how contradicting it might be to your own.

(Also, I'm doing this on an evil Mac. The key sensitivity is kinda bad, so I'll probably be missing some letters here and there.)


Genesis:

1. This is the creationist theory (and I use the word theory lightly). This is a miracle, but is conradicting to many popular scientific beliefs, such as evolution and the big bang theory. I highly doubt that this is how the universe began, but the order in which the types of life appeared is the same order as evolution suggests the did. The Bible states that the earth was created in 6 days, but some people have taken the word day to be a metaphor for a much longer period of time. This would help merge creationism with evolution, bringing about an intelligent design theory. Simply put, this is wrong. It is clearly defined as a 24 hour period, not a metaphor.

(1.4) Here is the first mistake of the bible. God separates light from dark. Darkness is cast as light's foil, when in reality, darkness is the absence of light. That is like saying that zero is a negative number. On a side note, God seems to be taking pride in his work ("and he saw that it was good"). Pride is a deadly sin.

(1:16) The moon does not emit light. Moonlight is simply a reflection of the sun's light. At this point I can safely say that the Bible was written by man, not god/angels. Only man would have been ignorant enough to make such a mistake.


2. God creates the first humans after resting a day. Not much else happens.

(2.2) Hmm, now why would an omnipotent being need to rest?

(2.17) God forbids Adam to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. He says that by doing so, Adam would die. First off, he doesn't die when he eats it (there's a reason I don't consider this false, but it will be explained later). Secondly, this is mankind's original sin... gaining knowledge of good and evil. Ironically, christianity further perpetuates this sin by going to extreme lengths to define good and evil. I guess it can't be helped, though.


3. A serpent comes along and tricks Eve into eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eve then shares the fruit with Adam. They become aware of good and evil, and discover that they are naked. Apparently, being naked is unnatural and evil, so they go and cover up. God gets really pissed when he finds out what Adam and Eve did, even though when God created them, he already knew it was going to happen... What is interesting about this is that being ignorant of evil is the same as being good. If you are doing something extremely evil, like raping small children, and you aren't aware that it's evil, than god won't be mad at you. Adam and Eve were running around naked, exposing themselves o the world. This is evil, yet god didn't seem to mind. Only when Adam and Eve became aware that it was evil did eing naked become a sin.

(3.9) God asks a question. For someone who knows everything, questions seem to be a little pointless. Who knows , maybe he enjoys asking questions.

(3.16) Here we see how evil god can be. Eve messed up... big time. So what does God do to punish Eve? He punishes every female human throughout all of time with painful child birthing. Because we all know that it is the females of the future that were responsible for this horrible sin...

(3.20) It is stated that all life is to come from Eve. Therefore is is safe to assume that God created NO MORE females. This will be important shortly on...


4. Adamn and Eve get busy and make two sons, Cain and Abel. God is an {expletive antidisestablishmentarianized by Cspace} to one of them, so that one goes off and kills the other one. God then banishes the still living brother to a cursed life wandering in the wastelands east of eden. The rest goes on about the origianl humans and their lives..

(4.17) Out of nowhere, Cain gets a wife... Now, I just got done saying that god created no more females. That means that Cain's wife is either Eve, or one of Cain's sisters. In other words, the Bible teaches us that the human race came from incest. Incest = OK!

(4:23) One of Adam's descendants has more than one wife. Now the bible is also teaching us that polygamy is acceptable. Polygamy = OK!






...to be continued...

[©allum]

Ok, so you don't like chirstianity or organised religion in general, but do you have to keep trying to pick out every little hole in it?

[Nuu™™]

Genesis:

1. This is the creationist theory (and I use the word theory lightly). This is a miracle, but is conradicting to many popular scientific beliefs, such as evolution and the big bang theory. I highly doubt that this is how the universe began, but the order in which the types of life appeared is the same order as evolution suggests the did. The Bible states that the earth was created in 6 days, but some people have taken the word day to be a metaphor for a much longer period of time. This would help merge creationism with evolution, bringing about an intelligent design theory. Simply put, this is wrong. It is clearly defined as a 24 hour period, not a metaphor.

Well maybe the Big Bang Theory was just how creation appears to us. And there is no proof of evolution. The radio carbon dating is false, and dinosaurs actually walked the earth up until 1865 AD. (cited from Uncyclopedia)

(1.4) Here is the first mistake of the bible. God separates light from dark. Darkness is cast as light's foil, when in reality, darkness is the absence of light. That is like saying that zero is a negative number. On a side note, God seems to be taking pride in his work ("and he saw that it was good"). Pride is a deadly sin.

According to the Ten Commandments, God is also jealous.

(1:16) The moon does not emit light. Moonlight is simply a reflection of the sun's light. At this point I can safely say that the Bible was written by man, not god/angels. Only man would have been ignorant enough to make such a mistake.

Maybe he attempted to trick us? Maybe good will come from it or something...

(2.2) Hmm, now why would an omnipotent being need to rest?

I believe he was setting the example for us, knowing we would.

(2.17) God forbids Adam to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. He says that by doing so, Adam would die. First off, he doesn't die when he eats it (there's a reason I don't consider this false, but it will be explained later). Secondly, this is mankind's original sin... gaining knowledge of good and evil. Ironically, christianity further perpetuates this sin by going to extreme lengths to define good and evil. I guess it can't be helped, though.

On the subject of the Tree of Knowledge, it think it states that God was angry or sad or something that Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

1. He knew it was going to happen, he would have felt the emotion long before.

2. He placed the tree there, easily accessible. If he didn't want him to eat it, why did he bother with the tree in the first place, or why didn't he at least stick it on a very big mountain?

3. Apparently Adam and Eve 'knew' good and evil when they ate the fruit. Which means that they didn't know good and evil UNTIL they ate the fruit. Do you get what I mean?

If they didn't know good and evil before eating the fruit, then they would never had known that doing so was a bad thing to do. Yeah, God forbid them from eating it, but if you had no morals, would diobeying him seem like such a bad idea? Obviously, whoever wrote that out didn't give it much thought, God or no God.

Edit: I reread that part, and it never says his emotions, but it does reveal some other stuff. God punishes them severely for eating from a tree they could not have known was bad, and listening to a serpent that was neither benevolent nor malevolent in their eyes.

Also, God does not seem to know what has happened. They say later in the Bible that God is some sort of omnipresent force, but in this part, he appears human. He walks amoungst the garden, rather than materialise out of thin air.

Lastly, God never destroys the tree. It is still out there somewhere, guarded by a flaming sword that points in every direction. So if you see any flaming swords around, you will know that that is the way to Eden.

And why is this in the Mythology Forum? I don't think Mythology is really the right word for describing Christianity.

This post has been edited by Nuu: 06 July 2006 - 05:45 AM

[Neraphym]

Christianity is a myth. People just tend to think that because something is given the title of myth that it is implicitly false.

[Nuu™™]

But calling a mainstream religion a myth could be offensive, because nowadays it is sometimes interpreted as saying it is false. You see, if original meaning and modern belief contradict each other, it is normally the original meaning that gives way. By that I mean if enough people 'tend to think' something, it becomes the meaning of the word, no matter what it used to mean. If you don't believe me, look at this:

http://www.thefreedi...t.asp?Word=myth

[Neraphym]

Meh, 2/4 are implicitly false, but they are the latter of the two (which I believe means they are less common). Either way, I still consider Christianity to be a myth, and it's my forum anywho. I mean no insult by declairing Christianity to be a myth. If you cannot accept that the word myth doesn't always imply falseyness, then you deserve to be insulted.

[Nuu™™]

Gooooooo polygamy!

[©allum]

Incest is a human concept

From the times where a young female virgin was a commodity, to be used for bargaining to be married into families of higher power, one didn't want to lose the value of that by sleeping with one's sister.

I'm not defending it or anything, and I'm not denying the defects that incest causes

[Nuu™™]

Incest is a human concept

From the times where a young female virgin was a commodity, to be used for bargaining to be married into families of higher power, one didn't want to lose the value of that by sleeping with one's sister.

I'm not defending it or anything, and I'm not denying the defects that incest causes

Callum is right you know, natural selection gets rid of the genetically inferior inbreds at the first generation normally, meaning there is damage to the species if incest does occur. I know, my dog is always giving interested looks at our other dog, also his mother.

[Neraphym]

My personal belief is that incest is wrong only when it is done for procreation. Incest just for fun and not a child is perfectly ok in my book. As you said, incest can produce defects in the child, so that is why it is wrong in that instance. Polygamy is fine, too. These things aren't immoral, they are just different ways of living.

[©allum]

I think it's in every western person's head that you don't go there.. Even just for fun.

[Nuu™™]

Yeah, it is more repulsive that immoral.

[©allum]

Billy Connolly has a great piece about incest.. It's on his "World Tour of New Zealand" I think

[Aaron]

The Bible states that the earth was created in 6 days, but some people have taken the word day to be a metaphor for a much longer period of time. This would help merge creationism with evolution, bringing about an intelligent design theory. Simply put, this is wrong. It is clearly defined as a 24 hour period, not a metaphor.

I find your Bible study very interesting, Alpha, so keep it up . I did want to comment on what you have said here, though. In a Study Bible that I own, it states that the original Hebrew word used to describe the "days" that God created the Earth also could mean "age." When the scholars translated the Bible into Greek, then Latin, English, and so on, they chose to use the "day" usage of the word. When Genesis was originally written, the author may have wanted to express that the Earth was created in 6 ages, not literal 24-hour days.

[Neraphym]

I find your Bible study very interesting, Alpha, so keep it up . I did want to comment on what you have said here, though. In a Study Bible that I own, it states that the original Hebrew word used to describe the "days" that God created the Earth also could mean "age." When the scholars translated the Bible into Greek, then Latin, English, and so on, they chose to use the "day" usage of the word. When Genesis was originally written, the author may have wanted to express that the Earth was created in 6 ages, not literal 24-hour days.

Funny, my sources said the exact opposite of that. The word used was "ohm" or something like that, which meant day, not age. I'll check it out again anyway.

Edit: I looked around and saw a bit of everything. Either way, I have returned to my old theory: "If you are not the guy who wrote it, then you don't get to quote it." Only he/she/it could possibly have known what he/she/it meant.