The Christian Theology Education Thread

[Anonapersona]

10 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Me getting a couple of red dots from his fans for suggesting that God might not be a nice guy is basically getting off lightly compared to the poor old Cathars

That’s progress

If you take the bible literally, nobody has killed more humans than god.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

22 hours ago, tamthebam said:

You know, you could just have given us a coloured circle instead of all this fuss.. 

The persecution, torture and killing is bad enough but did they have to add a red dot....

[Salt n Vinegar]

On 28/02/2023 at 20:06, Anonapersona said:

If you take the bible literally, nobody has killed more humans than god.

Taking that approach, and extending "has killed" to include both by action and inaction, gets really awkward for the religious when you consider the implications of miscarriage and the non-implantation of fertilised eggs. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Salt n Vinegar
Typo

[Anonapersona]

3 hours ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

Taking that approach, and extending "has killed" to include both by action and inaction, gets really awkward for the religious when you consider the implications of miscarriage and the non-implantation of fertilised eggs. 

I find it baffling that the entity who created the universe just by thinking about it, also thought it was a good idea to drown the world's infants.

[Salt n Vinegar]

1 minute ago, Anonapersona said:

I find it baffling that the entity who created the universe just by thinking about it, also thought it was a good idea to drown the world's infants.

And the horses, the hedgehogs and the bunnies, they had to drown as well. Wtf did they do?

[TxRover]

Or that he leads a church that says eggs aren’t meat until the chickens hatch…but babies, that’s another matter…

[Mark Connolly]

1 hour ago, Anonapersona said:

I find it baffling that the entity who created the universe just by thinking about it, also thought it was a good idea to drown the world's infants.

He also got his best pal to sacrifice his son, only to shout "LOL J/K" at the last possible second, at which point he made the two of them sacrifice a ram.

God is a dick

[Boo Khaki]

5 hours ago, Anonapersona said:

I find it baffling that the entity who created the universe just by thinking about it, also thought it was a good idea to drown the world's infants.

I've asked religious people to explain to me how they believe God can create a universe and everything in it on whim, when it seems to be irreconcilable given that God must also be part of that universe. I've been told that God exists outside of the universe, which is more than enough for my 'hud oan a minute' meter to go rocketing off the scale, but then I've also asked why, if God exists outside of the universe, did he/she/it/they sit around on their arse for an eternity in a great nothingness before suddenly deciding to create everything. I haven't had an adequate response to that, but more concerning, I've also had it put to me that God 'willed' itself into existence prior to creating the universe, which is just all sorts of 'what the f**k?' given that something which does not exist can not possibly will itself to exist.

At that point I usually get brushed off with some variation on 'humans can not possibly comprehend', which is as much insulting as it is risible horseshit.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Boo Khaki

[Shotgun]

Whether it's every animal on earth living within walking distance of Noah's house, Jonah being swallowed by and living inside a fish, people living for hundreds of years, bushes and animals that talk or 2 1/2 million people wandering around a desert for more than a generation, it's always amusing to watch theists tie themselves into mental knots trying to explain how the whole thing really happened and isn't just a bunch of fairytales made up by nomadic people who didn't know where the sun went at night.

And that's before we even start on the sociopathic behaviour of their loving God.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Shotgun

[Boo Khaki]

On 23/02/2023 at 14:01, Hillonearth said:

From what I understand, the current consensus is that Mark is the earliest-written of the four and there are some references in it that date it to no earlier than 66 or 67AD...interestingly, that's the one that doesn't mention a resurrection or indeed a virgin birth.

Mark was used by the authors of Matthew and Luke as a source document, with the current guesstimates dating Matthew to 80-90ADish and Luke slightly later...maybe into the second century.

I've purposely left John till last...it's a strange outlier, and the jury's still out. Small elements of it  - though NOT the whole package, which was still being revised well into the second century - could conceivably be the earliest of the lot, and those elements might be the best bet for genuine eyewitness testimony. Parts of Mark could conceivably be as well, but the other two virtually certainly aren't.

This is why I really struggle to take seriously those who insist the Christian Bible is an accurate, dependable account of the life of Jesus Christ. Given the nature of the utterly fantastical claims, and the small matter of it being documented decades after the fact, it's a bit like me, born in the early 70's, putting down on paper a 'first hand' account of WWII, and claiming that the combatants were running around using lightsabres, blaster pistols, and "The Force" to best each other and shoot down enemy starships, then people the thick end of 2000 years from now citing that as perfectly credible.

WWII is comparatively well documented and understood, yet contemporaneous accounts of it have been proven to be littered with inaccuracies, untruths, propaganda, and complete fabrications that have grown to become 'accepted fact'. There are still people alive who witnessed WWII, and even then their memories are prone to giving biased and inaccurate accounts of what they experienced. The Bible as a credible source text is patently ridiculous, as it's self-evident that even with modern recording techniques, and people alive with lived experience of it, you still can't trust any single source to give an accurate and unbiased account of events 70-80 years past. Why we're expected to accept that a text nearly 2000 years old can do that, especially when so many of the claims it makes and actions it describes are wildly extraordinary, is bewildering. It, like most things involving faith and religion, requires almost complete disregard for common sense and the suspension of basic logic and reason.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Boo Khaki

[milton75]

10 hours ago, Boo Khaki said:

I've asked religious people to explain to me how they believe God can create a universe and everything in it on whim, when it seems to be irreconcilable given that God must also be part of that universe. I've been told that God exists outside of the universe, which is more than enough for my 'hud oan a minute' meter to go rocketing off the scale, but then I've also asked why, if God exists outside of the universe, did he/she/it/they sit around on their arse for an eternity in a great nothingness before suddenly deciding to create everything. I haven't had an adequate response to that, but more concerning, I've also had it put to me that God 'willed' itself into existence prior to creating the universe, which is just all sorts of 'what the f**k?' given that something which does not exist can not possibly will itself to exist.

At that point I usually get brushed off with some variation on 'humans can not possibly comprehend', which is as much insulting as it is risible horseshit.

The good thing about that belief is that you can use it, if you are minded to, as an argument demonstrating that free choice is something that simply doesn't exist as everything, to god at least, is pre-ordained.
Catholics in particular seem to get upset when you tell them this.

[SlipperyP]

Good thread, but a little confused.

Where does Buddhism come into Christian beliefs?

 

[TxRover]

2 minutes ago, SlipperyP said:

Good thread, but a little confused.

Where does Buddhism come into Christian beliefs?

 

You’ll burn in hell, sinner?

[SlipperyP]

1 minute ago, TxRover said:

You’ll burn in hell, sinner?

I've done the Ayr piv, before it become news (HANGER 13) deathtrap.

Seriously, 500 years before Buddhism was born, does it have a mention in the Bible, or am I being silly. 

the 10 commandments come from Buddha words. 

[TxRover]

7 minutes ago, SlipperyP said:

I've done the Ayr piv, before it become news (HANGER 13) deathtrap.

Seriously, 500 years before Buddhism was born, does it have a mention in the Bible, or am I being silly. 

the 10 commandments come from Buddha words. 

Heretic! The Bible is strangely silent on business competitors, go figure…except those nasty false idol comments.

[SlipperyP]

2 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Heretic! The Bible is strangely silent on business competitors, go figure…except those nasty false idol comments.

That very inward thinking.

As i was a laymen in a Buddhist temple for 3 months, the Abbot (top monk) was very open about other beliefs, we would have evening talking/readings from other faiths. Recognition that we were not always right on everything and had to take from other to be one. 

[TxRover]

15 minutes ago, SlipperyP said:

That very inward thinking.

As i was a laymen in a Buddhist temple for 3 months, the Abbot (top monk) was very open about other beliefs, we would have evening talking/readings from other faiths. Recognition that we were not always right on everything and had to take from other to be one. 

Christianity (and several other top league faiths) has a jealous God. It’s almost like the leaders of the various faiths understand that they can’t let their flock become aware of competing view points because their faith has trouble standing up to questions. It seems the weaker the basis of the faith, the more of a c**t the gods are.

Come around here and suggest to a Baptist minister that he should admit the possibility of his faith not being right on everything and he’d have a stroke.

[coprolite]

12 hours ago, Shotgun said:

Whether it's every animal on earth living within walking distance of Noah's house, Jonah being swallowed by and living inside a fish, people living for hundreds of years, bushes and animals that talk or 2 1/2 million people wandering around a desert for more than a generation, it's always amusing to watch theists tie themselves into mental knots trying to explain how the whole thing really happened and isn't just a bunch of fairytales made up by nomadic people who didn't know where the sun went at night.

And that's before we even start on the sociopathic behaviour of their loving God.

My understanding is that the more modern churches generally do view the OT in context and as not to be read literally. 

What I don't understand is, having made that leap, why they would still attach any moral authority to any of it. 

That convention thingy that was referred to earlier seemed to say that the law in the OT except the 10 commandments should be used as guidance as to what God wants us to do, and not the literal law because it is specific to a time and a place. 

Still in the dark as to how people can claim to decipher which bits God meant and why we can now eat prawns. I still suspect that it boils down to confirmation bias and wishful thinking. Which affect us all. 

[welshbairn]

44 minutes ago, SlipperyP said:

I've done the Ayr piv, before it become news (HANGER 13) deathtrap.

Seriously, 500 years before Buddhism was born, does it have a mention in the Bible, or am I being silly. 

the 10 commandments come from Buddha words. 

Jesus disappears from biblical history between being a teenager and his early thirties. I reckon he took a gap decade, learnt some Eastern philosophy and came back with his message of be nice to each other, chill out and stop worrying about how many goats you have.

[SlipperyP]

9 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Christianity (and several other top league faiths) has a jealous God. It’s almost like the leaders of the various faiths understand that they can’t let their flock become aware of competing view points because their faith has trouble standing up to questions. It seems the weaker the basis of the faith, the more of a c**t the gods are.

Come around here and suggest to a Baptist minister that he should admit the possibility of his faith not being right on everything and he’d have a stroke.

Again, this my confusion. Why would a man of 'God' not teach his flok that there is other faiths... we all know they exist.