Praying at the... bull?

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Or a slave owning society, as the Romans did as well as many later European and American societies (with the US being the last holdout, IIRC).

In any event, I would hazard that were Christ here today, He would counsel people to voluntarily give of their own substance to the poor and needy, and not to enact policies that make their lives more difficult. Such voluntary charity and care brings a person closer to God.

 

I still dont think I fully understand Christianity, it just seems too ambiguous to me. It is almost like you can take any verse and make it mean anything. The main problem I find is that if you take it literally, do you take it entirely literally, or only portions of it are literal, and what portions are literal and what are metaphorical? I still think however that it is wrong to pray to your gods in this financial system crisis, unless you are asking them to bring about change and usher in a newer system that is built on equality and not on maximizing gains.

 

Which has contributed to hte mess that we're in now. Merchants need to get their money, and have less care for how they get it...

Yes, but it Christ also taught us to be sensible. There was the parable of the ten virgins. 5 were wise, and had extra oil for their lamps, 5 were foolish and were unprepared. About midnight it was time to light the lamps, and the ones that were unprepared had to go to the market to buy more oil, but the feast had started while they were gone, so they didn't get in. We're also taught to prepare all needful things. The passage that you cite is God's promise of blessings to those that are faithful and help those in need. And it's apporpriate that you cite the passage decrying temporal wealth--The problems with the Stock Market show just how quickly that can evaporate...

You're right, Christ taught morality, but he also taught wisdom, and that wisdom should not be ignored--especially in this time of trial.

While I don't think it's wrong to pray for an answer, I just don't think these people will recognize the answer, and fewer will be prepared to follow that answer--especially because many won't like it...

 

Go back and study your history - not the Christian Bible, but actual history. The man who became Christ most certainly was political, through and through.

 

Yeah I tend to agree that the composite character who became the character Jesus in the Bible was a composite of anti-Roman political figures struggling against what they considered an unacceptable fate of being ruled by others when they were 'the chosen people'. No wonder the Romans got angry and laid the smack down...

 

With a statement like this you pretty much dismiss the bible entirely, now I'm not about to get involved in a theological debate here about the nature of true Christ but if we are talking about Christ from the Christian perspective then the description in the bible would be more relevant than other pieces of historical evidence.

Even if we only regard the other pieces of historical evidence calling him a socialist would still be wrong since the entire idological concept did not exist back then. Not to mention that socialism in general is meant for a completely different society than the one that existed back then. When you go about branding Jesus a socialist you have to pick only the parts of the ideology that actually fit his line of thoughts but there are certainly more to socialism and parts that probably would not have been in his ideals and when you start stripping away parts of the ideology you aren't discussing socialism anymore but something else.

 

I think you do Rally a little bit of a disservice. Although it is not specifically highlightedout in the bible, it is possible to read between the lines. For example if you look at each of the miracles attributed to Chirst, there is often a similar miracle attributed to someone else earlier in the bible. The political argument runs that Christ was politically trying to associate himself with these historical figures to gain credance.

 

Rally, what history would you suggest studying in place of the Bible? The Bible is the most reliable historical document I know of concerning that time. Please, please don't bring up Josephus. He wrote what his audience wanted to hear, as is evidenced by the 'histories' he wrote for the Jews compared to those he wrote for the Romans.

 

You must not know many historical documents concerning that time. The Bible is the most historically non-reliable book concerning any period of history.

 

God's probably thinking 'they buggered it up themselves, not my problem' to be honest, he's got more to think about than us lot throwing money around. He may even think it's time we went back to trading sheep and salt!

 

The late Douglas Adams had an interesting observation: Most of the proposed solutions to the world's problems revolve around the movement of little green pieces of paper, which is odd because it's not the little green pieces of paper that have the problems in the first place...

 

Nataraja, would you care to give some examples? Mind you, I'm not claiming it's the most historically detailed, but no single event (that I know of) has been disproven. Actually, another arguement on the validity of the Bible probably isn't what is needed right now, so maybe you shouldn't.

 

Seriously, "it's true until proven wrong" is really, really not the best way to approach things.

I say here that I am the physical manifestation of God on this planet. Are you going to just accept this and start worshiping me until someone proves that I am a fraud? No? Didn't think so.

As for answering your question, I don't want to speak for Nataraja but I'll throw in a few things:
1. The Earth is not 10,000 years old. It's much older, estimated at 5 billion years.
2. Humans did not appear out of thin air, and neither did all the other beings (hence evolution)
3. On a related note, women were not created from a man's rib.
4. There isn't a single shred of scientific evidence that supports the existence of God. There is quite a bit of evidence that may or may not disprove his existence, depending on how you interpret said evidence.

I'll leave it at that, others are free to add as they see fit.

By the way, if you really thought that another argument on the validity of the Bible isn't needed, maybe you shouldn't have said this as a conclusion to a post about the validity of the Bible.

 

No, but if teh historical and sociological elements is more-or-less consistent with other known elements of history and society, and indeed are as supported as the historical and sociological elements of the Bible are, then it's generally considered safe to assume it's accurate until proven otherwise, so long as you remember that's an assumption.

We were talking about historical elements, here, not religious ones. I expect you to believe there was a guy who claimed to be God and he was killed for it. If you believe he's right or not, that's up to you.

Whadda ya know, neither does the Bible say this. Read "Genesis and the Big Bang" for more info. We've talked about it before, but I don't know if you were there or not.

See above, same answer.

Ok, that's metaphorical, not litteral.

I've seen the evidence that 'disproves' God. You have to start with the assumption that God doesn't exist for it to prove anything. That's not evidence, that's propaganda. You should also know that the vast majority of the scientific community have no evidence (at the moment) that you exist. Does that mean I shouldn't believe you do? I'm hardly going to claim it as proof that God does exist, but to claim it as proof he doesn't (as you seem to be doing) is ridiculous.

Well, the topic was kind of drifting in that direction, and there weren't any appropiate topics up and running, so...

 

So, NOG, are you a Bible literalist? Or is it all metaphorical? Is only some of it metaphorical and some literal? How do you personally make the distinction, like what are methods you use to find out if something is really what it says it is, or just metaphorical? I am only asking this because I am very confused now. I have friends who are Bible literalists who claim every single word is non-metaphorical unless it is obviously not, which begs the question 'How do you judge if something is metaphorical or not?', and I also have moderate friends who dont take the Bible as being 100% literal, and they say that its the message underlying the themes are are important. When it comes down to it, I still have no reason to think that anyone should expect a god to fix this problem with the economy. Humans will fix it the same as they caused it, but after its been fixed the Christians, and probably other religious groups, will claim that their god or gods worked a miracle, when it actually is just human effort.

 

Instead of arguing over who's right and who's wrong, can you guys not just accept that people need something to believe in? It doesn't matter if this is Christianity, Atheism, Islam or that at the end of the universe there is a large bowl of cornflakes. If religion was meant to be easy, the world would have big neon signs pointing to God and saying 'Forgivness this way'.

It doesn't matter what you believe in, as long as it gets you through the day.

Can we please get back to wondering why people should pray for the economy instead?