The Religion Thread, Tolerance Required

Hm, I guess skipping over Q's post to leave Confuzzled to that one...

Another thing I didn't mention in my post earlier in the other thread is that I really don't think religions should need to be interpreted... I'd be awfully scared if I was part of a religion where the interpretation could change tomorrow and it turns out I've been doing it all wrong.

Is religion defined by a set of morals and beliefs or a room full of people who decide what is and isn't religious?


Hm, editing...

I guess I'd pretty much always been questioning Christianity since second grade, though I went through the motions to fit in. But what I don't understand how in the world religion can give people who have lost self esteem some of their self esteem back. I was having serious issues with that right before I decided to deny it all. I was really really tired of everything good being because of God, because with that, everything bad was because of God. I wanted someone to blame, even if it was myself. Accepting that I was in control, good or bad was a lot easier than accepting that things just were or weren't in God's plan.

Since I've begun thinking in those terms, I've been a lot happier with life. It's just a lot less muddy for me.

I don't think so. I do not have a 'religon' but all to often I am told I am more spiratual and moral then most I know. Religon, to me, is the essence by wich you live.

Mind you I am agnostic, and borderline Athiest.

That's a big reason why I just simply don't believe. It's also a big reason why my Dad doesn't do church, he does the bible and tries to figure out the intentions of the words by comparing how they were translated with what the original words mean. A lot of the hebrew words have multiple definitions based on context. If you read the bible in English, you are already reading an interpreted version. You are reading what some people decided to say was meant by a hebrew word with 7 close, but not always exact, meanings. It's like taking a thesaurus and randomly inserting synonyms into the bible. You can see how that would change the meaning, sometimes significantly, especially when done over and over again.

thats exactly why my family doesn't go to church.
instead, we read the bible at home together, so that we can get our truths, from the truth.
instead of what some pastor thinks is right

But the Bible's been edited more time than any book in the world, I bet...

the dead sea scrolls were almost exactly like what we have right now..
the oldest they date back to, is about 60 years from when paul wrote them (which, the writings by paul are really all we need to read, because he was sent to the gentiles to preach unto them)
and the changes between the dead sea scrolls, and what we have now is very little
and I personally use the edition closest to the dead sea scrolls

C - that's still interpreting. It's just being done on a personal level. I think that's a better way to do it, imo, because what you decide to believe has to feel right in your heart. But that's what leads to the schisms and the watering down of the Christian belief system, as each person believes their own way, and the ones who agree with them come together to form a church, and then that church dictates to all of its followers (which by that point may not all believe the same way because families usually go to church together) and you're just back the beginning, of a group of people telling a person how to believe.

The same is true in english. Someone learning english hears some one use a word in a different meaning and gets confused. As weff will remember, pretentious. So now you have 2 languages with lots of words that have various meanings
[Edit], then you try to translate from one to the other[/etid]and Bam! confused as hell

well yes, everythings left up to interpretation..
but the important things.. the only important thing.. doesn't need to be interpretated individually.. because it's clear, (there's 4 books on it) and we have a concordence that we can look up words to see what they actually mean..

And the Catholic church, which is supposed to have the Pope, the man closest to God, very nearly denies them as being scripture. Along with the books of Enoch and who knows how many other scrolls. And they deny it because a lot of it doesn't mesh with their Christianity. And All Christianity today is based on the original roman catholicism. So if the Catholic church is wrong because they don't accept the dead sea scrolls, then the modern day Bible and Christianities were based on and broken off from a flawed institution to begin with.

So who is right? How do you decide what it is you believe as right, and dismiss as flawed and too far from the word of god? You don't read aramaic. (Which I think is what the scrolls were written in) and anyone who does read aramaic knows it in a sort of abstract concept, because no one is around to ask what the specific connotations of the words mean. It's still all interpretation, which by its very nature, is subject to human error.

My dad insists that God would allow the Bible to fall too far from His word. That he would protect it through divine inspiration or something. Which i just find as BS because there are so many vastly different versions of the Bible these days.

Ok that helps give a point of reference for things after the time of christ but what about bc? The translation thing is still one huge task of hoping everone knows wich context the orriginal word was used in. Here you can use 'devine intervention' to explain it away. For those of us who don't believe in devine intervention, it is just one huge book of people who read what came before them, interpeting it themselves and using there interpatation to add to it.

I hope that didn't sound argumentative. I just want to add my '2 cents'

mm
mostly, i don't believe just because of what the bible says (though i do believe what it says)
i believe because of personal experience..

and badgerfang, the old testament is just a bunch of stories.. if they got altered a bit along the way.. then it doesn't matter, because the core of my beliefs are stated in the new testament..
and with that i am going to go bake cookies..
bye everyone!

Well, we should hope they got altered. The Old Testament God is something to be feared. Kill the enemies of God, and stuff like that.

As this is the religon thread I have a question, about something I would like to say.

What I have to say is quite controversial and Could be taken very offencively. Do the people reading this think they can handle it and not take it offencively or should I keep my 'mouth shut'?

Read the first post.