I just thought I'd share what I've found to be some of the true pearls of wisdom within the Christian Bible.
- "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." - Exodus 23:2
- "If there be among you a poor man ... thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth." - Deutoronomy 5:7-8
- "Blessed is he that considereth the poor." - Psalms 4:1
- "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding." - Proverbs 3:13
- "The simple believeth every word." - Proverbs 14:15
- "Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words." - Proverbs 23:9
- "Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart." - Zechariah 7:9-10
- "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." - Romans 14:5
See, even an atheist can appreciate parts of the bible!
True
Comments (64)
@GodlessLiberal@xanga - Couldn't this same reasoning apply to any other holy book, though? The Qur'an believes in an infinite deity as well, as does the Book of Mormon, the Bagavad Gita, and the Enuma Elish, as Babylons_Crowing pointed out.
Only the Bible starts at the beginning and completely defines God, creation and man. Only the Bible goes deeply into the fallen nature of man and how that relates to God. Only the Bible is a coherent story of God's Revelation of himself to mankind. This is the design and purpose of the Bible.
Consequently, all of those other books are just books. For what is their design and purpose?
Concerns about the things written in the Bible are legitimate. Everything written must be interpreted. So if the Bible is the Word of God how can mere men interpret it? Jesus established the Church as his continued presense on Earth. Therefore it can only be the Church that stands as the final authority on Biblical teaching.
The Church does not teach that all disciples must be able to handle snakes, etc. So that means that what Jesus said at that particular time was not a commandment meant for all men.
Actually, nothing more than tradition
Actually tradition is everything! Most of what people learn comes from some sort of tradition. Likewise, Christianity was originally taught through tradition. There were no New Testaments Scriptures during Jesus life or for decades after it. And it took centuries for the Church to build itself into a world class institution. And it was this world class institution that through tradition, compiled and created the first complete Bible. The Bible did not create itself. It was Church that produced the first Bible.
You claim to be athiest but you see things through the erroneous, spirit killing, unity destroying, illogical Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. It's no wonder you're an atheist. I tried being a Protestant. The cognitive disonance nearly did me in. I only lasted about six weeks.
@LoBornlite@xanga - [Actually tradition is everything!]
OK, but how can a tradition that began centuries after the texts were written be considered truth (using the Moses and disciples examples)?
@GodlessLiberal@xanga - Now, wouldn't you agree that existence itself is the "Word of God"? If anything is, nature is.
Existence is not the Word of God. The Word of God was before there was existence. Nature is creation and is a result of the Creator. It is not the Word of God that was before nature existed.
So wouldn't nature trump a book that was written by humans?
No. This is because nature has no specific intellect or will. Human beings have will and intellect and so preside over nature.
@GodlessLiberal@xanga - Actually tradition is everything!]
OK, but how can a tradition that began centuries after the texts were written be considered truth (using the Moses and disciples examples)?
There is continuity here. The Bible is the Old and New Testaments. And tradition, like life, is dynamic and develops over time. A branch is part of the tree even though it came along later in the tree's life.
@LoBornlite@xanga - Right, but the "tradition" of throwing salt over one's shoulder doesn't actually ward off demons. Tradition doesn't make it true. Likewise, just because someone attached apostles' names to the gospels to add credence to them over other, less neo-orthodox gospels of the time doesn't mean the gospels were actually written by those people.
@GodlessLiberal@xanga - Right, but the "tradition" of throwing salt over one's shoulder doesn't actually ward off demons. Tradition doesn't make it true.
Your questions are absolutely brilliant! Your mind is so razor sharp that I know that I am going to have a hard time keeping up.
First, Revelation comes to us in two ways, Tradition and Scripture. These two ways contain the mind of God as he chose to reveal it to us.
So tradition is not Tradition. Throwing salt over one's shoulder is not Revelation. Until New Testament scripture was compiled and disseminated Tradition was how Christianity was taught.
So when referring to Tradition one means the teachings of Jesus that were not written down but passed down from one person to another or one generation to another .
The comic is awesome! So many people pick and chose the parts that they want to follow and skip the parts that they don't care about.
@LoBornlite@xanga - Re: "nature has no will..." Try telling that to a sapling that's growing in the most impossible of places. Nature has will.
@fly46@xanga - Try telling that to a sapling that's growing in the most impossible of places. Nature has will.
Things in nature have design and purpose, not will. They act accordingly. The tree is not free to move or design its life, or move so it can be with other trees. It grows where its seed was planted and then lives out its life according to its DNA programming and environment.
With intellect and will come choice. The sapling has none of that.
@fly46@xanga - Re: "nature has no will..." Try telling that to a sapling that's growing in the most impossible of places. Nature has will.
Just s'more thoughts... One might say that water has will because it boils at 100C, because this is nature, after all. But water does not boil at 100C because of any will of its own, but because of its physical properties, because of its nature.
What you are alluding to is the life force not nature. It is the life force that animates and drives living things. It is the cause of living things. But what is the cause of the life force? That cause is God.
What you have engaged in with your question is a posteriori logic. You look at the effects of something and work your way back to the cause. This is a most effective way to reason out the existence of God. You are very close to proving God to yourself. Keep going.
@BiblicalTruth2@xanga - agreed...
@LoBornlite@xanga - "One might say that water has will because it boils at 100C, because this is nature, after all. But water does not boil at 100C because of any will of its own, but because of its physical properties, because of its nature."
Just a silly question: How do you know???
"What you have engaged in with your question is a posteriori logic. You look at the effects of something and work your way back to the cause. This is a most effective way to reason out the existence of God. You are very close to proving God to yourself. Keep going."
That's right.
@fly46@xanga - This applies to Atheists as well, they pick parts of the Bible which seems "faulty" and prey on our unfamiliarity of the Bible. Not all Christians are Theologians, even I myself do not study Theology or Philosophy. Living out the entirety of the Bible is truly difficult, especially when the Old Testament and the New Testament sometimes appear to be conflicting each other. As a Christian, I intend to follow Jesus Christ, Him alone I shall follow. This is what makes a Christian a Christian, not a "Biblican". As we learn from Jesus, we will become living examples of the Word. That only comes after we became more like Jesus Christ (though not exactly the same or else that would eliminate our God-given individuality). Fundamentalism is best rejected, as Jesus rejected it Himself. Judaism teaches people to follow the code of Moses, instead of Christ; so they cannot be considered as a branch of Christianity and Christianity cannot be considered as a branch of Judaism in any way. Jesus did encourage us to be spiritual, charitable, loving and righteous. That said true Christians are supposed to be working towards that direction instead of believing that adhering to all the Commandments of the Old Testament alone can bring us to Heaven. Yes, we should keep to the Commandments, but if there is no heart of charity and love, everything we did will be in vain. The Bible did say that there is a way for Atheists who have not heard of God to enter the Heaven. That is: If they have not been worshipping any other god and if they have been leading lives of kindness and righteousness.
@nowayout001@xanga - Just a silly question: How do you know???
With will comes choice. For example, water cannot choose to redirect itself. Rather, it is redirected by gravity and geography. It's physical properties such as boiling point are well known and catalogued. Such things as boiling point and freezing point depend of molecular structure not free will.