Gb, in future format your text into shorter paragraphs. By topic preferably. Hard to follow otherwise.

So many words, yet nothing that even vaguely comes close to making sense to me.

@benjamin
On the first point I must admit I don't see your point for half of it (the other half I'll get to). Are you saying that if a dictator uses something for control then that thing is a control mechanism? There were dictators that would murder people if they did not convert to "scientific atheism". Is atheism a control mechanism too? How can something and its opposite be a control mechanism? Or is it more likely that control is just what dictators do and dictators come in different flavors?
Can religion in general be used as a control mechanism? probably. It was the religious leaders of Jesus' day that lobbied for Jesus' crucifiction. Its difficult to say whether religion (looking at all religion and not just Christianity where people have access and knowledge of the Bible) makes the world better or worse. Its an interesting question and despite everything I know about history I find it very difficult to answer. Do people do wrong because of religion? Or in spite of their religion and use exotic interpretations to satisfy cognitive dissonance? Or does religion even make things better on average and turn 10 fanged monsters into 9 fanged monsters? I find it hard to come to a conclusion on this. There was a recent psychology paper that showed belief in a loving God made you a more moral person but a belief in a wrathful God made you less moral. I can believe that.

As to the Bible being edited (throwing books out etc). We have a lot of 1st 2nd and 3rd century Christian writings including lists of what the church viewed as inspired. You can still read them online and some of them are very interesting. For the most part books were added from the earliest lists comparing the 1st and 2nd century. Other early church writings dont contain lists but reference this text or that text and say its inspired. Notable exceptions are "The wisdom of solomon" and "the apocalypse of peter". You can still read both online. If my agenda was to control people I would have kept the apocalypse of Peter.

As for why would God work with people to create the Bible. The picture that the Bible paints of God is one that desires to do just about everything in his mission with people

As for allegory. It is difficult to explain unless you have read the Bible. But to give a rough approximation of the truth no practical effect comes believing that the old testament is 100% historic or 95% or 20% etc. Ironically this goes both ways, there are secular maximilist archeologists that believe the bible is mostly history (probably not the miracles but perhaps the appearance of miracles) yet don't believe the meaning of the Bible as they are agnostic/atheist. I feel mild peer pressure for some of my Christian friends to "go and fight those evolutionists" (because I am a scientist) and I feel the occasional pressure from scientists to "go and fight those creationists". I don't see the point. If you take it literally this won't hinder your ability to understand its meaning. If you take it as allegory it won't hinder your ability to understand its meaning. In the western church some of the best churches I have been to have been creationists. I personally have no desire to change them on that particular issue. I would rather pick my battles on things that matter.
I have no dispute on whether the bible can be misinterpreted. I only question whether it can be sincerely misinterpreted on issues that matter. Having said that some parts of the Bible really are difficult to understand. I wouldn't say religion is the place to go if you want freedom from uncertainty (in fact the very word faith contains the assumption of uncertainty). I have seen too many miracles to be uncertain about God's existence and interaction with humanity. But I have many questions about other things like "how can a loving God send or even allow people to go to hell, even if hell is finite as some would say?" (I'm writing a book on the subject) Also on smaller points take the wisdom literature (psalms, proverbs, ecclesiastes and Job)
psalms I love reading because it is nice to see other people wrestle with God and ask questions even in anger, or be honest about your feelings even if they are sinful (like the famous psalm 137 that talks about the babylonians that would smash israelite infants heads against rocks and wishes that the same would happen to them). But it also contains prophesy which leaves open the question "what else can I learn from the psalms?" (people generally take lessons from psalm 139 for example)
Or proverbs which has a thesis that it is in your self interest to do good because your life will be better if you do and worse if you don't. But then you have ecclesiastes by the same author that says that now that he is older he realizes this is not true. There isn't self interest (at least not always) in doing good and the good and bad people have happen to them is largely meaningless (divorced from the good and bad they do). Job has the same message. However, how should I interpret proverbs 31:6 that says that seems to say I should give money to the poor regardless of whether they spend it on alcohol since most of proverbs is probably wrong (and wrong for illustrative purposes). I personally follow this but can understand if someone doesn't. But the bible says that right and wrong are written on our hearts so we can for the most part we can examine our conscience and mediate on these issues.

On the final point. I would disagree that the ten commandments are his 10 most important. The Bible says the two most important are "love God" and "love your neighbour as yourself" and that everything else hangs off these two commandments. The main moral point of Christianity is that we need to love but this is not the main point of Christianity. I would say that the main points of christianity are fourfold (although this oversimplifies things)
1. Our purpose in life is to love people (including God, enemies and strangers since they are people. God has no need of love since the Bible says he has no needs but it is moral to love and God can be an objective judge of these things)
2. We have failed to love and not just in a small way but in a terrible way. No one is righteous no one is better. A lack of love is the reason for our separation from God and the reason for all suffering in the world (not that people suffer for their lack of love but for other peoples lack of love). It is also the reason the human race is judged "I was hungry and you didn't feed me. I was thirsty and you didn't give me a drink. I was naked and you didn't clothe me. I was in prison and you didn't visit me. Whatever you failed to do for the least of these you failed to do to me". We all (or at least almost all) deserve death and possibly hell. I don't need to know you well to guess that there are poor people in the world you had the financial ability to help and are dead because of your lack of love. Perhaps you are the exception. I am not so I believe I needed mercy for this and many other things
3. God loved us more than he loved himself and became a man and took the penalty of death that we deserve
4. God adopts us into his family allowing us to talk with him freely and hear from him too. We can have a relationship with God and we are forgiven of every sin. When we try to love we fail. But when we receive his love we begin to love more as a side effect. But the goal is to be his not to be good. Ironically when we try to do good we fail. When we receive God's love and have no incentive for doing good we almost can't help it. His love is pressed down shaken together and running over!
It is true that I believe that God took what people already believed and expanded it in the torah but not in a way you said. It appears that God took the ways people compared people and made a system so exclusive no one made the cut. He took a moral system where people who committed crimes were killed (starting with the 10 commandments). Then he added to this moral system so that it showed that everyone deserved to die. He took the concept of leper colonies and then expanded it so that no one was clean enough to be in society and they all had to be outcast. He took the concepts of racial purity and physical ability and made a system so exclusive no one was racially pure or physically perfect enough to come to God. For a more in depth look at this see my previous long post summarizing the content of the law (incidentally there is virtually nothing there in way of interpretation. Just summary). Its hard for me to believe that the torah was written in such a profound way by accident

The quote tag shall remain unbroken until the evening of it's marriage.

Behead all those who break quote tags.

Halal is not my own interpretation. Halal is the Islamic term for permitted and lawful. So if the meat is cut in the correct manner, or if the food is prepared in the correct manner without the use of things like alcohol or other non permitted items in the cooking, then that is Halal.

[quote=zimbos_05][quote=grazorblade]@zimbos I read the table surah and I have a few q's

there are some eating laws
are these laws seen as moral laws or cleanliness laws (aka is it a moral wrong to eat wild game or unclean?)

Its Islamic law. Most of the reason behind why we do not eat certain foods are a matter of hygiene and wellbeing

There is a verse that seems to suggest that it is ok to eat food from Christians. Does this mean that if I serve you bacon it is ok?

No. If you served me bacon I would not eat it. But if you served me meat that was prepared in a halal state, then yes, I could eat it. Islam also states that if you can not access halal food and the only option for you is to eat the food that is available and it is a matter of sustenance, then you can eat it in the intention that you do not make it a habit or an accepted practice.

[size=6]so exactly what is your interpretation of the Halal practice?[/size]

Edited by batfink: 30/10/2014 07:10:13 AM

Also, is it possible to put the verse numbers. It is a bit hard to find the verse you refer to sometimes. Not yet memorised the whole quran. Only three chapters.

Edited by zimbos_05: 30/10/2014 04:58:07 AM

cheers mate

Ah ok. I know which one. Will try and get on to the answers when i get home from work.

@zimbos sorry this surah
http://www.islam101.com/quran/yusufAli/QURAN/5.htm

It is not an argument. It is just a statement. I have provided you with the commentary and meaning of the translation, yet you keep coming back with your "I don't want to hear about context and true meaning, it says this and i don't care if you or any scholar is going to tell me otherwise. The extremists are right. I am sticking by it"




hahaha. best watch out for them muslim countries. Moment you land there, they put a beard on your face and force you to to eat halal food.





@grazorblade Which surah were you talking about in the previous page. You said the Table Surah, but im pretty sure there is no surah table. Are you talking about Surah Tawba?

his interpretations are generally pretty straight forward. I heard that it takes some fancy interpretations of the quran to come to a reasonable outcome but apart from "beating your wife in extreme circumstances" a straightforward translation seems to be reasonably moral by today's standards

@benjamin
the new testament books were written in the first century and it wasn't until the fourth century that rome adopted christianity as a state religion not long before its collapse. Christianity was violently persecuted before then. It grew by 40% per decade before then and all but stagnated after that. After Constantine some significant changes happened to the roman empire (mostly positive) and to the church (mostly negative) I'll just cover the ones that happened to the church
1. for the first time the church allowed people join the military
2. The moral focus of church writers from that period changed from social justice to sexual morality
3. The range of theological disagreement allowed was smaller
4. there was more of an outward focus in the negative sense (aka lets talk about how bad people are outside the church)
When the church was taken over by a dictatorship the church gradually became more controlling and (necessarily) gradually restricted access to the Bible. All of these problems mentioned above became more pronounced throughout the middle ages and into the early modern period (though there were always sects that were more christian than the church and they would be violently persecuted). When the Reformation happened and people regained access to the Bible control gradually diminished as knowledge of the Bible spread. There is still substantial control in the global church today particularly in the southern states of the usa. Some of these churches are cult like in their authoritarian nature. They do however also have a subtle restriction on access or knowledge of the bible in their culture despite being self proclaimed "bible believing Christians". I have personally counseled multiple people out of such churches and I ask them to read the Bible like a novel without me or anyone else interpreting it for them. This sets them free from control. One lady recently did this and started spontaneously jumping up and down saying "I love jesus" then getting mad and said "my church were liars. God is nothing like they said". Even outside the southern states of the usa there are a lot of churches that are largely liberating but are controlling in little ways. For example the concept of tithing is not in the bible. Instead in the Torah (see for instance Deutoronomy 14) tithing is described as a giant potluck where everyone spends 10% of their income on a 8 day party and every 3rd year gives that amount to the poor. So in my experience religion and a generic concept of God can be used to control people but the Bible does the opposite.

The second question you asked is a thorny one though I am glad for specifics :). On the one hand I dont have a problem believing in miracles (and arguments that say a miracle can't happen because it breaks the laws of physics I find circular and I have seen miracles myself) however it is difficult to know how to interpret the events of the old testament despite the meaning being relatively clear. For example, galations 4:24 says that abraham and his two sons were an allegory (greek word allegoria) and explains the spiritual meaning. There are other things in the old testament which are curious - the geneologies in their original language tells stories (if you just read the names in a row). Every persons name in the old testament describes who they were in life. According to wiki (which isn't always reliable) the consensus view of church historians was that until about 1850 (and I would say late fourth century) most Christians regarded most of the old testament as allegory. That means it uses stories that are possibly based in history as a means to remember the spiritual truths. Origen (150ad-230ish) a church father said that he wasn't sure if the old testament was historical or not but if any evidence comes up saying it isn't they should believe that evidence rather than the Bible (remember that the people writing this insisted that scripture was inspired). Also the old testament comes in 3 forms, hebrew (masoteric), greek (septuagint) and samaritan. They agree almost to the pen stroke on everything except historical things like dates where they disagree by milenia. Why would they take so much care in preserving every detail but these? B.C jews had a substantial debate about this topic too. Modern consensus is that everything during and after josiah is largely accurate and the divide between maximalists, moderates and minimalists gets more intense as you go further back. I have a slight emotional attachment to maximalism due to the fact that I get more emotionally involved in the stories when they are taken to be real people and I think this is intellectually respectable in every way. When you are reading the bible cover to cover the issue of historical accuracy is something of a footnote and it has profound effects on you. More than any other book

As to the third question. I'm glad you quoted specifics. That verse in isolation might seem confusing because by itself it can be interpreted two ways (they are slaves forever or you will forever have foreign slaves). Hence the need to read the bible cover to cover. It is true that foreigners were slaves until the 49th year (where all servants [word translated as slaves in modern bibles] in the land were set free). This is the only difference between how foreign and local servants were supposed to be treated (also you could charge interest on foreigners debt). They still had access to the massive welfare state and there are verses that specifically target compassionate treatment of foreigners. Having said all of this one must use caution in interpreting the old testament law. Jesus said that there are things in there as a "concession for our wickedness" but are still immoral (in this case he was answering a question about divorce since torah allows it and the prophets say it is immoral). The purpose of the law according to the new testament is to be a "tutor" for our need for grace (see my long post above). It actually isn't a book informing us of what is right and what is wrong (the bible says we have this written on our heart although you can ignore your conscience to the point that you don't even realize something is wrong anymore). It appears that God gave them a moral law which was based roughly on what was already around at the time then added some extraordinary laws about loving God and loving people and helping the poor, the oppressed and the weak (I'm actually not aware of any system that goes as far as the bible does on these issues. Perhaps marxism if you ignore its darker side). He then highlights these laws as the laws that they will fail at and that he will judge them as a nation for it. In the major prophets these are the reasons highlighted for God's rejection of israel and in the new testament most stories about judgement and hell contain something about neglect of the poor, the oppressed and the weak. The moral message of the Bible (definitely not the only message of the Bible) is that humanity has huge moral blindspots acting as if it is only wrong to harm people and if you fail to help or love people and God you aren't sinning you are just morally neutral. The Bible says this is wrong and that sin (immorality) is a lack of love in some form

Is that the best argument you've got? :lol:

If I don't care for the translation, I'm entitled to attack it. "Do not read the thread" why not? So I can't ruin your PC Islam apologist hugbox you've got going?



No shit. That's the difference between us and Muslim countries.

If you don't care much for the commentary and explanation of the translation, then do not read the thread. No one is forcing you to accept Islam. Well, at least that is not my aim.

Yeah, telling people they can beat their wives is pretty ambiguous.

Yes. Then i read further into those verses and sort to educate myself and understand them, now i realise he sanctions neither. Well at least not in the way you think.

Have you ever asked yourself why a loving god would sanction slavery? Or the beating of women?

Serious question.

Edited by humbert: 29/10/2014 09:20:09 PM

I know it well, I don't know it all by heart.

My faith is solid more so in the things that have happened in my life. I am not the shining example of Islam, in fact, I have broken my rules of the religion, i think every Muslim has at some point, the severity of the rule broken though would be different for each person, but i found solace in despair through my faith. It has given me a second chance. I still am not any better than I used to be.

Don't get me wrong. i too have questioned religion. Things like why would such a caring God allow a person he loves so much to go down a pathway of sin? How could that be possible? But more often than not, personally when I have questioned and then turned to religion for my guidance or help, I have found it through that means. So personally I can say I feel 'i have experienced' religion working for me.

He could easily know the book well without knowing it by heart. If I asked you what happened in the 5th chapter of your favorite book - you might love that book, but there's a good chance you're going to have to pick it up to see what was going on in that particular bit of it.

Edited by Benjamin: 29/10/2014 11:35:39 AM

How do you put so much faith in something that you don't know very well?
(non-troll question, genuinely curious in what makes your faith so solid)

Which Surah??

Also, I dont know the Quran by heart (well I only know 3 chapters and am still learning), so i do need to go back and look at what you talking about. Easier if you could put the verse number.

Jesus and Mohammed are gay for each other.

@zimbos I read the table surah and I have a few q's

there are some eating laws
are these laws seen as moral laws or cleanliness laws (aka is it a moral wrong to eat wild game or unclean?)
There is a verse that seems to suggest that it is ok to eat food from Christians. Does this mean that if I serve you bacon it is ok?
There is a verse that seems to suggest that christians and jews who believe in God and the last day and live righteously go to heaven (similar verse to surah 2:62 in this case the verse is 69)
There is a verse that again says not to take Christains or Jews as friends. Are my close muslim friends breaking this command?
Curiously there seems to be a verse saying that the trinity that Christians believe is mary Jesus and Allah (rather than father son and holy spirit). Do muslims believe that this was what Christians believed in one part of the world or what they always believed
There also seems to be a verse that Christians are the most loving people on earth (though jews and pagans are mean). It also says that Jesus rose the dead and healed the sick and blind. Perhaps this is a personal question, but how come so many Christians are given the choice each year by muslims to convert or die. Is this just simply people not following the quran or is there some history and political subtleties I'm not aware of

So what is the philosophy of Christianity? It starts of with the law which the new testament tells us is a "tutor to show us our need for grace". I'll start here and then stop coz I'll probably get tired :)

start with the cleanliness laws. You start with lepers getting sent outside the camp. Leper colonies were common in the ancient world. However, then those who had cuts boils menstral blood, sexual discharges, other type of discharges and a whole bunch of other reasons had to also go outside the camp! In the end everyone is outside the camp. But who were outside the camp? lepers! Jesus fulfilled this part of the law by touching the "unclean" lepers and Acts says we no longer call unclean what God calls clean. Hebrews 12 says that Jesus was crucified outside the city so you too likewise go outside the camp and bear his shame. What has happened here? God took a way in which mankind measures people and excludes people and gave them a system so exclusive no one made it. But where did God appear, with those excluded by the system. Think about this though, it would take an incredibly amount of love to go outside the camp and risk your life to infection. So we fulfil this part of the law when we love (all the law including this part since torah literally means law)

Then you have the requirements of priests. To have a relationship with God you had to be part of the favoured race (jew), you had to be pure blood (not a decendant of ammonites, moabites etc), you had to be from the favoured tribe (levites), from the favoured family (aarons decendant) then you had to be physically perfect (no problems with testes, short sightedness or a whole range of disabilities). Then you had to be morally perfect and you entered the holy of holies once a year with a rope around your feet and bells around your neck in case you fall over and die. In the Bible we never hear once about someone encountering God in this way. Yet we hear about prophets from the wrong tribe hearing the voice of God and entering the holy of holies. Jesus was from the wrong tribe (judah) had ammonites as decendants, was not from aarons family and gave salvation to the jews and gentiles. In the new testament we are all called to go into the holy of holies (encounter the God living inside of us). So once again takes ways in which we measure, compare and exclude people (race and [dis]ability) and makes a system so exclusive it excludes everyone but then reveals himself to the excluded. Once again there are two ways to God - meet the impossible demands of the law or do away with the system of comparison.

Then we have the moral law. If you break the moral law you die. A lot of the moral law is known (don't kill steal etc.) and the most famous parts are loving your neighbour as yourself and loving God with all your heart strength etc. You also have the part which deals with giving to the poor and inequality. Families had one property each and they couldn't permanently buy or sell a property. If a family had to sell a property to get out of poverty they would get it back in the year of jubilee. You had to leave some crops for the poor (gleanings about 2% of income on average) and every third year you give 10% to the poor. Every 7th year and every 50th year you would have to give 100% to the poor. If you knew a poor person you had to take them in and live with you. If a poor person asked for a loan you had to offer interest free. If a poor person still were in trouble after all of that and needed to pay off a loan they could work for you as an indebted servant (mysteriously translated slave in modern translations) for a maximum of seven years. At the end of this maximum their debt is forgiven and they are given enough money as a severence package to set themselves up. While they can use physical force to make sure an indebted servant works, if they cause any injury or bruising at all they have to be set free with compensation. The amount given to the poor in this system is 20% on average. Even if you include government transfers no country gets close to this and are law breakers. Also inequality is severely limited in this system since in the ancient world the only way to acquire wealth is through property and slaves, both of which are banned. Jesus quoted the law at length especially the poverty law (parable of lazarus, he wasn't taken in. "I was hungry and you didn't feed me" all are violations of this law and warrent the death penalty). When a woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus he said let he who is without sin cast the first stone. This is not only a statement of mercy but a pragmatic statement that deadmen cannot throw stones. They all deserved to die and Jesus singled out the poverty law as where they fell short (woe to you pharisees....but you neglect the weightier matters of the law like justice and mercy). The consequences of law breaking are done away with but not the sense of right and wrong. I sometimes explain to people the "or else is gone" but not what is right and wrong

then you have the lifestyle of priests. They had no land, they would spend all their days with sinners (sin offerings) and the sick (to examine them). They would also spend all their time with the poor since they themselves relied on the offerings given to the poor to survive and had no land themselves. Jesus fulfilled this law by being homeless, preaching the gospel to the poor, being a friend of sinners and touching the sick (and healing them of course :D)

So then you finally have the sacrifices in the law. The law doesn't tell you what sins are covered by sacrifice and which aren't. It just seperates them into three categories - deliberate, indeliberate and sins through ignorance. You then recieve forgiveness and are told to basically have a BBQ with the priest. This we are told is a foreshadowing of what is to come. The innocent recieve the punishment for the sin. The guilty not just get forgiven but get an unmerited blessing.

I would definitely disagree that islam is the same or even roughly the same as Christianity though I am pleased to learn it is not a monster. I wouldn't say any religion is the same as Christianity on a basic philosophical level or even roughly similar. The central point of Christianity isn't doing good though this definitely seems to be a side effect of Christianity. A central point seems to be that no one is good and sorting the world into good people or bad people is a meaningless excessive. Take western countries for example. It would take half a cent in a dollar to end world hunger what does it mean to talk about good people in our country? If you look at the west over the last 100 years or so you might think that incredible moral progress has been made (ignoring certain foreign polices). But everything that makes the modern world good to live in has little to do with morality. We didn't solve the problem of dictators doing horrible things - instead we made it in leaders self interest to at least roughly do good (or not get reelected). The problem of people not serving each other is partially solved by money which is self interest. The problem of exploiting workers is solved by unions - aka the self interest of no one will work for you if you won't pay them enough. Corruption is solved by laws (regulations) that make it in your self interest to not hurt people. I could go on and on. The only weapon against self interest in this barbaric world that has been found has been to create a system where helping others is the unintended consequence of self interest.

For a lot of the 2000 year head start Christians were oppressed (ironically) by the church state and persecuted. There were Christian sects that existed throughout the reign of the holy roman empire. I have no doubt that a generic concept of God or religion can be used as control though atheism can be too. In fact anything can be by a dictatorship. Countless Christians in the 20th century were given choices like "convert to scientific atheism or watch your baby get boiled alive". Or "Convert to scientific atheism or freeze to death here" and not just one or two stories or even 1000s and tens of thousands but mind boggling numbers. It seems to be the generic feature of dictatorships to use whatever they can to control.

As for what nonsense claims have you made about Christianity
1. the bible was created as a control mechanism in a horrible time
2. the bible contains "silly verses" or unscientific statements (although i suppose this could be true if include the fact that the bible has people talking in dialogue and even satan talking.)
3. the bible condones slavery (only if community service is slavery in the most generous welfare state ever)

Reading the comments on this thread has made me wish people would just read the bible cover to cover rather than taking its critics and often even its followers word for it. Perhaps the next best is to summarize it below though no one should ever take my word for it but read it for themselves.

it is true that the new testament says the first two though only the new testament says the second and both testaments say the first. The early Christians sent a letter to a church in acts saying that they wish to put no more (moral) burden on them other than abstaining from murder, idolatry and sexual immorality. Christians had a message of grace, that God forgives, loves and welcomes sinners and in fact all are sinners - none are better - and all are made in the image of God - none are without amazing value. This extended to everyone even slave owners, tax collectors (who are the moral equivalent of judanaughts, profiting over their own people's oppression) and the romans themselves (who historically were about as brutal as nazis). Jesus said if a roman officer asks you to carry his equipment one mile to carry it two, turn the other cheek when struck and love your enemies just as God loves his.
Having said that. The new testament church maintained views on what was right and what was wrong. However, the philosophy was to not repay evil for evil but to overcome evil with good (and love). A big summary of what this means is that a system of punishment for doing bad and reward for doing good cannot make you good. After all isn't it just self interest that makes you good in this case? However, if you are loved when you don't deserve it (by recieving God's love or recieving other peoples love) you win in two ways - you are in a relationship that you don't deserve and remarkably you usually become more moral.
In the case you referred to about paul returning a slave to his master. Paul says his former slave has been working with him to preach the gospel and he asks as a favour to have him greeted as a brother not a slave and let him come back to Paul and preach the gospel with him while Paul is in chains (aka in pauls place). He asks him to treat the former slave as he would treat paul. But paul says he didn't want to force him but get his consent and then he says that he will pay compensation if necessary and says "I won't mention you owe me your soul". It appears to be a letter hoping for reconciliation. Admittedly if you rely just on this letter (or just on any letter of the bible) you could claim it says a variety of things

In general people who have followed the Bible have condoned non-violent protest. A key point which isn't clear is whether you can be violent in standing up for others who can't stand up for them selves. The bible is silent on this and I know people who have both opinions.