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Keep it simple.

One of the best things about Christianity is that all you have to do is believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Even if you believe it matter of factly. Emotions are ephemeral and fickle.

I seriously doubt the creator of the universe will doom you for eternity for not really enjoying reading a book. If that were the case, then nobody illiterate would be in heaven.

Well, no, Christianity has a large set of beliefs. Saying "Jesus died on the cross for your sins", really doesn't get to the necessary elements of Christianity. For one, the statement is meaningless without a greater theological context. What are "my sins"? How does one die for "my sins"? Even further, what about the resurrection? Paul seemed to think that was important.(if one interprets this according to orthodox Christianity) Secondly, Christ says clearly that those who believe in him will obey his commands, so how do you know what these are without knowledge of scripture? Even further, doesn't obeying someone's commands mean more than believing that a guy died on the cross for your sins? Thirdly, if scripture is in any sense a message from the divine, how can avoiding this knowledge be justifiable? Particularly if there is a command to love God with one's entire being. Being incapable of reading something is different than refusing to read something or be educated on a matter. I mean.... dying on a cross is a major symbol for this religion, certainly having to read a book just to know what is being asked of you and what it is that is being believed shouldn't be that bit of an issue.

I dunno, maybe it is because of my background, but I somehow think that there's a lot more than what is being presented here. I mean, Christianity demands a major theological commitment, and this is all across scripture, and well.... committing oneself to this requires either knowledge of the scripture or major theological guidance from others who knew the scripture.(and that latter is generally taken to be from a church) I can't really find a good defense for the notion that Christianity is easy or simple, except from culturally driven sources that get their perspective from a source that is itself alien to scripture.

Well, right, I mean, it is generally hard to come up with honest interpretations of the Bible that aren't absurd or contradictory, which is why I have to question your hermeneutic. (particularly if pressed)

The genealogy of Jesus also isn't consistent between gospels.

The fact that all of these problems can be verified for oneself is basically Bart Ehrman's point in his debate with Craig Evans, which can be found on Youtube:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRQ9WaxEjvc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

As it stands, I think a grander claim, that the Bible seems to contradict itself in even its central teachings, is even tenable. It is very difficult to justify the doctrine of hell with the doctrine of a perfectly good and loving God. It is very difficult to justify threats of horrifying punishments, even including the consumption of children, such as in Deut 28:16-68(a passage that is strangely a favorite) and a perfectly good and loving God. A lot of these things are very difficult to make sense of, without some arbitrary and made-up sounding rationalization.

The Bible, taken literally, is nonsense.

ruveyn

Actually, I disagree. The Bible is great literature. Get yourself the "Good News" translation. It is very engaging, and easy to read cover-to-cover.

Never mind the Children's or condensed versions. All they accomplish is editing out the juicy sex scenes, and it ends up being much more boring.

It is amazing to me that on secular forums it is utterly impossible for a Christian to start a discussion, and ask not to have their thread derailed by non believers. In the very first post the OP said she didn't want atheists responding, and with no apology whatsoever the thread has been walked all over. I'd have loved to answer the question for her, but don't feel comfortable doing so.

Is this the case in all online communities, or is it only WP? I find it very sad personally. It seems massively disrespectful to post all over someone's thread when she's specifically asked you not to.

Do Christians post all over atheist threads when the OP has asked for only atheists to respond? Why are atheists so adamant that everyone wants to hear their opinion, even when they've been told it's not the case?

Perhaps we should start another thread on this. But I did want to express my sympathy to the OP.

NO KIDDING ! Thanks mgran !

I don't think an atheist really feels threatened by a Christians' position or level of evidence (since there is none). I'm not sure an atheist would ask to exclude people. And anyways, the question has been answered a few times a few different ways. I could answer it, too, since I went to Catholic school and know that going to church isn't really required anymore but they strongly encourage partaking in the Eucharist at least once in a year (they suggest Easter since that's the biggest holy day). The main thing is belief in Jesus.


But beyond that, the way it was asked was in such a way to where the person pretty much is disengaging from the church and is stuck with the guilt and shame and fear that they brainwash into you at early ages. It's one of the most loathsome aspects of Christianity.

The inconsistencies of Jesus' genealogy only reflects your misunderstanding of what Biblical genealogies are.

There are two types of family histories: One is the biological history. The other is the legal history. The biological history we all know--guy marries girl, they have a son, who marries another girl, who has another son, and so on and so forth.

The legal history has to do with specifically how Israelites continued and recorded family lines.

For example, the Israelites highly valued keeping family names alive. They had no concept of resurrection or continued existence in the afterlife--there's an afterlife, but that afterlife didn't have any kind of sense of physical "realness" is it might have in other religions, especially Christianity. So for a man's name to die out with his family was for that man to permanently cease to exist with death. The prophet Isaiah sometimes refers to the destruction of "Jacob." This cannot literally refer to Jacob himself, obviously, because Jacob had LONG been dead by the time of Isaiah's writing. It DOES literally refer to Jacob's family line, which meant the entire nation of Israel, the "sons of Israel." When Isaiah writes about the destruction of "Jacob," he means that God is threatening to completely wipe out Jacob's descendants.

It was of utmost importance, then, that a man's name live on generations after him, which he'd have to pass on to future generations through his male heirs. But, as we all know, not every man has male children, and sometimes circumstances dictate that he not have any children at all. The Israelites had a remedy for this. If a man died without a male child, it was acceptable for a brother to take his widow as his wife as long as said brother was eligible to do so. There aren't ordinarily circumstances that would prevent this, but there are obvious problems that can be incurred if a man were to take his brother's widow. The main area of concern is that the firstborn male heir would be promised an inheritance in the brother's name. The next male child (assuming there were no children from a previous marriage) would have his father's inheritance. The risk would be the conflict between the two sons from any preferential treatment of one or the other. But what is important here is that the firstborn son would NOT have his father's name, but rather his biological uncle's name. And it would be the uncle's name recorded as having been the father of the child, NOT the biological father.

Also, it's not unheard of that if a man had no children of his own, especially no male children, he COULD adopt a child, perhaps elsewhere within the family, to become his legal heir and take on the adoptive father's name. Joseph, the legal "father" of Jesus, was not a biological descendant of Ruth's first husband, but rather of Ruth's kinsman-redeemer Boaz. The story of Ruth and Boaz is notable in that their union ultimately spawned the Davidic line of kings in Judah. It's not surprising that David's ancestor would have been recorded as someone other than Boaz. But it could also be that we know of Boaz because Boaz was probably already a very well-known (popular) person of wealth.

So you can see that if this were to happen, there would be two or even more distinctive genealogies. One would be a record of LEGAL heirs showing how a child took on a father's name, whether that child was actually born to that father or not. Another would be the actual biological recollection of family history, showing that the child was NOT actually the son of a legal ancestor, but rather was a nephew given in a deceased brother's name, as is the case with Boaz. It could also be the case of adoption within the clan in which the biological father's name was also known.

There is yet another possibility: If you study Biblical genealogies, especially where they appear multiple times, you'll probably notice that some names are mentioned that are not mentioned elsewhere. The genealogies of the Pentateuch are the best example. When names are included or omitted, it's likely that Moses was limiting himself strictly to those families who were the most relevant. Think about it: If he had to list every single name of every single family over a span of, say, 2 to 4 thousand years (just guessing, we have no way of knowing for sure), then the book of Genesis ALONE would have been at least as thick as the Bible as we know it in its current form! It's perfectly understandable that Biblical genealogies allow for generational gaps. It's also not unheard of that a family be known by a famous or wealthy patriarch's name. When a person is said to be a "son of" someone, it could be that the reference is not actually to a literal father, but rather a better-known grandfather or even great-grandfather. Interpreted that way, it means that a man listed in the genealogy was not NECESSARILY a next-in-line son of (x), but that perhaps he was a man from a particular tribe or clan who rose to prominence for some reason, beyond which HIS family would be known by his name.

That's why I say that the YC dating of the earth to 6,000 years is not reliable in any real way. There is no way to know with any certainty how many years each "generation" listed in the genealogies lasted!

And finally, genealogies make no distinctions among a person's "real" name, the family name, or nicknames/terms of endearment given to children that eventually stuck and were assumed to be the person's real name. For example, the account of David's kindness to Jonathan's son in 2 Samuel 9 records his name as Mephibosheth. However, the 1 Chronicles 8 records his name as Merib-baal. Which is it? Well, what do the root words of the two names mean? "Bosheth" means "shame." "Baal," means "king." Well, as next in line from Jonathan, he DID have a claim to the throne. So naming him "king" in anticipation of his inheritance would not have been unreasonable. HOWEVER, Baal is also the name of a Canaanite deity, considered a false god whose worship would have been an abomination to the real God Yahweh. It makes perfect sense that the writer of 2 Samuel would change the name to avoid any confusion or association with Baal worship or anything that at all might be associated with Baal worship. This is not the only time the writer of Samuel did this. Jerubbaal was also changed to Jerubbesheth, apparently for the same reason. The name listed in 1 Chronicles regarding the son of Jonathan is probably the "real" name. Some English translations actually keep the name in 1 Chronicles for the sake of consistency. While that might make it easier to follow, it is, nevertheless, a change from the manuscripts.

Such names from various source texts became permanent features of the Bible. That names are changed, included, or omitted from one account to another should NOT come as a surprise to anyone who is familiar with the Bible. The two distinct genealogies of Jesus are NOT contradictory at all, but rather complimentary, and demonstrate a fulfillment of prophecy as to how the Messiah will come from "the house of David."

I apologize if I was disrespectful in my actions, however, I was trying in some places to give advice. I think the discussion on inerrancy (which was innocuously brought up by jc6chan, questioned by me as a hermeneutic, and then attacked by greenblue, skafather84, and then myself following the earlier two, and then the matter continued as inerrancy became a new topic that others wanted to speak out on.

That being said, haven't you noticed that everybody comments on everything? Seriously. If any thread emerges for any particular view, people quickly violate the prohibition, and I don't care what it is. The conservative thread got spammed to death as well. I suppose a major part of the matter will be what community is larger, but I think this is really just a property of a large community that some people will violate these issues.

In other words, the genealogies aren't reliable.

Not necessarily, the idea that this is an inconsistency is not a new idea or originating with skafather84 or Bart Ehrman for that matter.

There are attempts to explain the inconsistency away, but, there is no reason to take them as fact, and there is little to no reason to trust the book to be accurate on this matter. After all, there is little reason to think that the books would be right on something of this sort of nature.


Moses didn't write the Pentateuch. That's kind of ridiculous given the end of Deuteronomy where it says that Moses has died and that nobody knew where he was buried nor had any other prophet of his greatness emerged since then. This kind of suggests that the Pentateuch was a later creation. Also, Moses would have had to refer to himself in the third person many times in the text.


Do you remember how long some of these people lived? Adam lived 930 years, Seth lived 912 years, and even between the generations, there were about 100 years, so I kind of doubt your explanation given Genesis 5. If you just look at Genesis 5, and add up all of the lengths between fathering the next generation, it ends up being 1,552 years. Only 500 short of 2 thousand.

Even further, if we just look at Genesis 5, it suggests that these are direct descendents as the term used is for "begetting" which means to bring into existence through procreation.


I've never heard of "son of" to refer to anybody but a direct descendant. Nor have I heard of a great grandfather being said to have had a son other than his own son, it usually isn't considered to be the great grandfather's procreation if his grandson has a son.


But there's no reason to interpret it this way.


And I just think YCs are full of crap.

I think you might be making more of the fundamentals of Christianity than really exist (or were ever intended to exist). It's a LOT simpler than that. "Sin" can be defined in any number of ways--I find the one that makes the most sense to me is "anything that is unpleasing to God." Anything that is less than perfect is "unpleasing." An imperfect person cannot be in the presence of God without facing God's judgment. The writers of the NT were followers who knew Jesus' teachings thoroughly or, in the case of Paul, experienced God/Jesus in a very profound way. Paul's writings are not contradictory to the Gospels at all, but rather show how Christianity is not limited to Jews.

Obeying Jesus' commands are little more than outward demonstrations of inward faith. We believe that Christ atoned for our sins. Therefore we act towards others in emulation of Christ--we love because He loves. If you think about it, the actual codes of Christian conduct as Jesus taught them are not that much different than morality found in other religions. If morality on its face was the issue, there'd be no real point of even being a Christian. Jesus offers the security of salvation. I'm not aware of any other religion that even teaches any kind of need for salvation at all. Confucius laid out some fabulous words of wisdom, some good things we can apply to our lives just as well as the Biblical Proverbs and Psalms. But works of wisdom are concerned with earthly living, not the ultimate destiny of the soul. Faith alone is sufficient. However, our faith also makes us curious about what we believe. We ought to feel led of the Spirit to study the Bible and discuss it. We ought to feel that we should help those in need. We ought to be kind to each other. If a person states that they believe but DON'T show their faith through their actions, there's probably a good chance that they don't actually have faith.

You don't necessarily HAVE to have knowledge of scripture to figure all this stuff out. Throughout my life, I've read practically through all of the Bible, whether to satisfy my curiosity, whether it was read in Sunday School/sermons, or whether I was bored and didn't have that much to do. But my reading has never (until now) really been a concerted effort to take all of the scripture in and actually understand it. I might as well have not read it at all, and in the last year I've found all kinds of things in the Bible I had no idea were there. And I do still have a lot left to discover. But the one thing that has NEVER changed is my understanding of what atonement and salvation are. My prayer and meditation is largely unchanged aside from the fact I'm more deliberate about it. And in spite of my ignorance of many things in the Bible, I've always experienced God in some incontrovertible way. It might have been in the sunset/sunrise of a particular day, a conversation I had with a friend, an automobile accident, or my family being spared the danger of a tornado by mere seconds. Still others abandon drugs and alcohol after years of addiction with no other explanation other than, after discovering Christ and believing in Him, they simply lost their desire for it. Others may tell stories of long roads to recovery they took that they could not have endured without faith and the hope that comes with it. These people, like myself at one time, are not often dedicated, hardcore Bible readers. Their experiences, however, just like mine, make up much of their reasons to believe. They may not KNOW the Bible that well, but they somehow keep the commandments of Christ anyway. Somehow they "just know." And "just knowing" started with a simple faith.

You asked, "How can avoiding this knowledge by justifiable?" Well, you answered your own question. It's NOT justifiable, and that is something I've really felt strongly about remedying in my own life and in my family's life. But simply believing that Christ atoned for our sins and accepting atonement as a free gift, admitting that we are sinners in need of that atonement, and honestly living in such a way that we do, as best we can, what is right by God, by others, and by our own well-being (not doing anything stupid, i.e. chemical abuse and other self-destructive behavior. We are aware that following Christ may potentially mean self-sacrifice, and placing oneself in the line of fire, so to speak, does not necessarily qualify here) is enough. It's not uncommon that new converts to Christianity actually know very little about the Bible. They can't be faulted for that. It may take a LONG time just to even get started studying the finer points of Biblical doctrine. They may reach the end of their lives and NEVER read through the Bible entirely. For as long as I attended Sunday School (I no longer attend as my other duties in the church require me to be elsewhere during that time) it seems to me that the same Bible verses ALWAYS came back up. Every sermon I ever hear now is on some familiar passage. Seriously, anyone here EVER hear a sermon on Exodus 6:14-27? So if our Sunday School lessons avoid it, and if our preachers avoid it, WHY SHOULD WE EVEN BELIEVE IT'S RELEVANT???????

It IS relevant. But NOT for a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The purpose of "everything else" we DON'T hear about is different than the purpose of that which we DO hear about, that is, to persuade unbelievers to believe, and for those who are on the cusp of acceptance to take that next step and make their knowledge public. THEN, when a person is ready, he may explore the Bible and not just have a two-dimensional faith based on simple faith realized by action based on the convictions of that faith, but also the depth of knowledge gained from the source document we call the Bible.

NO amount of Biblical knowledge is sufficient for an eternity with the Father. No amount of studying THIS author or THAT author is going to give you an "in" for unlocking any Biblical "secrets." That's not to say they can't be helpful. I have a lot of respect for guys like Adrian Rogers and Lee Strobel. But there's a lot of danger in placing faith in a single person's theology regarding the words of Christ. The more complicated that theology is, the more reason to avoid it. God's "saving grace" is NOT complicated. The teachings of Jesus are far less complex than Judaic legalism prevalent at the time. The Catholic Church has had a LONG history of similar legalism, and many early Protestant churches that have survived also engage in a lot of empty ritual and meaningless dogmatic tenets. The more one has to "do," the less likely the church is in line with true Biblical teaching.

I recognize that AG is perhaps unusually knowledgeable of the tenets of Christian doctrine of the churches he's attended. He even displays an enormous knowledge of the Bible itself. My concern is that his views, which are especially negative, are intensely colored by the extreme bad experiences he's had with church. With the exception of a VERY FEW (2 or 3) hostile members of our church in an incident that happened the first part of last year, I've never had outrageously negative experiences within the faith nor with people within the faith. To this day we've not gotten any kind of explanation of what we did that was so wrong that a group of Christians would act so horribly to like-minded individuals. I do, however, recognize that such things happen, grown adults act like babies, and people leave a congregation and take half the congregation with them. I won't deny that we behave badly sometimes, but I can't imagine that Christians behaving badly in one church alone is enough to drive someone out of the faith entirely. Out of a single church, maybe, but not the whole thing. And one church out of many should not reflect upon all of them. Such a hideously negative view, I think, is entirely unjustified.

mgran:
When the platitudinarians cease ringing my doorbell on a saturday morning, I will stop butting in. When rants and veiled threats of divine dire punishment are no longer hurled by pushy street preachers, I will stop butting in. When morally intemperate book fetish half wits stop telling me to recant my human attributes - virtue and vice - I will stop butting in.

When someone says "respect us by staying out of this fora", experience reminds me that just the same, religion gets to push its way into science class. Even when specifically asked not to - to semiquote you - faithheads seemingly delight in interfering with research. For some reason it is church business to stick its noses into peoples bedrooms and personal lives. The minutiae of an atheists days seems subject to invasion by religious symbology, its scrambled and schizophrenic message, its omnipresence. With that in mind I so gladly march straight in where I am not wanted.

Since respect cannot be a too way street by Christianities very creed, I will take the only decent lesson a preacher ever taught: I will shout my beliefs to the world, I will inject my opinion at every possible occasion, and I will never, ever, ever stop.