DW, these claims you make I can neither confirm or deny but I will research those specific points. Thank you.

-SS

For heavens sake DW, DO NOT quote Genesis or I might have an anurism. Either that or get banned for... oh I can't... ok so the bible timeline from genesis puts the creation of man at roughly 6000 years ago the problem being that we have fossil records of humans well over 100,000 years old and then of course we have to ask in whos image was Neanderthal man created and how come that species of human is now extinct after surviving in Europe for over 250,000 years.

So please, for my sake DO NOT quote Genesis!

-SS

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
-Albert Einstein

I disagree with you. I think the rest of my post was an insight into where I am in my search for understanding and why I have come to my conclusions. You deleting the entire post makes me feel like you just wish to hide my thoughts from others. Is this how Christianity works? Is the only way to spread Gods word to destroy or disregard any opposing thought? So far, with you at least, I am not having a good feeling about how your religion treats people and I've only been here 2 days.

-SS

Welcome, have you come here as a Christian or a seeker of knowledge?

I regret that I have given you have the impression that my only goal in coming to this forum is to troll, belittle or make a mockery of Christianity.  

It was not and is not my intent and I asked my question of you with genuine interest. I understand that you have had to deal with many who come here only to cause trouble but in all honesty, you shouldn't treat anyone who isn't a devout follower of christ with such contempt. It doesn't serve your position well to turn away people who are undecided.

If you could, please tell me more of your beliefs and about your religion without all the preaching.

-SS  

What is your sect or cult or denomination or whatever you call it, of Christianity? I am curious due to what you said in your announcement that the Catholic vs Protestant war is over. What is this thing about Grace?

-SS

I'm interested in why you would come to a Christian forum to tell Christians things they already know. Why would you preach to the converted instead of the unconverted? This makes no sence to me. As an agnostic I am here to try and figure out what my beliefs are by conversing and debating with people who do not already share my view. Why are you here?

-SS

Isn't the God of the Jews the same God as the Christians with the addition of Jesus? So which is right, Judaism or Christianity? How am I supposed to have faith in a God that, for thousands of years spoke to and performed miracles for "the chosen" people but was unable to convince them that Jesus was the Messiah? Did God turn his back on "the chosen" or is Christianity false and the true religion Judaism? If I were a Christian I'd be afraid that God would turn his back on me some day as well and if I were a Jew I'd be really afraid that I didn't convert to Christianity! Are all Jews going to hell because they don't believe in Christ?

-SS

My apologies, I see that I must tread carefully in my quest to understand your belief system. I am grateful to you for not deleting my entire post and or banning me outright. For some reason I thought this was the Apologetics folder of this forum. That to me says this is where I can safely ask questions. I'll be careful not to pose thoughts or ideas that are contrary to Christian belief.

Dictionary.com:
a·pol·o·get·ics    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (-pl-jtks)
n. (used with a sing. verb)

The branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines.
Formal argumentation in defense of something, such as a position or system.
 
a·pol·o·get·ic    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (-pl-jtk) also a·pol·o·get·i·cal (--kl) adj.
Offering or expressing an apology or excuse: an apologetic note; an apologetic smile.
Self-deprecating; humble: an apologetic manner.
Serving as or containing a formal justification or defense: an apologetic treatise on church doctrine.

n.
A formal defense or apology.

-SS  
 

Another thought came to me as well.

2nd Timothy said "God created man and wanted to communicate with man, it is reasonable that He would do so through a book, something unchangeable and understandable to man."

Umm, seems a bit odd to me that God would use a "book" to communicate with man despite the FACT that replicating a written text was EXTREMELY labor intensive and costly until the advent of the printing press. So only the VERY wealthy could afford a copy and 99% of the earths population couldn't even read until the 1800s. It might suprise you to know that in 1995 the estimated world population was 5.75 billion and Illiteracy was just over the 1 billion mark.

Seems like an omnipotent and omnipresent God could come up with a better way to "speak" to humanity, like speaking to each of us directly.

That way we could go about our daily lives with complete free will and and utter joy in knowing our creator cared for each and every one of us enough to tell us so... like the way you should tell your loved one that you love them instead of just assuming they know.

-SS

Allinall, since you readily believe in God and all that goes along with it then you would agree that he gave man the most powerful brain of any creature. The power to question, the power to reflect, the power to ponder, do you really believe he wants you to simply accept, with no thought what could possibly be merely the writings of other men in an age when the earth was still flat and the sun revolved around it?

2nd Timothy, Actually that is untrue since no new documents predating the time of the first bible have been found since the Dead Sea Scrolls and not all of them are in support of the bible; I believe those were discovered in the 1800s. Again since then advances in the sciences and technology raise doubts on many issues with the Bible.

As far as I am aware (and I don't claim to be an authority only a humble musician) there are no original documents used in the Bible that predate the birth of Christ which means, all predictions in the Bible (including the OT) were written AFTER his death. You present Psalms and Isa as proof but you know as well as I that those documents do not exist anywhere except the bible. Which again means they were at the very least included from Jewish texts AFTER the Crucifiction.

Many books have changed peoples lives from diet and self reflection to empowerment books but we don't lend them the same mystical powers.

Good debate so far though.

-SS

Hi, I've been pondering the subject of religion for most of my life.
I was baptized a "Baptist" as a baby. My mother divorced her first husband due to physical abuse before my first birthday. She then married a Catholic when I was 4. I went to a Catholic school until I was 12 (I was even an alter-boy). We moved to a small town and I went to a public school from age 13 on. I now (and have since high school) consider myself "Agnostic". Now, at age 39 I find myself exploring my beliefs again and have come here to have some questions answered.
This thread is interesting to me due to the claims made by DreamWeaver. I do not wish to seem inflamatory and I am not an athiest, I am simply in search and questioning...

1) Being the "best seller" of all time doesn't make it factual so we throw that away as rhetoric. One of the worst reasons it is the "Best Seller" is because it has been forced on people through fear and intimidation for the last 1600 and some odd years. The second biggest reason being that over all it promotes a way of life that (at least in the NT) is peaceful and loving and promises to reward the faithful with eternal life in paradise with God upon their death. The Bible is not the only religious text to promise good things for it's followers and very bad things for the "un-believers". Today we have a greater understanding of humanity and less fear of death which is a major reason that less and less of the industrialized and less superstitious societies are questioning the validity of the Bible.
There is a reason why the bible is so controversial, the biggest one being that, when confronted with it's many discrepencies, Christianity itself can not, as of yet, come to a concensus on whether the Bible is the literal word of God or the retelling of events from a human perspective.

Since the first canonized version was commissioned by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD up until  approximately the last 100 years ago, Christianity has steadfastly claimed the Bible to be the absolute, unerrant word of God. However, since the Western world has made huge advances in the sciences (geology, geneology, archeology, and every other "ology") the discrepencies in the Bible have caused Christianity to question it's true source and meaning.

2) "God created man and wanted to communicate with man, it is reasonable that He would do so through a book, something unchangeable and understandable to man."
A) According to the Bible itself, God has and can communicate directly to man so why would God direct man (a Roman Emporer no less) to have a book of select stories assembled 400 years after the death of Christ?
B) Actually the Bible HAS changed a great deal since the first canonized version and today there are many versions available including the NIV created in 1978.
C) Man identifies God as the source and we already know that man is falable and susceptable to temptation as well as motivation by his own goals, greed etc.
D) I think anyone can see just by reading the Bible that there is change in morality between the NT and the OT and the fact that most Christians do not adhere strictly to the morality, teachings or commands of God.

"The Bible contains prophecies written from 4000 BC to 700 BC concerning Jesus Christ's"
Of course you really can't credit as prophecy things that happened before the writing. It's like me writing today that George W Bush will be elected President in 2000.
Which only leaves about 2 predictions that would qualify."the restoration of the nation (1948), and the return of Jerusalem (1967)" and those are actually "predictions" by Jews for Jews.

The power of the bible is not in the text but in the preaching of the text.

Your 4 criteria do not withstand a cursory scrutiny.

I welcome your comments!

-SS