[monster]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

That's what the Bible said... but history is written by the victors (that is, those in power). You just can't take everything in it literally. The veracity of Moses as a historical figure is in doubt (unlike other Jewish heroes), for instance. But even if you take Moses out of the picture, the fact that the leading tribes wrote the Bible many years after the events had passed, and the fact that there are a lot of different metaphors for leaders (for example, each tribe is originally represented by a single man in the Bible, which even if you don't take historicity into account, is highly unlikely) scattered throughout the Torah give you another way of interpreting the situation.

If that is how you really feel about the way the Bible was written, then don't you think these so called men in power would've paint a better picture of themselves? Instead, we get stories after stories about, basically, how the Israelites fail time after time.

The problem is when things are taken too literally and you end up with Creationists. It's those people the ones that end up being taken advantage of by those in powers. The ones that lack any sort of critical thinking ability.

I don't have a problem with people believing whatever they might. I cannot say I'm free of any sort of irrational belief--I am but a man, after all. But putting things into perspective and questioning whether things are really what they appear to be demonstrates intelligence. I have a lot of Christian friends, and our friend Kyuusai right here is the perfect example of a level-headed Christian who manages to be devout and critical at the same time.

Ok, hopefully I won't go off topic, but answer me this:

If a person belief in a supreme being, wouldn't it be logical for that person to also belief that this supreme being could do anything, including creating the world in six days without leaving any apparent evidence behind?

Note, I'm not trying to force the idea of creation on anybody here (I'm just using it since you already brought it up), but wouldn't what I just said be a relatively insignificant leap of faith for that person compared to believing in the supreme being in the first place?

I am not blaming Christianity. Where did you get that idea? Of course, the way I see it, religions were created by man, but even if I take that out of the way, there's no reason for me to hate the religion itself. The problem I have is with those who take advantage of other people using religion as a tool... which has happened with every major religion throughout its history. Hating religion as a concept is as stupid and pointless as hating math because I suck at it.

The part I put in bold may be what you're trying to say. But by saying even the Bible cannot be trusted (since their writers were men in power, according to you), you're giving a different implication than that.

Instead of just saying you do not like how some people use religion to take advantage of other people, you're now also effectively saying the religion itself was made in order to take advantage of other people.

Hence, my statement that whatever bad things these people have done, Christianity itself is not about that and should not be blamed (not specifically referring to you).

Why don't you read the thread and realize we were talking about the Old Testament? Or is it less Christian? Why don't you take it off your Bible then?

Let me quote what you said earlier in this thread that started this:

As someone said already, how would you know none of the current wars are divinely justified? How would you know that Bush was actually right and that the invasion of Iraq (with all its civilian casualties, and all the tortured Iraqi and American soldiers) was his God-given right?

So I answered using the New Testament as support. Nothing in that question says I have to reply using the Old Testament.

And please, just because I did not use the Old Testament in my first reply does not mean I don't care about it or it has no use in Christianity. In fact, in my second reply I did mention the Old Testament and I said that those rights in the Old Testament were given for a specific group for a specific reason. So even using the Old Testament, my answer would still be the same.

I really don't know why you're nitpicking about which part of the Bible that I use when the question itself is not even related to the Old Testament.