swanny, on 12 September 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:
sorry pito, but the opposite is true in those societies that do not have writing, but who rely only their oral traditions. Because the stories are the only way that information is passed down, it is more important, not less, that the stories are passed on precisely. And I'm not sure I understand you when you say the Bible stories were meant as a pastime...
See, this is where the problems start: you are blind for facts.
Its a well accepted fact, that when you pass things orally, you will change/alter stuff.... So there is NO certainty at all that the stories that are past orally are correct.
Even if you mention they are important, it does not matter, its a characteristic of humans to alter stories passed on orally.
This is a proven fact!
(many tribes have been studied on this and we know that some of the stories passed on are exagerated massively. Think about the so called "huge fish" in some of the stories that killed/ate people)
And many of the bibles stories were created during bad times: during wars/repression. So people made up stories that were ment to show how things could go and how the future would be good etc...
So you have to place the stories in the correct atmosphere.
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I have not heard of any Christian who says the bible was written by 1 person during 1 lifetime, unless they are referring to the fact the the New Testament gospels and letters were written in a relatively short period. The earliest letters are from the middle-to-late 40s AD, and the last book was written by 90-95AD, which is in a single lifetime. And in case there is concern over how we "know" this, those dates are from people who have spent their professional lives studying ancient documents and who can be considered experts (just as we have spent many years learning our skills in science). How would you feel if the local librarian came out correcting your work, saying they knew more about molecular biology than you did, because they have a degree and work in a library?
Well, I have heard a lot of so called christians that claim that all the stories are from the same person and from the same time (not that it happened at the same time, but that they were written down at one time.
Again: if you claim that those experts are 100% sure that the dates are correct, then you claim that they have superpowers! We (well, not me, but those experts) are able to set a certain date, but is never 100% correct.
THe past has shown us that some of the stories were younger/older then they first believed and that some of the chronologic was not correct.
And its even a fact that not all those experts agree on it.. So why even state its all accurate?
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Yes the oldest Bible papyri are fragmentary, but they are still from the first and early second century. The best copies of the ancient Roman and Greek historians, poets and philosophers are separated from the original documents by up to (and often well over) a thousand years, but there is no-one saying they are inaccurate. Even the best of them, Homer, has a gap of over 300 years from the original to the oldest existing copy. And the ancient Bible documents were translated into many ancient languages at the time which all translate back to the same message, so we are confident no-one changed the message. Finally, the so-called "Church Fathers" of the second century typically included verses from the letters and gospels as they wrote to each other, to such an extent that we could piece together the entire New Testament, bar 7 verses, from their letters alone. No, I'm sorry, if you investigate the ancient texts, there is absolutely nothing that comes close to the Bible in terms of quality, quantity or diversity of evidence. Anyone who says otherwise is either misled or deliberately ignoring the evidence.
Again: claiming that the translations were accurate and no mistakes were made is just naive.
Sorry again, but its a proven fact that when you start translating/passing stuff on orally that changes will happen!! This is a commen fact and also leads to many many many different interpretations of the bible or other books!
Think about figurative speech: how hard is it to translate stuff like that in another langauge! Its often impossible!
I dont know how many langauges you speak/know, but I know more then 1 langauge and I can tell you its almost impossible to translate figurative sentences or commen sayings correctly.
The idea that the bible or those papers would be kept 100% correct and not altered is just idiotic.
Unless you claim that some "higher power" made sure the words were kept accurate (and this is an argument often used by believers, but in my opinion this is just nuts).
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I'm glad you brought this up. Yes, there were some stages of forced conversions, but so did the Muslims, both under Mohammed and after. But, just as with Islam, those stages were limited and done for relatively short periods of time. And they were terrible wrongs that were done. But I want you to also think of other times. During the second and third centuries, many of the German tribes, incredibly independent-minded and very violent societies, became Christian. Why? What "logical" benefit would come to them? There was certainly no political or military pressure placed on them, but they became Christianised. And the same story was repeated all over the Empire from the first century onwards, so you need to be careful when you trot out "statistics".
For a relative short period?
What?????
its been going one for ages now and still is....
Think about 1900-1950, the time when european countries "invaded" african countries and forced the christian religion...
And I can go back till the year 0 .. Every period there were people invading others and killing them and spreading their religion.. THink about the spanish people that invaded the USA...
Or during the dark middle ages...
Again: the tribes becoming christians...
I really dont understand where you get this kind of information.
You claim it had to political or military pressure?
You do release it all started with a big war and the fleding of thousands of people and the king that made new laws in wich the christianity was also stated.
I really dont understand where you get the idea that it was all a voluntary movement.
I am not saying there are no non-violant changes, but many of them did come from violence or came after violence.
Dont forget that religion can bring faith/hope and people that just had massive battles are easier in changing religion or are more prone to religion then people that are having a pretty nice life without problems.
This is btw a fact in religion: many of the so called religious leaders use the weakness of people to make them join their religion!
(you can say this is only done by sects but christians did this too (and still are doing this).
People find happiness and joy in religion! And people with problems are thus more prone for a religion conversion.
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Actually, the whole "eye for an eye" thing was designed to limit the extent of revenge for injuries, not prescribe what you had to do. It stopped the escalation of blood feuds into killings. Just look at the way some people carry on a feud across hundreds of years: no-one actually remembers the initial insult, they just keep on hating each other. Jesus even took this limitation of revenge further: "You have heard it said, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth", butI say to you do not resist an evil person... if someone forces you to walk 1 mile {which the Romans could do to a subject person}, walk with them 2 miles" and so on. So I reckon that if we actually lived as the Bible has it, we would be far away from "total war".
Well, if it is what you are saying then the christians would be in total repression...
But I agree that there are some good parts in the bible and many things are indeed ok/good, but again: interpretation is everything.. Like with the eye for an eye.... You say its a positive thing that you do not need to do this.. but other christians will not see this and take it for what it is : eye for an eye.
If you check the wiki (where you got your info?) you can easly see that it all depends on interpretations..
So again: how on earth can you claim to know what is written in it and that nothing went wrong with translations if we see now that there is still a debate about it going on!
If you don't know it, then ask it! Better to ask and look foolish to some then not ask and stay stupid.
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person who is different from the majority.
Is there one available? Preferably without any side effects that would prevent my lab work ;
I'm just happy we're discussing this peacefully, unlike those who rocket each others' embassies.
