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Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby Symmetry on Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:37 pm

Bigbullets wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
warmonger1981 wrote:So basically science is relative to our understandings. Sounds like an argument for God not against. Just because you don't understand God does not mean that there is no God. Just like that understanding science. Just because you don't understand it does that mean it does not exist. It sounds like an initiate into Freemasonry. If you are not able to understand you are not given an answer. Eyes for those to see and ears for those to hear.


I really don't see belief in God as opposed to belief in science. It's opposed only when people put faith above reason. Take the KJV literalists, for example, or the Christian Scientists who eschew modern medicine like blood transfusion.

Always reminds me of the joke about the drowning man. A man is drowning. A lifeguard comes out, but the man says, "no, God will save me". A boat reaches him and offers help, but again, the man says "God will save me". A helicopter arrives to pull him out, and again the man refuses there help- "God will save me, I have faith".

The man drowns, and at St Peter's gate he demands to know why God didn't save him. "What do you mean?" says St Peter "We sent a lifeguard, a boat, and a helicopter..."

It's just a joke, obviously. but it does have a point.


KJV literalists?


People who believe in the Bible, but specifically the King James version of the Bible, as opposed to other versions.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby Bigbullets on Sat Oct 27, 2018 11:42 pm

Symmetry wrote:
Bigbullets wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
warmonger1981 wrote:So basically science is relative to our understandings. Sounds like an argument for God not against. Just because you don't understand God does not mean that there is no God. Just like that understanding science. Just because you don't understand it does that mean it does not exist. It sounds like an initiate into Freemasonry. If you are not able to understand you are not given an answer. Eyes for those to see and ears for those to hear.


I really don't see belief in God as opposed to belief in science. It's opposed only when people put faith above reason. Take the KJV literalists, for example, or the Christian Scientists who eschew modern medicine like blood transfusion.

Always reminds me of the joke about the drowning man. A man is drowning. A lifeguard comes out, but the man says, "no, God will save me". A boat reaches him and offers help, but again, the man says "God will save me". A helicopter arrives to pull him out, and again the man refuses there help- "God will save me, I have faith".

The man drowns, and at St Peter's gate he demands to know why God didn't save him. "What do you mean?" says St Peter "We sent a lifeguard, a boat, and a helicopter..."

It's just a joke, obviously. but it does have a point.


KJV literalists?


People who believe in the Bible, but specifically the King James version of the Bible, as opposed to other versions.


I believe the Bible. So do a lot of people. And the KJV is the most accurate translation we have in english. And has the most supporting manuscripts.

It just makes you look silly putting people who believe a very mainstream english translation of the Bible in with Christian Scientists.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby jonesthecurl on Sun Oct 28, 2018 1:15 am

Bigbullets wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
Bigbullets wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
warmonger1981 wrote:So basically science is relative to our understandings. Sounds like an argument for God not against. Just because you don't understand God does not mean that there is no God. Just like that understanding science. Just because you don't understand it does that mean it does not exist. It sounds like an initiate into Freemasonry. If you are not able to understand you are not given an answer. Eyes for those to see and ears for those to hear.


I really don't see belief in God as opposed to belief in science. It's opposed only when people put faith above reason. Take the KJV literalists, for example, or the Christian Scientists who eschew modern medicine like blood transfusion.

Always reminds me of the joke about the drowning man. A man is drowning. A lifeguard comes out, but the man says, "no, God will save me". A boat reaches him and offers help, but again, the man says "God will save me". A helicopter arrives to pull him out, and again the man refuses there help- "God will save me, I have faith".

The man drowns, and at St Peter's gate he demands to know why God didn't save him. "What do you mean?" says St Peter "We sent a lifeguard, a boat, and a helicopter..."

It's just a joke, obviously. but it does have a point.


KJV literalists?


People who believe in the Bible, but specifically the King James version of the Bible, as opposed to other versions.


I believe the Bible. So do a lot of people. And the KJV is the most accurate translation we have in english. And has the most supporting manuscripts.

It just makes you look silly putting people who believe a very mainstream English translation of the Bible in with Christian Scientists.


Well, some go further than "This is the best English translation". Check out the Plymouth Brethren, and the even more extreme Exclusive Brethren. No idea how prevalent these sects are today.
Correction - I've just googled, and they now apparently believe there's a better translation, and are possibly now re-amalgamated.

Background to my comment: When reading about Aleister Crowley, I learned that he had grown up in the Plymouth Brethren. Can't quote the source, this was in a paper book many years ago, a biography which googling hasn't found for me yet.. The book said that the Plymouth Brethren believed that the Bible was the literal word of God, and that the King James translators had also been divinely inspired, so that version was inviolable. Some verse or another appeared to say that Christians shouldn't eat in the company of non-christians. The Exclusive Brethren considered the Plymouth Brethren to be breaking this injunction because they "broke bread" with other Christian sects.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby Bigbullets on Sun Oct 28, 2018 1:32 pm

jonesthecurl wrote:Well, some go further than "This is the best English translation". Check out the Plymouth Brethren, and the even more extreme Exclusive Brethren. No idea how prevalent these sects are today.
Correction - I've just googled, and they now apparently believe there's a better translation, and are possibly now re-amalgamated.

Background to my comment: When reading about Aleister Crowley, I learned that he had grown up in the Plymouth Brethren. Can't quote the source, this was in a paper book many years ago, a biography which googling hasn't found for me yet.. The book said that the Plymouth Brethren believed that the Bible was the literal word of God, and that the King James translators had also been divinely inspired, so that version was inviolable. Some verse or another appeared to say that Christians shouldn't eat in the company of non-christians. The Exclusive Brethren considered the Plymouth Brethren to be breaking this injunction because they "broke bread" with other Christian sects.


Interesting. I haven't looked into those groups before.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby tzor on Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:39 am

Bigbullets wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
Bigbullets wrote:KJV literalists?

People who believe in the Bible, but specifically the King James version of the Bible, as opposed to other versions.

I believe the Bible. So do a lot of people.

I think its important to see the progression here, from "literalists" to "believe in the Bible."
The former is somewhat precise (but not completely) and the later is somewhat more vague.

The question of "believing" in the Bible, is actually vastly different from believing in the literal wording of every line within the Bible. It's important when understanding many denominations "believing" in the Bible, including the Catholic understanding of how the Bible contains truth.

Thus in order to believe in the Bible you need to know three things, text, context, and style. This is one of the problems of the KJV enthusiasts; in one sense the question of the "accuracy of the translation" is not the primary one (unfortunately the KJV has a number of significant errors although these are only frustrating for the literalists and the nit pickers of the faith).

Context is the critical key to all of this and this is also a case of understanding the context at the time the various "books" of the Bible were written. Stripping context out of the text results in meaningless text. Even the "New Testament" requires the context of the Greek translations of the three divisions of the sacred writings (the Law, the Prophets, and the other writings) especially when trying to link to fulfilled prophecy.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby DoomYoshi on Mon Oct 29, 2018 1:04 pm

The best thing about KJV is that it uses the accurate "pisseth" instead of much more terrible translations.
1 Sam 25:22 -
KJV: "So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall."

modern translations make "any that pisseth against the wall" into "male", which makes it impossible to understand what the true meaning of the verse is. Male is a totally ambiguous and unclear term, which means nothing in the parlance of today.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby 2dimes on Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:42 pm

Modern?
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby tzor on Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:46 pm

DoomYoshi wrote:The best thing about KJV is that it uses the accurate "pisseth" instead of much more terrible translations.


Thank God Handel didn't include that passage in his Messiah oratorio. :twisted:
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby DoomYoshi on Mon Oct 29, 2018 3:09 pm

2dimes wrote:Modern?


modern - any translation since the 1950s, roughly speaking.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby Bigbullets on Mon Oct 29, 2018 7:45 pm

tzor wrote:
Bigbullets wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
Bigbullets wrote:KJV literalists?

People who believe in the Bible, but specifically the King James version of the Bible, as opposed to other versions.

I believe the Bible. So do a lot of people.

I think its important to see the progression here, from "literalists" to "believe in the Bible."
The former is somewhat precise (but not completely) and the later is somewhat more vague.

The question of "believing" in the Bible, is actually vastly different from believing in the literal wording of every line within the Bible. It's important when understanding many denominations "believing" in the Bible, including the Catholic understanding of how the Bible contains truth.

Thus in order to believe in the Bible you need to know three things, text, context, and style. This is one of the problems of the KJV enthusiasts; in one sense the question of the "accuracy of the translation" is not the primary one (unfortunately the KJV has a number of significant errors although these are only frustrating for the literalists and the nit pickers of the faith).

Context is the critical key to all of this and this is also a case of understanding the context at the time the various "books" of the Bible were written. Stripping context out of the text results in meaningless text. Even the "New Testament" requires the context of the Greek translations of the three divisions of the sacred writings (the Law, the Prophets, and the other writings) especially when trying to link to fulfilled prophecy.


People who point out the 'significant errors' are generally parroting what they heard someone else say. You may not be one of them.

Just seems to be a talking point people use. There are 'significant errors' in every translation depending on who you ask.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby jonesthecurl on Mon Oct 29, 2018 7:59 pm

Yes there are. How is this an argument in your favour?
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby riskllama on Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:25 pm

lol, check & mate.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby tzor on Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:53 am

Bigbullets wrote:People who point out the 'significant errors' are generally parroting what they heard someone else say. You may not be one of them.


It is not easy to find web sources that list errors simply without some degree of extraneous material or specific slant. A lot of the errors are the use of words. In some cases the English meaning has mutated from the original, so the error isn't technically in the translation but the problems of language in general.

One of the best examples is the Angel's greeting to Mary. But the KJV isn't the only bible that fails to fully translate the precise verb used in the text and results in a watered down greeting instead of one that would deeply trouble anyone who wasn't prepared to be called that. But as I mentioned earlier, the exact state of Mary's grace prior to her conception is not something one finds in any known Christian "Creed."

Then there is the classic abuse of the word "witch" and the horrible translation of the tetragrammaton which leads to the classic joke found in the Indiana Jones movie, "But in the Latin, Jehovah is spelled with an 'I'" ... because "in the Latin" the tetragrammaton was always translated as Lord or more specifically, in the Latin as "Dominus." Wikipeida states, "Only at about the beginning of the 16th century did Christian translations of the Bible appear with transliterations of the tetragrammaton."

show


So unless you are writing cheap movies about the Knights of the Round Table, that too isn't important to the faith.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby warmonger1981 on Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:41 pm

Jesus is not even his real name. it's Yeshua. when the kjv was written there were no J's.in Hebrew. from what I understand. or the meaning of the name Melchizedek. or why do most Angels names end in El. if you know what El mean you will understand my question.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby 2dimes on Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:44 am

The?
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby jonesthecurl on Thu Nov 01, 2018 1:25 am

Public Transport?
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby warmonger1981 on Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:49 pm

penis pump
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby 2dimes on Thu Nov 01, 2018 1:10 pm

I believe there is still no letter J in Hebrew.

Also it kind of makes sense that the end of angels names would have the Hebrew el in them.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby DoomYoshi on Thu Nov 01, 2018 1:30 pm

eL and J are two very useful characters in the Tetris world - coincidence?
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby warmonger1981 on Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:28 am

El is a God or deity. Angels are not gods so why have it at the end if the name? Or Melchezedik. Or how is Jesus apart of the Order if Melchezedik? I thought Jesus was God incarnate. So why is God a part of the order of Melchizedek instead of the other way around? Only one person to give me an answer to this and see if they show up.
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Postby 2dimes on Fri Nov 02, 2018 10:00 am

Because Angels were created to serve him in all things it seems sensible to name them that way. Somewhat like surnames at times used a "son of" prefix in them. Ben or Mac being two examples. Though in the way I use English for a better translation I might add "of" to the Angel names. This is part of why people think language translations are flawed, some who arguably speak English better than I do might disagree with adding "of." I don't think one should be considered "more or less correct", they are just different.

As for the Melchizedek thing... People like to compare things to the past, in sports often commentators will bring up what everyone considers a great team to make a point, "They are playing like the (insert team) of (insert year)!" We love nostalgia, the past is often remembered as the good old days.

I feel that it was being used to try to explain how people could not get as close to God via the contemporary priests, temples and the law as the Melchizedek were. People understood that the Melchizedek were closer spiritually during an earlier time and I believe the concept is, via the savior and loving people, one can achieve that level of interaction with God. That is not to say you would become a priest of the order, just that you could become as close to God as they were. I don't consider him part of it, that priesthood has been replaced by him.

Do you think those claiming to be Melchizedek priests today are the same as the priests from thousands of years ago and part of the order?
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby tzor on Fri Nov 02, 2018 10:46 am

warmonger1981 wrote:El is a God or deity. Angels are not gods so why have it at the end if the name? Or Melchezedik. Or how is Jesus apart of the Order if Melchezedik? I thought Jesus was God incarnate. So why is God a part of the order of Melchizedek instead of the other way around? Only one person to give me an answer to this and see if they show up.


A lot to unravel here. Let's start with the first statement "El is a God or deity." This is a lot more fuzzy than you might think. It gets confusing because one generally assumes that the Torah is supposed to be about monotheism. As described in the book "The Rational Bible - Exodus" the actual purpose is that it about a radically different concept of God; which is in opposition to the nature gods found at the time and especially in Egypt. So you have this very fuzzy and nebulous group who gets a variety of names as things go on from hosts to angels and the one who is called the "Lord of Hosts" or what we call God. But the hosts have nothing to do with any set of so called deities generally worshiped.

Melchizedek: Now this is an interesting notion. First of all it must be pointed out that the "norm" in the time of Jesus was the Priesthood of the Tribe of Levi.

I'm going to quote from this Catholic source.

Contrary to what might be expected, the first priest mentioned in the Bible is not from the Tribe of Levi. In fact, the first priest is described before Levi is even born. In Genesis 14, we are introduced to Melchizedek, who is described as “Priest of God Most High.”
The first question that arises is regarding Melchizedek’s very identity: who is he? His appearance in Genesis 14 is quite minimal and set at a point very early in Abram’s faith journey, as Abram defeats several war lords in the land of Canaan. Identified in the Scripture as “King of Salem,” ancient Jewish sources see him as the leader of the entire area, a wise sage of a man whom the rest must respect.


So let's look at this King thing. He's a Priest / King ... This gets to be important.

Let's jump now to Jesus ... descendant of David, who was King, and of the tribe of Judah.

Not Levi. So Jesus is not a priest in the sense of being from the tribe of Levi.

But he is Priest in the sense of the "Priest / King" from the lineage of King David. Just as Melchizedek was both priest and king.

All of these identities have priestly functions, but it is taken to an even greater degree when we see what Melchizedek offers as a priest, for priests offer sacrifices and Melchizedek offers a sacrifice of bread and wine.


Remember that "Last Supper" thing? (First mentioned by Paul in his letters if you look at the scriptures in the order they were written but I digress.) Ignoring the "Catholic" element of this we see a linkage between the crucifixion, the bread and wine (which he used) and then the offering of the priest king in the old testament. Jesus bases his priestly model on that "order" and not on lineage of the tribe of Levi. It's not a fan club (or fraternal organization) with membership, but a model to base the priesthood on.
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Postby 2dimes on Fri Nov 02, 2018 2:59 pm

I'm not comfortable agreeing with tzor but here I go. It's a matter or the priesthood being simplified, less about going to a building or place to see a person who will carry out a ritual, more about caring for other people everywhere you can.

Most of the Old Testament is stuff about a pretty particular time with a family that moved into Egypt, ended up becoming slaves and got really big, that annoyed the locals then they had to get out.

After leaving they spend a while stuck in a desert set up some tents for sacrificial rites, then went in wiped out some locals and took over a place.

They then built temples, that era is so seperated from modern Judaism that I have heard Jews describe the time as, "the cult of the temples." They had a period of prosperity serving their God in a certain way. After a while they tried changing things up too much diluting and corrupting it. Later the Romans came along breaking up the party.

I don't see why folks get caught up thinking nothing else happened between the first people, the flood, people recovering from that and Melchizedek. Plenty of things happened and as always some people looked for God and others wanted to avoid him.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby warmonger1981 on Fri Nov 02, 2018 10:31 pm

Melchizedek name means King of Righteousness.
he was king of Salem. Salem means complete or peaceful.
he was a priest of El Elyon. El Elyon is another name for God.
so wouldn't Melchizedek basically be God?


unfortunately I don't agree with the as angels names ending in El. if man isn't supposed to be making images in his likeness I'm pretty sure God wouldn't allow angels to associate themselves as a God on any level. but I get the point you make.
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Re: Atheism. Is there more to it than just mocking people?

Postby 2dimes on Sat Nov 03, 2018 12:35 am

I don't think being a priest of something would make them that thing. Isn't saying "a priest of" mean they are devoted to whatever thing the "of" is? Though in theory, sometimes a priest of Buddhism might become enlightened then become a Buddha. I'm not sure of other examples.

I think I understand what you mean about the Angels not being able to elevate themselves and I agree but I know people tend to consider them a form of gods. Makes a certain amount of sense too since they certainly would have powers that would cause us to think they are more like God than we are.

I suspect people telling or writing about those Angels gave them the Hebrew names.

A person encountering one would likely be pretty terrified, even today. They probably would be busy trying to process other things about the event. If the Angel had a name would it even be in a human language? It could even be a case of things being changed because the humans wanted to write a name instead of explaining. "We have no idea how to say it never mind writing it so the Angel name withheld..."
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