DocM wrote on Mar 31st, 2011 at 12:03am:Ok, so we go from Bible bashing to UFOs at the Royal wedding? Odd bedfellows, this conversation.
Seraphis, might it not be that you are operating from a set of belief systems that is "anti-Bible," even judging by the title of your thread? Your premise at the start appears to be that those who revere the good book only due so literally, reading word for word as if there is no other truth, believing that the scriptures were written by the hand of God himself, instead of men.
Yet Judeo-Christian scholars who study the two testaments and the communities who investigate biblical thought do not promulgate or agree with your basic premises. So from the get go, most sources believe that the two testaments were synthesized works written and compiled by men, which contained great truths within them (along with a chronicle of man's covenant with God).
In many circles, Jews and Christians gather to debate the meaning of the passages, constantly reinterpreting the ancient texts to gain further insight into the human spirit. In Judaism this has taken the form of Talmudic study and debate. If all believed as your premise stated (that the Bible was the word of God alone), then surely Talmudic scholars would not get together over the years to debate and interpret these texts.
But debate and reinterpretation is exactly what is occuring over the centuries. The Vatican and other religious christian organizations have their equivlent to Talmudic Judaism. This makes the followers of both testaments not a stagnant group of people, but a vibrant and ever evolving group - not tied to the dictates of the Bible with chains, but able to learn from the allegories in it and continually debate the significance of these stories.
I hope you can see why even the title of your thread might thus be seen by Jews and Christians as offensive. You start with an assumption that all followers are fundamentalists (a gross misrepresentation), and then you proceed to cast doubt on the very existence of the Bible as a text of stories, and the reality of Jesus and the crucifixation itself.
While the flaws in your arguments are obvious to anyone who hears both sides, one must also ask "what exactly are you trying to accomplish?" To prove that Jesus never existed and was not crucified? - This is surely going to offend more than settle anything.
The premise behind the two testaments; to love thy neighbor as thyself, and to love God, are synonymous with the basic underpinnings of every peace loving religion or ideology, including New Age thought, and ideas brought back from experiences from Robert Monroe, Bruce Moen and TMI. Are you not clearly aware of that?
Matthew
The problem is that very few people have your mindset on the issue... at the point the so called Christian leadership gained state power they began murdering non-believers... 40,000 Kathars was a drop in the bucket compared to the milliions of pagans wiped out and the hundreds of thousands of so called heretics, murdered and tortured in the inquistion... down to today's murder of abortion doctors, and the disrespect of our service men's funerals by Westboro baptists... the intimidation of Air Force Academy Cadets by Haggard's evangelicals in the '60's and '70's.
We are in a never ending battle with the Christian community in this country to prevent them from establishing Christianity as a State religion... if and when that does happen... I think even you will be very upset... the price of liberty is eternal vigilance against all vicious fanatics.
Again you are not acknowledging that I have not introduced these issues on my personal bais but the research of reputable scholars... the UFO thing was from an English Air Force officer's article... h also said that UFO's are now being scene over the Libyian airspace...
S.