Does faith excuse serious problems with the bible?

by iCeltic 62 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  tootired2care

  One part of the Adam and Eve account that really got me thinking was the flaming sword guarding the entrace to the garden. So many questions arise from this such as:

  1. How could a symbol of war be so out of historical context?

  2. Did god invent the sword, and therefore war and violence?

  2a. Is God a hypocrite by telling us that he hates violence?

  3. Is this a Fruedian slip by the scholars of the catholic church who fabricated this entire allegory during the dark ages when swords were a symbol of power and the weapon of the day.

  For me faith cannot cover over such major flaws in a book that is supposedly of divine origin.
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  iCeltic

  Lost - Genesis 19:30-36. Genesis 19:8 is interesting as well. This is pretty straight forward to me.
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  mP

  5go:

  Joined 9/16/2006

  That and if a soldier raped a woman in battle he could marry her to make it right. mP: Not just war, which is a reflection of that terrible rule in the middle east that women cant go out by themselves, because its a free for all, men can rape any women that they want. If shes a virgin or unmarried then he can buy her, if shes escorted then she is protected and theres a professional curtesy to not steal another mans property.
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  mP

  Confused

  Playing favortism to one group of people

  mP:

  Call it racism, thats what it is.
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  mP

  Confused

  The God of the Old testament is completely different in every single way to the one in the New testament. What happened in that few hundred years?

  mP:
  Marcion who compiled the first NT, actually taught there were two gods, the creator god and the god of jesus.
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  iCeltic

  Isn't there even a case in the bible where gods people are commanded to go and hide in the vineyards and wait on the woman coming out from a festival and they were to kidnap them and take as wives? It even said they were instructed in what to say if the woman's fathers or brothers asked (asked? Hello..) them what they were doing.

  hard to ignore? I'm curious what you think of that, *lost*?
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  Vidiot

  iCeltic - "Does faith excuse serious problems with the bible?"

  Sure seems to for the faithful.
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  DeWandelaar

  You know... the bible is a book with a lot of letters and books crammed together in one... it is assembled by people with an agenda. I am NOT saying I do not believe in Christ... I am not saying I do not believe that there is wisdom to be found in the bible... But I DO say that you can NOT find 100% truth in a assembled and (mis)translated book.
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  jgnat

  Faith is a blanket word, badly mis-used. If used instead of "know", as in, "I know the sky is blue", the believer can get tangled in a cognitive trap. To admit failure in any respect in their object of faith is to create cascade loss of everything they thought they knew.

  Another option is to claim no flaw in the object of their faith. Which leads to some pretty twisted thinking.

  I suggest a third way, where faith is more carefully defined to a trust that some things remain in the realm of the unknowable. Separate it from facts. The sky is blue. The bible relates stories that should not be modelled in modern behavior. Historical catastrophic floods were not world-wide. The story of Adam and Eve is an allegory.
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  mP

  iCeltic:
  Perhaps the bigger question one should ask imho, is the question if the Bible has any examples or morality for us that might be useful today ?

  Why are all the heroes in the Bible, complete aresholes, who kill, steal, rape all for their own selfish advantage. Im talking about Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus. Its always about me, me , me. How many orphans are helped in the Bible ?