God Messed Up — Satire
Atheists no longer struggle with God, Church and Religion. They gave up on them at some point and moved on with what remains of their lives. Still, it is tantalizing to be an "Atheist" or even flirt with "Agnosticism."
A lot of people struggle with their mind in order to believe what they don't believe.
The Holocaust found many, Jews, completely stunned that God did not step in and stop this unimaginable slaughter of millions of people.
What would it take for him to step in and take over? Nobody seems to be able to put their finger on it.
He didn't step in — it was like he was off, somewhere else, and couldn't be bothered while the Holocaust was going on. More than one of those who survived — became atheists.
If there is a problem with religion, it is that God, in all his infinite wisdom, went ahead and created Evil. God, knowing full well that Evil meant eons of misery and death — did it anyway.
The Holocaust is a perfect example of this Evil creation at work. That has always been baffling to me because it was preventable.
I adopted a belief, without walls, and refuse to be hamstrung by "organized" religion or by church. Native American spirituality is unique. My belief is close to that.
This Continent flourished under their stewardship. Once the "People of God" arrived, the landscape changed; and today, "global warming" became an adjective — we have super storms, and fear of pandemics and melting Polar ice caps.
Corporate America is wringing their hands — they can't wait to explore for natural resources that has been hidden for thousands of years. If Bush can cut himself a slice, then Corporate America will get the revealed natural resource cake for themselves.
Look around yourself. There is evidence of religion everywhere. You must believe in God because He created you/us and the Universe — and look at it now.
I would love to be an atheist and not believe in God or religion. It would be easier to believe in the theory of Evolution because that isn't Divine.
Yes, God messed up. He created Evil and He didn't have to.
© 2006 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label The Holy Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Holy Bible. Show all posts
Monday, August 26, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
The Origins of the Holy Bible
The Bible Origins—
You would think if God inspired 40 authors to write His Bible, that he would have insisted they get it right. Or, better still, he could have easily done it himself — in an instant.
Instead, those forty authors labored over it for 1,610 years. When it was done, none of the religions in the world could agree on which books to use and which to throw out. The Bible is not the same for all religions — that would make the Word of God different for some people.
The oldest dated manuscript in any tongue — the Syriac Peshitta (464 C.E.) is minus Leviticus. In 508 C.E., Philoxenus, who was the Bishop of Hierapolis ordered Polycarp, the Christian prelate, to make a revision of the Peshitta Christian Scriptures and Polycarp included Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude and Revelation.
Jerome's version was received with hostility. In 1592 the Roman Catholic Church accepted the Vulgate (which means that which is popular) as a standard edition for its church.
The Thebaic or Sahidic Versions of Upper Egypt (n the south) and the Bohairic Versions of Lower Egypt (in the north) contained essentially that of the Gothic Versions. This version omitted Samuel and Kings because Bishop Ulfilas, the translator, thought i too dangerous to include because they speak against warfare and idolatry.
In 1546, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church included the eleven additional books — those called the Apocryphia.
Arguments for their inclusion date from the early copies of the Greek Septuagint Version of the Hebrew Scriptures which was translated beginning about 280 B.C.E. In 90 C.E. the Jewish council specifically excluded all such writings from the Hebrew canon.
If you are a Christian you would have to argue that the Jewish canon is not complete because it does not contain the New Testament. If you were a Catholic you would argue the Protestant bibles are not complete because they omit the Apocryphia and so on. And if you were a Jew you would argue that the Catholics and Protestants are both wrong because their bibles contain too many books excluded from their canon.
There is no evidence to support the thesis that the holy works are to be included between two covers. It did require 1,610 years to write with 40 authors contributing to it. Chapters and verses were unknown until Robert Estienne's edition of the Latin Vulgate was published in 1555. It had been separate scrolls, scattered and handed down; and never united in book form.
If you are a Jehovah's Witness, you don't use any of these books. You are instructed to use the books published by your society and no others.
What we end up with is a different book for each group — part Jewish, Greek, Latin and English and not one Bible is like the other — either in total content or dialogue. And none were inspired by any god that we know about.
© 2006 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.
You would think if God inspired 40 authors to write His Bible, that he would have insisted they get it right. Or, better still, he could have easily done it himself — in an instant.
Instead, those forty authors labored over it for 1,610 years. When it was done, none of the religions in the world could agree on which books to use and which to throw out. The Bible is not the same for all religions — that would make the Word of God different for some people.
The oldest dated manuscript in any tongue — the Syriac Peshitta (464 C.E.) is minus Leviticus. In 508 C.E., Philoxenus, who was the Bishop of Hierapolis ordered Polycarp, the Christian prelate, to make a revision of the Peshitta Christian Scriptures and Polycarp included Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude and Revelation.
Jerome's version was received with hostility. In 1592 the Roman Catholic Church accepted the Vulgate (which means that which is popular) as a standard edition for its church.
The Thebaic or Sahidic Versions of Upper Egypt (n the south) and the Bohairic Versions of Lower Egypt (in the north) contained essentially that of the Gothic Versions. This version omitted Samuel and Kings because Bishop Ulfilas, the translator, thought i too dangerous to include because they speak against warfare and idolatry.
In 1546, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church included the eleven additional books — those called the Apocryphia.
Arguments for their inclusion date from the early copies of the Greek Septuagint Version of the Hebrew Scriptures which was translated beginning about 280 B.C.E. In 90 C.E. the Jewish council specifically excluded all such writings from the Hebrew canon.
If you are a Christian you would have to argue that the Jewish canon is not complete because it does not contain the New Testament. If you were a Catholic you would argue the Protestant bibles are not complete because they omit the Apocryphia and so on. And if you were a Jew you would argue that the Catholics and Protestants are both wrong because their bibles contain too many books excluded from their canon.
There is no evidence to support the thesis that the holy works are to be included between two covers. It did require 1,610 years to write with 40 authors contributing to it. Chapters and verses were unknown until Robert Estienne's edition of the Latin Vulgate was published in 1555. It had been separate scrolls, scattered and handed down; and never united in book form.
If you are a Jehovah's Witness, you don't use any of these books. You are instructed to use the books published by your society and no others.
What we end up with is a different book for each group — part Jewish, Greek, Latin and English and not one Bible is like the other — either in total content or dialogue. And none were inspired by any god that we know about.
© 2006 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.
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