Some questions about Christian religion

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Actually the Hebrew name Adam has multiple translations: "man", "human beings", "person" or "Adam"..

Anyways the second comes close to my translation.

But this is what Satan was meant to do right?

I can of course call a chicken a duck, but it's still a chicken.

Then how do you explain the differences between the Coptic, James, death-sea scrolls and other versions of the bible?
And which part of the bible should be followed nowadays?

[ June 03, 2003, 09:30: Message edited by: Morgoth ]

 

Really, the answers to all those questions will differ for people according to their beliefs.

I tend to believe animals have souls... after all, they're God's creation too, right? why favor us, especially since we're the stupid ones destroying everything we touch... (grumble, grumble, grumble)

I don't belive in a fire-and-brimestone Hell. instead, if your evil, you stay without God's presence for eternity. It would be the equivalent of being paralyzed, deaf, blind, mute, and unable to feel anything. ech, that'd drive me off the walls

 

Yago,

Chaos means chaos. "A mess, upside down" as you said in another post. And Earth did not come out of nothing, Earth 'married' the sky and not gave birth to the sky.

Chevalier, you say that God knows ecerything before it happens. Then why did He create us, the humans, if he knew that all this evil in the world would be caused by us?

Mathetais, couldn't you post a shorter reply?


Now a question:
Those who -truly- believe in God go to Paradise and those who don't believe in Him go to Hell.
But what if someone does not believe in God, yet he is a good person etc etc? And what about the people who didn't even heard of this God? And the animals? Is there a separate paradise/hell for them, do they come in the same paradise/hell with us or do they not go anywhere?

 

A sidenote on Lucifer:
I 've read a theory that according to comparative mythology the equivalent of Lucifer in greek mythology is Prometheus. Prometheus was the titan who gave the holy fire of the gods to humans without the permission of Zeus and because of his action he was punished by gods. Lucifer (Eosforos in ancient greek)means the bringer of light or the bringer of dawn and the fire that Prometheus gave to humans led to the dawn of civilazation. Lucifer gave the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, the fire is the knowledge of good and evil.

 

Yes, but Prometheus'(sp?) intention was good. He loved humans and didn't want to let them die.

 

And Lucifer's wasn't??

So God created Lucifer to bring evil and knowledge?? Are those two the same?

oh well, Ignorance is a bliss

 

Lucifer is exactly 'the bearer of light' in Latin. However, he has nothing to do with Prometheus apart from disobedience and mutiny.

In the Bible and apocriphes it's always stressed that his motives were selfish. Motives, not goals. He didn't really have goals, in plain words he changed priorities and started adoring himself in God's place. Metaphorical reference says he saw his own face and worshipped himself, creature, in the place of Creator, God.

@Alex: How would I differ from God if I could understand Him fully?

@Mathetais:

Sorry, pentateuch was written down in 6th century BC. Everything before that time was oral tradition. Jewish alphabet didn't even exist in Moses's times.

Another thing is that I don't believe we're in hell or in paradise. Yes, for those who will be saved, this world is the closest thing to hell they're going to get and for those who won't the closest thing to heaven they're going to get. Of course. But I don't believe believers will be saved because of the sole believing and I don't believe that non-believers can't be saved.

Last but not least, Christians who refuse to share the words of Christ oppose His teachings as He expressly told His disciples and therefore all Christians to go and teach in His name. Such thinking as 'I don't teach him because God could take him in my place' insults God and is the best way to score behind pagans.

Hmmm... I suppose I'll have to raise my poor cadaver from the chair and take that English Bible from the shelf for the upcoming quote war

 

Written My Mathetais

It must really have sucked beeing born as an aboriginal back in the days when the white men didn't control technology and couldn't make their way to Australia or even so didn't know of it.

Ironic. Engines, which are hot as hell, helped the aboriginals by letting the white man meet them so they could get the choice of choosing God.

 

Actually ... no, I couldn't. Not on these topics. See what happens when I leave something out? I get folk like Noblemen nibbling at the edges of my arguments.

So ... here we go about General Revelation and the book of Romans ... *sigh*

I don't make this stuff up, I just preach it. The poor aboriginie has a chance. General Revelation speaks to him/her about the reality of God and what is basically required. We won't find out how many were able to respond in faith until heaven, but God does take care of those who lived before the white man made steam engines.

(I know you were just being difficult ya turd, but there is always a good answer )

 

Romans 1:18-25

Just curious, was that the "argument" that condemned all native americans to hell, while the white men took their land?

And those nibbling at the edges, concerns people who were A) either born thousands of miles away from the bible or B) born into another religion. How can you even dare dashing away billions of people as nibbling on the edge of your convinience? Isn't that rude... {edited the peek of my own rudeness away. Sorry, Math I was just part confused/sad/frustrated at the moment with all this christian stuff. again.} I feel I spend more time pondering on it than most priest does. It would comfort me if you said you pondered on these things too, and just didn't take them for granted. *sigh too*. And I was/am not trying to be turdish. I am trying to understand what seems so obvious to you.

OFF topic;
Isn't it interesting that Christian priests in Denmark can now openly say that they do not believe in God, because they are in so much doubt of Gods existance but still want to preach the good, decent and honest ways of life in friendliness and helpfullness. My kind of priests. My life in a nutshell.

[ June 13, 2003, 23:57: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

Chevalier

Perhaps you are right but jews used to demonize the gods of other nations, who were hostile to them. Few examples:

Beelzebul - derived from the carchidonian god of sun Baal
Astaroth - derived from the egyptian goddes of love Astarte
Azazel - derived from the canaatite deity Asiz
Belphegor- derived from Baal-Peor god of Moabites
Moloch - derived from Milcom, god of Ammonites or from the babylonian Malik

More detailed info here

 

There's even more of such examples and in the Bible alternative names are used or it's simply said that this and that nation worships this and that daemon (under given name).

The story of Lucifer is basically the one of Samael (the same person even, the name means 'the ligh of God') who was the angel-in-chief up to the said moment of mutiny against God. Then his name changed to Satanael, 'the enemy of God'.

Although you are more then likely to find more or less similar passages in other religions' myths and apocriphes, it's no foreign deity. Of course in polytheistic religions lesser gods are less powerful than God' angels, but that's a different thing.

 

Aaaaaaaaaahhh... So many posts but no one have answered my question.

Anyway. I think BOC is right. Same with Bhaal(I think another name name for Satan) and Baal(one of the Phoenician gods)

Off topic:
I saw last night a film on TV about a (black) detective who investigated a case. Behind the murders was a fallen angel with the name Azazel(sp?).

 

Milton draws on a lot of this stuff in Paradise Lost. If you want a light read you could check it out.

 

Alexander the Great wrote:

The connotation of Chaos has changed over time. It used to mean "void/nothingness". The change came probably with theological influence -> Bible.

As I said before, there are different versions. Chaos in it's earlier connotation meant "nothingness". And Gaea gave birth to Uranus. And then she married Uranus. And then she gave birth to the Titans.

http://www.ancientgreece.com/mythology/mythology.htm

http://www.loggia.com/myth/titans.html

http://www.etymonline.com/c3etym.htm

 

Ok, Yago. I believe you now.

I didn't know that. I thought Gaea("gaea" is an ancient word for "earth", but anyway) and Uranus(means "sky") co-existed and then mated.

As for the titans, I don't know the ancient meaning of the word but now means something huge and big because titans were huge, giants.


But still no one answers my question...

 

Are you saying that God's creation was flawed?

Ah, but Jesus taught only those who came to him, he didn't come to them..
So actually a missionary going to farawayistan to preach is going a little bit the "wrong" way.

@Mathetais

The Aboriginals had an own religion who they hardly questioned, it would be weird to suddenly question his religion and become a Christian, while he never heard of the son of God!
And even if he did believe in God, he would still go to hell, because his greatest sin was being born.

 

Personally I think the Christians should ease up a bit. God didn't create them in a nutshell. Like the danish priests. They are easing up. There are so many logic flaws with this whole heaven concept, not science concepts nor purely faith, but horrible logical errors, that even if God exist he did a terrible job and isn't worth the effort. Traditions are apparently very hard to come by and the words in the book can maintain almost any belief with its cryptic lines in old languages and purely sweep away logic with words.

Christianity is a very very young concept evolution- wise. Only a few thousand years has it has to adapt. next to the human race, which biologically need well more than ten thousand years to adapt. The best thing that ever happened to Christianity is that recent fact that danish priest don't have to believe in God anymore.

I am very well aware that change and adaption is frustrating and dangerous to Christians' well foundated life. Its naught futile for a human as an individual to accept that he/she is spending a whole lifetime, countless of hours, on studies and understandings, if not in vain then in disdain. I am very well aware of that tradition can easily be circular argument itself, with no scrubbles to a human mind. And cryptic palindromic sentences defy logic at any chance they get. Its clear that million of minds standing together, with the inbuild human nature of getting results and achievement for hard work, are impossible to change from the outside of their more or less permeable nutshell.

The day of Revelations will indeed come to Christianity. Believers or not. But not from the outside, but from the inside. I am not the first one to write this. And I am certainly *not* the first one to think it. And I'll definately not be the last to claim this.

[ June 16, 2003, 13:15: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

Nah, have you been reading some manichean heresy again?

Jesus said that He, like a doctor, came to those who needed treatment and not to those who were well.

Being Christian isn't prerequisite for salvation. It's only prerequisite for being saved through Christianity - people should remember it's God who decides saving before they say that for example the other branch of Christianity is all going to Hell.

I beg to differ. This way it would the be best for Christianity to stick to philosophy and drop the faith in God. Consequently, no church whatsoever would be needed and the whole organisation would be pointless - a philosophy school would serve better. What's more, people who no longer believe in the very source and core of Christianity, which is God, aren't Christians, so what they believe in is not Christianity. From the perspective of the church they are rather lost sheep than outsiders, but of course up to a point. Certainly, the negation of it's very basic principles isn't a good thing for Christianity.

 

Churches are very well needed. As a haven for words of kindness and honesty and fairness. Churches as a concept outlives God in so many fruitful ways, that God is more of a hinderance to mankind than a benefit. I have faith in those recent changes.


Something is sturring inside the nutshell. We kind people outside, are its nutrious soil. not its enemies. I sincerly hope that one day a magnificent three will flourish from the shell, with all religions as its lifegiving leaves. And we can finally grow into heaven from the first tree in the garden of Eden. I know I am centuries early with this. But I have a strong faith in that it will happen. So I linger with much peace in my life outside the shell as you do inside of it. And you cannot argue faith with the book.
Amen. Take a moment, to think.

[ June 16, 2003, 13:39: Message edited by: Nobleman ]