@The:
You can believe whatever makes you feel nice and cozy. Thats what religion is for. To hide your head in the sand while the world goes about its way with all of the violence and suffering and death that is involved. I dont care about what a religious persons version of the world is. If people want to live in a cartoon Universe where anything is possible,so be it. But when you start to enact local,state and federal laws based on biblical nonsense or have national policy based on armegeddon and the “end times”,thats when I will confront the religious nuts head on. People have been saying the end of the world is right around the corner for two thousand years and yet here we are. Question: Does anyone here remember 500 years ago? Answer: No because you were dead.
          Its odd that no-one has mentioned my criticism of Genesis. But I know why. No-one can rationally explain all the fantastic lapses in logic concerning it. I am always amazed how frightened people are to question the beliefs they were taught as children. As we mature,we eventually let go of Santa,tooth fairies, the boogey man. But we cling to these afterlife things and are afraid to let go of them. Its completely understandable,though. It takes a strong person to accept the fact that life is random and this mortal life is all that there is. Any wimp can say " I believe!! I believe despite what is in front of my eyes!!". Faith is a weakness of the human mind. What is the difference,really, if a scientist says " You are just an ape that evolved from slime over billions of years " or a christian preacher saying “You are just dirt that sins.” They are both quite depressing,except we have massive evidence for one (evolution)and scant,pathetic,mostly written evidence for the other.Christians now-a-days should really take history lessons about the church because there is a lot they can learn. They seem to think that the church just tolled bells,had mass and everyone was happy for the last two millenia. Actually,they were involved in some of the most heinous crimes in histroy,including the Holocaust,slavery and stealing money and labor from the poor to build their eyesores.Â
                       I would be a believer if there was the evidence for it. If there were THE BIBLE,the one-and-only unaltered BIBLE,where I could go and look at it,kind of like the Declaration of Independence and say to myself " This is THE BIBLE,the ORIGINAL BIBLE,completely written in its scribble-dot-dash format (not English of course) yet there it is. It cannot be burned or pages torn out because this is THE BIBLE,the LITERAL WORD OF GOD and cannot be destroyed or altered ,no matter what a mortal does to it. Is there such a thing? No. The Bible,especially the New Testament,was written over hundreds of years,edited,diluted,re-copied in error by monks,so it is just a plain old book. Nothing special.
What method do you use to determine the veracity of ancient documents? You seem to have a lot of knowledge in the area of ancient manuscripts, and I wanted to know what methodology you have used to arrive at your conclusions. But let’s forget the ancient writings in the Bible for the moment. I’m curious how you apply your thought to other documents of antiquity and the outcome of your investigation(s). Please explain. There are many other documents that could be discussed besides those in the modern day Bible.
Understand: I am not arguing about whether a given text is "the word of God." Instead, I am simply talking about old documents. I am sure that in school past/present you have discussed “old” texts besides the Old and New Testaments. I just want to know why you know what you know. Forget about the religious part of it.
I also see your talking about faith again despite not answering a word of what I said about it. Again, it is not the idea of “faith,” but the object of it that is what should be argued about.
Also, I looked back through your posts and couldn’t find an argument about Genesis to answer. Sorry if I missed it.
