Awwww Moraine! What the hell is that? Touchy about religion? If I fervently and passionately believe in something I'll put forward it's case with gusto, but I'd never have a go at someone personally because of their perspective. It's like me looking at someone who's looking at the moon with a powerline in front of it, but seeing no powerline myself. We could yell at each other about whether the moon has a line in front of it or not but it'd be pointless. Both of us have a different PERSPECTIVE. The truth is ultimately there but what someone sees is what they see.
Have I ever had a go at you?
Anyhow fighter-thief you raise a valid point, one that I as a commited christian was thinking about early last year. The bible was indeed written by humans, and the selection of the books done by humans. Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant movement against the Catholic Church argued against the inclusion of the book of James for example (he lost). There is a group of books called the Apocrypha that were not included in the Protestant Bible.
My questioning was why have no new books been added? God is very much not silent to those who converse with him all the time, and I've read many 'God inspired books' by C.S.Lewis or John Stott to name a few that have been written since.
Also if falliable humans have received, written and collected the works, could there not be errors?
I came to the conclusion that it was bigger than me, and that my God was in control and whatever 'got through' is there for a reason. Perhaps even seemingly contradictory sentences to allow both the person who sees the powerline and the person who doesn't to both agree that the light of the moon is a beautiful thing.
To me God is bigger than a flawed interpretation or a failing messenger. My relationship is after all with 'him' after all. Would we stop seeing a lover because their mother passed on a message incorrectly? Only if we didn't know the lover well enough to recognise an inconsistency in the message. The bible is only one of the ways for God to 'speak'.
Cloudbringer glad to hear another Christian on the board. I think Zoratorak is too from some stuff he's said.
I think talking about religion with those you don't know super-well is fantastic. As long as respect of anothers right to individual thought is maintained and ridicule or vehemence avoided it's the stuff of hour long conversation, and deeper friendships.
I was in a church last night with 13 000 members here in Singapore. 73% recent converts from mainly Buddhism. I've read extensively on Buddhism and Hinduism and New Age (neo Hinduism), so appreciate where they're comming from, and why they feel such joy now. I had the start of what will be a series of exiting conversations with some of them last night.
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