You don't like the twist where a whole planet is sucked into a black hole?

Meh. I just thought the plot was pretty silly and the whole thing seemed like an exercise in sucking money out of people's pockets rather than in making an artwork of real quality like the originals.

True. There's also a severe problem with continuity, too.

WE KNOW!!!! Like the bit about there being a God, for example. I'm still waiting for the explanation as to how you pick and choose the bits that ARE literal, and the bits that aren't.

Easy. Wait till something gets disproved or proved irrelevant/offensive/immoral/horrific, then decide it wasn't meant literally.

I wonder how many betrothed virgins were stoned to death before somebody pointed out that when God said "stoned to death" he meant it as a metaphor for "whisper about her with the neighbours, blank her in the post office queue, and don't invite her to your son-in-law's wedding"?

I'm sorry, but this is Special Pleading taken to a whole new level. Spiritual truth? A statement is either true or false. You can't go around inventing new kinds of truth to attempt to give your beliefs credit.




Are you kidding me? The Judeo-Christian deity is portrayed as a mass murdering tyrant! He's a vile character who annihilates cities because they're being naughty, kills the population of the world in a flood (presumably including any number of sinless unborn children) and commands a man to kill his own son because He has hardon for blind devotion! How can anyone accept that as the basis for their morality!? Loving and merciful? I think not.

I thought the guy ordered to kil his own son was about to when God told him to stop as he didnt really want that. Like he was being Punk'd or some shit.

Yes, Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac as a test of his faith. He passed the test, so Isaac was spared. The story is the prefiguration of God's sacrifice of his own son.

And claymore, are you saying that poetry is meant to be read literally? Was Robert Burns' love literally like a red, red rose?

As for the stories you mention, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because Lot couldn't find any "just men" in the city. He was spared and told to leave. He begged God for the chance to save the city if he could find any good people, and God kept cutting the number he would have to find, but of course, he found none. The point is that God has infinite mercy, but if people turn away from Him completely, they won't be spared His judgement. Again, the Great Flood was an attempt to cleanse the world. The Ark prefigures the Ark of the Covenant and more importantly, the Ark of the New Covenant (Christ himself). We can only trust those killed by the flood to God's mercy. The truly innocent will presumably have been saved one way or another.

And how do you think Isaac would have felt about the whole situation? This is religion at its most vile. Its proponents want to see it infect every aspect of our lives and assume precedent over the most basic fucking elements of humanity, including familial love. Even as a piece of storytelling, that's no kind of moral example and should not be presented as such.



I don't think that Burns' love was literally like a red, red rose. Then again, I never claimed that the line possessed a "poetic truth" equivalent to your "spiritual truth." I don't imagine you'll find too many people reading Burns, Keats, Shakespeare or Coleridge literally. You will, however, find plenty of morons arguing that the bible is divinely inspired and that every word is God's literal truth.

(emphasis mine)

You've completely contradicted yourself in the space of one sentence. How would a deity with infinite mercy behave unmercifully?



I'm sure that was of great comfort when their lungs finally gave out and the water rushed in...

God is infinitely merciful but also perfectly just. He won't show mercy to those who reject him. He will forgive anyone who truly repents of their sins.

You can't say he's infinitely merciful and then put conditions on his mercy! By definition, that is not infinite mercy.

Nonsense. Being infinite does not imply that it's indiscriminate.

It is. Gods mercy is infinite if you repent, he can forgive anything and everything. If you don't repent then you have to face justice. For something to be infinite it doesn't have to be unconditional.

Sorry, I must have again missed the post where you explain how it's decided which of the stories in the Bible are true, which are to be ignored, and which are in the new 3rd category of "spiritually true".

It's fairly straightforward, to be honest. Poetry and prophecy (that is to say, almost all of the Old Testament, and arguably Revelation from the New) cannot be read literally. It would be pointless and stupid to read religious poetry literally just as it would be to read Shakespeare's sonnets literally.

The creation story is not literally true. The Bible is the story of salvation, not a science textbook. God creates the world (and, interestingly enough, creates it in more or less the order that the universe was created and life evolved) and then creates mankind to fill His world. The people writing Genesis had no way of comprehending deep physics or evolution, so it's not written, and it's not relevant to the story anyway. That's what is meant by "spiritual truth." What's going on in the Bible tells us the truth about mankind's spiritual life, not about the physical structures of the world.

It's also worth pointing out - and I'm amazed it's still necessary to do so, but there you go - that Christ wiped parts of the slate clean when it came to Old Testament justice. He told us to forget about "an eye for an eye" and instead to turn the other cheek if someone hits you, or if someone takes your cloak, give him your shirt as well. He taught that his sacrifice would atone for our sins and that vengeance was no longer part of God's plan. My understanding of the theology here is slightly sketchy, but as I understand it, Adam and Eve's sin stained mankind forever with Original Sin. This left us all tainted and prone to falling into sin. God gave mankind numerous opportunities to redeem itself, but no-one was able to do so, and so He sent His son to make the perfect sacrifice in atonement for the sins of all mankind. Christ showed us mercy and forgiveness if we accepted and participated in His sacrifice on the cross, and showed that keeping the Law was not enough (bearing in mind that the Jewish Law, e.g. "an eye for an eye" was established in order to regulate a wild society that wasn't regulating itself). We had to draw even closer to God by imitating Christ and his sacrifice. We must all "take up our crosses" and follow him.

So, everything in the Old Testament can be discounted as poetry? I'm pretty certain the Pope would disagree with you there Kenny.

Incidentally, Burns' love was "like a red, red rose". The word like indicates simile. At no point in the Bible do I remember them saying Jesus was "like the Son of God".

If you accept that a literal interpretation of Old Testament scripture is defunct, why cling to the New Testament as literal truth? I can admire the teachings of Jesus as a set of inspirational moral structures from which one can extrapolate a way of life, without believing in a God who divides the world into "elite" (believers) and "damned" (non believers).

If so much of the Bible, and the historical edits of the Church can now be thrown out as not convenient for the modern age, then I think the reasons for continuing with the pretense that it's all the word of some supernatural being can be safely thrown out too.

But it turns out that Adam and Eve didn't exist so the idea of mankind being stained forever is false. So the rest of what follows is based on a myth. You'd think God would have let his son in on the fact that the Old Testament was just metaphorical.

That depends on your interpretation of the Scripture. There are a few different views explained pretty well here. I have always read the Garden of Eden narrative as though Adam and Eve were the first of God's chosen people, NOT the first two humans in the world. After all, some way before they are mentioned, it's mentioned that "God created Man, male and female he created them." Also, after the Fall, Cain and Abel take wives. I don't think we're meant to believe that they married their sisters. Therefore, the Fall stained Man by propagation, not simple heredity.

Alot of the Old Testament is stolen from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the garden of Eden, the flood and other tales. It's another example of religion just recycling itself and taking what it wants from other myths and fables.

The contradiction there is that if A&E were the first "Chosen" people and fell to corruption, why would God allow those he did not 'choose' at the time to be corrupted, if they indeed were? why would he not 'choose' another pair of people to see if they would make the same mistakes, and if they did not it would prove that the serpent's temptation is not absolute and that man is capable of choosing God's will of his own judgment, not just by God's command?

The entire lesson that man is neither born with a clean slate nor able to live a life free of guilt is one thing that has managed to turn people away from "classic" religion in droves. If salvation depended on repenting everything "sinful" that you've experienced regardless of how much you enjoyed it and how few people got hurt, how many takers would there be?

I remember hearing quite a while back about a documentary a couple of years ago which discussed the possibility that Jesus might have actually been a Buddhist, or had at least during the eighteen years of his life unaccounted for in the Bible travelled to the East and studied Buddhist philosophies. When you consider some of the parallels between Buddhist pacifism and that of Christianity, along with what Jesus apparently expounded on self-reflection and discipline, it's very possible that these are what may have come to form the basis of Christianity as a whole. Of course, it's far from conclusive, and some of the evidence put forward seems to stretch a bit, but it wouldn't be completely beyond the realms of possibility; the fact that a completely pacifist religion like Buddhism was largely unheard of in the prevalently violent and tumultuous Middle East of the time might go some way to explaining why a religion based on such principles might find popularity amongst the peoples of the region, and thence amongst those of the rest of the ancient world.

Because God is infinitely wise and therefore chose the two people, Adam & Eve, who were most capable of resisting temptation. At that stage in mans development even they were going to fail but alt least they were given the chance. One they had failed there really was no need to have any further experiements.

Having a re-up isn't really necessary when you can see the past, present and future and have total knowledge of everything and everyone you have created.

And yet that's exactly what happened with the Flood, which ultimately didn't work either. If God was still not satisfied with the way the world is since Jesus' sacrifice two millenia ago, why haven't we heard sooner?

Oh, and if nothing happens up to April 2035 I'll assume this is the case.

I was going to try to answer your point. Then I realised that I have absolutely no idea what point you're trying to make. Can you re-phrase it so I can get my head round whatever your question is, please?

Why did God experiement three times with the human race (Eden, post-Noah and Jesus), with only the latter showing some sort of long-term success, if He knew the results beforehand as Joe pointed out? If God is omniscient in the sense of knowing everything at once how can He control His own actions or those of His creations?

God chooses to give His people free will. He gave them the opportunity of Paradise but they rejected it because they couldn't resist the temptation of sin. On a number of occasions He chose to destroy parts of the world in order to display His power and to rid the world of the most corrupt elements. No-one is without sin, after all. Sodom and Gomorrah and the Great Flood were exceptional, because God gave them chances to repent and improve their behaviour but they refused. The coming of Christ was different. This was God himself truly present on earth. His sacrifice on the cross made the redemption of all mankind possible because, as God made man, He was the perfect sacrifice. By dying, he atoned for original sin. In one sense, His teachings on how to live are irrelevant. In the end, what matters is that you are willing to join him on that cross, understanding that you must atone for your own sins.

Why did God do things this way when he knew what was to come? Who knows? God, by His very nature, is mysterious and unknowable. Again, we can only trust in Him and pray for His love and mercy.

Is it free will if he knows what the result will be? That suggests that the future is set in stone and that free will is nothing more than a set of buzzwords to make mankind feel better about itself.

Of course. If you sit watching a child looking at the fire, edging closer and closer you know the idiot is going to stick it's finger in there and get burned but it doesn't change the fact that the child chose to take that course of action. God has a similar relationship with us, he can see what we're going to do and how it will fuck up but it doesn't change the fact that it's us that makes those choices.

After going through a very grisly death for my entire species it'd also be nice to know people cared for the things I did while I was *alive*.

So God doesnt know, he makes educated guesses.

I should point out I have no problem with religion, I have a kind of belief system that works for me. I just cant understand how certain things can be both believed at the same time.

Wasn't that Old Testament and not to be taken literally, or is this one of the bits that should be taken literally?

You mean he reads the spoilers.

And the point in my first post remains in that the notions of no clean slate, perpetual guilt and instant forgiveness regardless of how you treat you fellow man aren't exactly condusive to an attractive belief system.

No, he knows. He knows if you will choose to turn left or right and which direction is better for you but he sits back and allows you to make the wrong choice if you so desire.

For the record, I'm a non-believer.

Indeed, I don't mean this disrepectfully to followers but one analogy could be like in The Sims, you are God and have the free will turned on. You know they are going to burn themselves while cooking burgers but you let them carry on (as it's funny).

See that just doesnt make sense. If he knows 100% what will be done then that means its set in time and all we are doing is following a path, and that free will a only a facade.

It doesn't. If you go back in time and observe the world you'll know what is going to happen but that doesn't inavalidate the idea that people are making their own choices.

God isn't the author of our times, we are through free will, but it just so happens that he knows what we are going to write even before we do.

I did say "in one sense." Of course, the social teaching of Christ and the Church is absolutely relevant because virtue is important and we should all strive to live the best life we can. My point was that if we fail to do so, a deathbed confession and conversion will still get us into heaven because Calvary was for everyone, regardless of when or how they find God.



Try reading what I wrote about that stuff earlier.

Also, many thanks to JTL. Even as a non-believer, he at least understands the basics of what's being discussed here and is willing to point out basic logical fallacies in other people's arguments. It's like having a debating partner who doesn't actually agree with you, but will still point out the flaws in the other side's argument.

Why roll the eyes? I was referring to the bit where you said

I was just asking if those examples fell outside of the above?

Okay, next - and most important - question: When you repent your sins, must you repent all the consequences of them no matter how harmless (or beneficial) to others they have been?

You don't repent the consequences of your actions, whatever they may be, you repent the actual sin, regardless of how trivial you think it is. Such as when I was a young un and went to confession, it would usually be stuff like being naughty in class or not obeying my parents. One lad confessed to having a wank and got a shitload more Hail Mary's for his penance. However, the priest commended him on being brave enough to ask forgiveness for it.

EDIT - Kenny, honest question here. I know you've said that you do work for the church. Do you do any teaching or speak at church groups? Despite me being an athiest, I can honestly say that you have a better grasp and understanding of spiritual matters than any RE teacher I had at school.

That's not really what I mean. What I mean is do you believe you should repent something The Church considers a sin in spite of proof that no bad things (or indeed that many good things) have come of it? That in doing so you must declare such good things shouldn't have happened?

Ah right, sorry, my bad.

Sorry Keith. I guess my previous answer wasn't as self-explanatory as I thought. Basically, huge chunks of the Old Testament are either poetry (Psalms, Song of Songs etc.) or prophecy (erm, all the prophets). Those just can't be read literally, because that's not the literary mode they inhabit. There are others (Chronicles, Kings etc.) that are historical and should be read as such, provided that you understand that Jewish writers three or four thousand years ago didn't write in the same way that historians do today. Most of the Pentateuch can be read in this way. Really, the Creation story is the only part that can't, because it's not really about "history" as we understand the word. It's about giving people a basic understanding that God created the universe and He created man to populate the world.

Also, thanks for the compliment. I work as admin manager for this project. Don't worry - one of my current tasks is to get the site redesigned and rebuilt. I have no remit whatsoever to speak on behalf of the Project or the Church. I just had very good catechesis from my mum as a youngster (and even now, on occasion) and I make it my business to know as much as I can about stuff that people are likely to challenge me on. I don't have a lot of Catholic friends, but I do have a lot of friends who are interested in one way or another, plus it's always good to know the answers to the so-called "difficult questions" that non-believers like to throw at you. It's funny though, because even if you have the answers, a lot of people still can't accept them. For example, you get the old chestnut "if God created the world, who created God?" But no-one ever questions the idea of the Big Bang creating an expanding, accelerating universe out of nothing whatsoever, in contradiction of everything we understand about physics. People can't accept that Jesus walked on water, but they'll happily accept the Higgs boson (which we currently can't prove even exists) as the reason anything has (physical) mass. It's all, to our feeble brains, utterly inexplicable. We believe it though, because it's the best information we've got. It's funny that amongst scientists, it's the particle physicists and cosmologists who are most likely to believe in some sort of deity, because they're the ones who spend their whole lives realising that what we can see and hear and touch in our daily lives is totally at odds with what happens at a microscopic and at a cosmological level.

Sorry, got a little bit off track there.

sephjnr - Can you give an example of what you mean? I'm struggling to think of something sinful that has good consequences. By definition, sin cannot have no bad consequences.

I must say that this is what really bugs me about Christian teaching. That ultimately faith in God overrides all the bad, evil things you've done in life and lack of faith overrides someone who lived a virtuous life. That is at odds with my own moral code and belief system.

See I just disagree 100%. if something will happen no matter what then how can you change it? You cant, making all your choices pointless. God knows what choices we will make so therefore those choices are set in stone and we are just following a path through time. YOu may think you are making choices, but in actual fact you are following the desicions put down by... fate?... rather than making a truely free choice.

I guess we are disagreeing more on the nature of time than the nature of God though.

I dont know if this is what he means, but what about stuff like

"Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges
of your beard." (Leviticus 19:27)

"...do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear
material woven of two kinds of material." (Leviticus 19:19)

There was an interesting program on I think it was National Geo this morning which was about storys that had been changed or excluded from the Bible over time.

It was a shame that I had to go to work because what I caught of it (storys about Soloman(sp?) that had been changed over time or removed completly) was pretty interesting and it was about to get into a story that took place before Adam and Eve and involved topics such as Feminism.

If you killed some one to save 2 peoples lives say. If i shoot a man with a gun and hostages i have commited a sin by taking their life (to my knowledge) but its a good thing as its staved two peoples lives.

Or say masturbating all the time but as a result curing Aids.
If I'm not sorry about either because of the good they produced from what god perceives as bad actions

or indeed just homosexuality

Agreed.

Although, with homosexuality, it is having an adverse effect i mean, if all were to be homosexual where would it leave us as a species? Homosexuals are doing nothing to continue populating the world and that in itself could maybe be seen as a sin? Let alone the moral questions which some people find themselves asking on the issue.