Originally posted by Darkmatic
What im interested in knowing , is if you take away the bible is there any reason why people would think God wants them to live a good and honest life ? The universe is centred around destruction and creation , it is a part of every life on this planet , stealing , killing , coveting , all in the name of survival . Why would God create a world which functions on the very sins the bible seeks to outlaw ?
I would imagine if there were a God that created everything , that it would not be your classical stereotypical loving caring God who stands for truth and justice , the law of this world is the way of survival by any means necesarry . So you would think that if God decided to created an environment or an ecosystem it would be in his reflection , the way he operates or thinks .
Just a though to maybe keep people open to alternative possibilities .
Well, the Bible might not be the best representative Scripture for what what has become a Synthesis of Higher Religions. You see, the Bible comes out of a mixed heretage -- a Nomadic Pastoral Warrior Tribe, which is a Bad Thing, but much of the Bible was plaguarized from Babylonnian Materials from out of the Sumaric and Zoroastrian Traditions, which was a good thing. So, essentially we must look to those sections of the Bible which foster and promote Civilized and Moral values. The Ten Commandments are a moralizing factor. The Sermon on the Mount are moralizers. But in both the Old and New Testaments we have encouragments to evil -- Paul created a Doctrine for Permissive Evil in the New Testament, and in the Old Testament there are perfect scondrels such as Jacob, and indulgent Playboys such as King David, and homosexual Prophets such as Samuel who abandoned his very own King Saul for his new Pretty Boy David... no, I do not mind Homosexuality, but it it is a horrible endorcement for political opportunism that the Bible condones such interested betrayals for all the wrong reasons.
so, I think it is a bit parochial when anybody isolates and focusses entirely on the Bible. The World is more Cosmopolitian than that. Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism and then Christianity, and then these influences helped to bring the Mahayana Transformation into Buddhism (when original Buddhism was not a sliver different from classical Stoicism -- peaceful enough but entirely amoral except where abiding by the law was conducive to easy living and being carefree), and these influences all made inroads into Hindu moral and spiritual practices. And then the Influences circle back. You see, where you have the Dogmatists of the various Religions, which all of the Atheists focus on because this is where all their arguments are addressed, but you have another Contingent that is perhaps more important ultimately , and this is the influence of the Religious Brotherhoods. All of the Higher Religions have Religious Orders of Monks and Nuns, and these people interact across Religious Divides. this is why you can't isolate and focus on the Bible, because where Actual Practice is concerned, there are external influences beyond just the Bible.
For instance, take Martin Luther of Protestantism. His big complaint against the Catholic Church is that it departed from the Bible. yeap, it sure did. Take Modern Islamic Fundamentalism. its big complaint against the more Civilized Schools of Islamic thought is that they have departed from the pure Koran. Yeap, we should all hope so. Also, we have factions of Hindu Fundamentalism which are now defending old Vedantic Racial Supremacy (after all, the Aryan Brahmins were a bunch of white tribes who invaded India from the North, and established the Chaste System as a kind of Apartheid System). These Modern Brahmins are reacting against modern sentiments of equality and universal brotherhood. Each Spiritual Scripture by itself has been found inadequate in dealing with all of the issues regarding Civilized Practices and Moralities, and other Moral Influences had to be borrowed from outside.
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