Originally Posted by JET73L
THis is going to PO more christians than the "Can god make a stone so big, he can;t lift it?" question, but, theoretically, if this God/Lord/YHWH is perfect, he could make a text thatr is perfectly cleart and unambiguous, and either make it so that the text can be accurately translated into any future language, or edit future languages to allow pe4rfect understanding of the bible. Even if he had to work through a human avatar, he would still be able to guide his (the human's) writing, and make corrections in the book as necessary, without imposing on free will any more than he already had. This is correct, no? The only explanation, allowing for the perfection of the god of the chrisatian bible, and the imperfection of humans, is that the bible was pretty much made up and/or completely altered by humans who had no idea what the messages were, be they from some almighty source, or from quotes and fables that origianally contained wisdom with much more clarity, and that the god merely found that this bible would present no problem, and would not need to be eradicated or changed in the way of false prophets catalogued in said bible.
(note: bible=book. Holy Bible=holy book of the christian church. god=deity. God=name of someone called god, probably a deity.)
so lets play along with this, because this deals with a lot
Lets say in this scenario, that yes God is real. We humans call this God perfect, but then turn around and call ourselves imperfect. Then, we imperfect humans write a book about God, saying it is God's words. You brought up the subject of free will, God not wanting to impose on our free will as the maybe one of the reasons why God does not fix the bible.
But, you see there is another probem. Early we write a passage that reads basically as - nothing can be made if it does not come from God.
Have we a problem here? Yes. We just contradicted ourselves. We are saying, God is apart of everything that is. We just said God was perfect. But then called ourselves, who are apart of all that God is, imperfect. We have a problem.
This contradiction is evident in all monotheistic God based religions. We don't have to examine any further than this. In every one, you will find a passage or two that will lead to the belief - God is apart of everything that is. That God is perfect. The creation can not be separate from God. But of course all the rest says contrary - The God is up in the sky, separate from creation, and you are pathetic sinner.
Things get even more interesting when you add Jesus to the mix. He comes in and he says "Im God and Im perfect". We, since we started writing this book will look for anything to buy our way out of having to deal with some of the most mysterious things we wrote. We don't want to think about the all pervading God. That's too weird. That asks us to question everything.
It's much easier for us to see God as a being in the sky, outside of ourselves, judging us from above, then to see God apart of all life. So, Jesus comes around, GREAT. Now, we can put him on a pedestal, raise him above all the rest of humanity and use him as a way to explain "Look, only Jesus is one with God. Not you."
And we can further ignore the contradiction in our own minds.
Problem was, Jesus only added to the contradiction, which is at the heart of christianity. On one side, he says he is one with God. GREAT, lets put him on a pedestal and worship him. Problem solved. But then he doesn't stop there. Then he says something, off the wall crazy. He says, and you are one with me. So now this crazy man is saying we are one with him, which, consequentially, makes us one with God. HOLD THE PHONE, I thought we negated that belief earlier? Damn, I guess were back were we started.
For the while, we don't think about it. We don't think what Jesus really means, that he is one with God. We don't think about the possibility that Jesus is actually, a perfectly normal human being who realized oneness with God in the most Buddhist sense. Because that means what Jesus realized, we can realize too, too weird. Instead, we'll build a religion around him, to shut out his most important words. We'll blind the following generation. We'll turn Jesus into a God that you can not reach or be equal to. Even though Jesus has gone out of his way to show he feels equal to his own apostles through gestures, such as washing their own feet.
We'll ignore these things. We'll even say you can not enter into heaven unless you join our religion and believe exactly as we say, and do as we say. Again, again, ignoring Jesus own words that heaven is within you. Thus it is not a place you buy your entry to.
Just for any christian to say, God is perfect and I am not - is at the heart the greatest issue the human ego has had since being born.
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