If Christianity is true, why is there so much evil in the world?

[Ross Dolan]

I interpret it as the Bible including both old and new testaments being true. This would be why I include details from the stories in that book.

Here is the ending paragraph of a monograph I wrote a few years back in response to a diatribe about homosexuality:

AS FOR THE BIBLE: My personal opinion is that the best guess that can be made about the Bible is that it is a self-serving history of the early Hebrew people interspersed with a fanciful religious mythology. My opinion is that the best guess that can be made about the religious aspects of the Bible is that the people writing the material—the people inventing the god—put their prejudices into the mouth of the god they invented. Almost all of the anger, hatred, and prejudice against homosexuals today in our country has its genesis in the biblical mythology—and has absolutely no place in the hearts and minds of people supposedly as intelligent as we. It is my opinion that the unwarranted prejudice against homosexuals should end not because people are able to justify disregarding the more obviously silly ravings of what almost certainly is a mythical god…but because we, as an intelligent and basically fair species, should see such prejudice for the ignorance it is.

 

[Ross Dolan]

Jesus and this God are the same being, according to the religion.

Not entirely.

There are some "Christian" religions that do not consider them the same being.

There are some that actually consider the notions implied by the notion of "the Trinity" to be blasphemous.

 

[Ross Dolan]

Who recorded 'em. I must buy a tape!

Your #240 suggested you know about the recordings. I was merely following your lead.

 

[kudzu]

We've got poetry written down at least five hundred years later which shows clear signs of the appropriate grammar for the assumed time of composition; people had better memories back then. Homer survived as very long time indeed before being written down. And I'm only interested in his words, not imagined stuff.

Psalms is from Ugarit poetry and that is far older.. It WAS written down.

 

[iolo]

Like Socrates, Jesus takes for granted the mythology of the time he lived in. The interesting thing is to work out what they were meaning in terms we might use today. The discussion tends to get mixed up with mid-Nineteenth Century arguments that should have been outlived in our great-grandparents time.

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Paul had a supernatural relationship with Jesus.. so he would be like any ordinary Christian.

true......he wouldn't have been nearly so successful in growing the church if God didn't bless what he did as an ordinary Christian.........

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Psalms is from Ugarit poetry and that is far older.. It WAS written down.

don't forget......we've actually looked at Ugarit poetry in another thread and discovered it had absolutely no correlation to any of the Psalms.......you can't get away with lying about it again after you were proved to be a liar the first time........