biblical evidences,

[kryptic]

????
Any evidences of biblical stories?
Fact or fable?

[starone]

Good stories though aren't they? And make great films after they have been tarted up a bit.

[jno]

you're wasting your time trying to argue against religious hardliners, zabadak.

[beso]

jno pulls the ultimate inane biblical defence. Free of substance, devoid of intelligence.

[beso]

Exactly Fezzy. Just a novel and a poorly written one at that.

[Zabadak]

Jno //you're wasting your time trying to argue against religious hardliners, zabadak//. I agree jno, and it ceases to be fun once they resorts to insults and absurd generalisations.

[Zabadak]

Fezzy: your GENUINE interest does you credit. It can be tricky sometimes on this board, especially when things go off in different tangents, to keep up your end on a range of questions and comments.
As I understand it, the question is whether Lot was commended or condemned for offering his daughters to the citizens of Sodom. Possibly because the Sodom story has become a paradigm for justifying homophobia (which it isn't in other bits of the Bible), it's not easy to disentangle all the threads.Within the story there is no commentary on this particular action; he was later commended for taking the word of his visitors on trust and getting out of the city before its destruction. The story is simply told, and if your vote on his action in offering his daughter is wrong, then I have no issue with that: I think it was cowardly and morally mistaken, a conclusion that can relatively easily be backed up by other references even if none of them are specific to Lot. I certainly would not hold it up as an example of goodness, and I don't know any commentator in or out of the Bible who would.

[Zabadak]

...and if your vote on his action in offering his daughter is wrong should read ...and if your vote on his action in offering his daughter is that it was wrong... I was not implying that whatever you thought on the issue was wrong. Sorry.

[Cowtipper]

@Beso Just a little tongue-in-cheek.
Look at it as the fiction you claim it to be. Write a book report and justify why those people would act that way. God didn't tell Hitler to go kill the Jews. He(Hitler) offered no truth; he only justified his actions. (In the story) God did tell the people to go wipe out the Cannonites. People use whatever they can all the time to get their own way. The bible is one, law another, hand grenades... The Jews weren't being righteous when they retook the land. They were being obedient. God then laid down the law for how future battles would be fought and it didn't involve genocide.

[Zabadak]

One more for Fezzy \\Just a novel, then?\\
No, not really. Novels emerged as an art form in the mid 18th century. I expect you're just being provocative, but the Bible is in essence a collection of writings of various kinds collected because people thought they had value. The genres include tribal foundation stories, historical chronicles (though often written from a particular standpoint - it's difficult to see what an objective history would look like), lots of poetry, collections of "wise" sayings, collections of laws appropriate to the cultural milieux to which they belong (and many that are timeless), There are at least two works that are close to the idea of a novel, a story told to explore ideas: Job is one, Jonah another. There are books of prophecies, mostly not to do with predicting the future, but interpreting the present. Amongst these can be detected a thread eschewing the tribalist, racist (even fascist) God demanding blood sacrifices towards ideas of what makes for good living and an enlightened social conscience. That's not counting the "New Testament"
But of course, you already know all this. So, as you already know, not "just a novel". Much more besides.

[Cowtipper]

I'm far from a religious hardliner :P

[beso]

Cowtipper:
//The Jews weren't being righteous when they retook the land. They were being obedient. God then laid down the law for how future battles would be fought and it didn't involve genocide. //

The Nuremberg defence. Just doing what they were told. It is a pathetic excuse that modern intelligent people should be able to easily reject.

The reality is they were doing what their leaders told them. These leaders used God to justify their brutality. "God" later changed the rules because "He" realised the people were loosing the stomach to continue hacking babies from the womb of their mother.

The changes included in the Jesus myth were the same. People were turning away from the brutal God of retribution so a new description was built carefully incorporating the old prophecies to ensure continuity.

When they wanted the Romans to join they removed the prohibition against pork which they knew would be a big impediment to getting Romans involved.

Eventually they even accepted heliocentricity and Evolution. Some branches of the church have now allowed women as priests and accepted homosexuality.

In so many advances the church has impeded our progress only giving way when they risked irrelevance. All these changes but they still cling to the stupid old books full of twisted morality as the basis for their faith.

This not only makes no sense, it is dangerous because nutters will take the Bible at face value and emulate the hacking massacres exactly as they did in Rwanda.

[Cowtipper]

You failed to put it in subjective terms though. They had [i]seen[/i] God in the story. Fiction is what you called it, so fiction is how we'll look at it. And hiya Beso, its nice to hear back from you. Following orders isn't what I was talking about. Saul (the old testament one) didn't do what was told and got removed from the chain of command. He actually lost his kingship (is that a word?). They didn't kill him. Its enough reason for me to believe that Saul probably let more than a few get away.
I don't have any problems with anybody. I'm a live and let live kind of guy. You bring up man messing with words to justify means. We learned from Hitler didn't we? Harsh lessons- but we learned. Rwanda and Darfur weren't acts or men that believed in God. The crusades were started to solve unemployment but the propaganda could have been pulled from anywhere.

[beso]

One theme underpins much of the Bible. Do as you are told by authority without question. Those who obey are rewarded, those who don't are punished mercilessly.

Abraham was a hero because he was prepared to kill his son if God so wished. Lot was righteous because he left his home when he was told to. The list is endless.

God was used a way for those in power to avoid having to give a rational argument for their decisions. It is used today by the religious to avoid having to justify their position. It is a deeply intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible position.

Now if someone came up to you and said God had told them we all needed to do exactly what he said, how would you react? You would probably consider they had a mental problem.

What makes you think all this rubbish in the Bible was anything more than exactly the same thing promulgated on a far less sophisticated group of people who were gullible enough to buy it?

[Zabadak]

Hi Beso. If you believe "Do as you are told by authority without question. " is the one theme that underpins the whole of the Bible, then that's what you'l see, and you will ignore anything that doesn't fit - which is generally what you accuse "believers" of doing. There is so much wrong with your history (just who are "those on power" at the time of Jesus - the religious elite, the Jewish elite, the Romans, the early church leaders?) that it's pointless to start correcting it. One of the things which (for me) makes the Bible so interesting is that there are so many conflicting strands as people struggle with ideas about God, religion, what it means to be human.
I'l be absent for a while now, so if I don't reply it's not just because I'm bored with your posturing.

[beso]

The Bible goes back way before Jesus and the stories predate that book. The primary message is "don't question me" whoever "me" is at the time.

[Zabadak]

I am (obviously) well aware of the first part of your response. \\The primary message is "don't question me" whoever "me" is at the time\\ is all very well, but if that's the pair of blinkers through which you approach this collection of writings, then you may well find examples to bolster your argument, but will be ignoring a whole lot more that doesn't suit your case. As I said, that seems to be what you accuse "believers" of doing. And that's fine, so long as you're not claiming a more rational, sophisticated approach than the rest of the world. Thanks for not being offensive this time.

[beso]

I don't actually have any issue with the Bible per se, as a book. There are plenty of other gruesome stories in the world.

What I do object to is those who exalt its words and claim that it sets an example for all to follow. Such a claim is obviously and objectively ridiculous. If it has anything to teach us it is that one should understand and be responsible for our own decisions of morality and not rely on faith in the judgment of others.

All I am doing is subjecting the Bible to rational thinking. "Posturing" is a word better applied to the behaviour of those who claim that it is anything more than just an old book.