(1) My background
Yes, I have studied bible in the past. I cannot say I understand
it from head to toe. Anyway, who in the world can claim they
understand 100% of it. Further, I studied the origin of the
bible.
may i ask your motive of studying the bible? did you really
study it for the sake of finding help? did you study it for the
sake of finding the loopholes in the bible? did you study it as a
person opened to teachings? im not going to assume anything, so im
just asking you questions so you can realize what im trying to
imply here...
(2) "bible cannot
hold on its own"
If you read it with an open mind. This book creates more
confusion. I don't have to explicitly tell you which verse. You
will know which verse if you read with an open mind and read it
critically. (If you realy want me to pinpoint, please read the
first messgae of this thread by Ex-christian. I can also add more,
but I don't want to.)
when you read something, may it be literature, the bible, short
stories, or any other sort of books, if you know, or think you know
something about the book, you tend to recieve a baised mentallity
into thinking before you even started to read the book, truthfully,
are you sure you really read it with an open mind? or did you
already have a bad conception of christianity.
of course, alot of people who read the bible, have a hard time
understanding its logic, and that is not to say that i wont be like
this majority, i do have times where i cant understand the logic of
the passages, but this doesn't mean that its a loophole of any
sort, the bible is written in the old'en times, which if you had
studied the origin, should have known that in olden times, books
which are written are not written to directly represent the text
they appear as. if you had never lived in the olden times, what
basis are you making that you have studied and understand the whole
bible?(even if its not 100%)
(3) religion creates tension
Quote
in christianity, god does tell us that in certain times where
non-believers do go over-board, we should do something about it,
but this isnt the time yet.
Unquote.
Read your quote again, self-explanatory.
Even, jihad and the like is messing with the peace of the
world.
again you have explained that you didn't understand what i had
said, i wont be flaming you for this, because i didn't write this
clearly as well personally. what i was trying to warn the other
christian believers is that, at a certain point where non-believers
go over-board (scolding/flaming a christian just because they are
one, attacking them personally due to our religion, saying things
that a christian would perceive to be a wrong interpretation and a
wrong misconception to non-believers)
these are the times where christians shouldn't just sit down and
take the flow of words from non-believers, religion is a very hard
topic to debate or support on, because there would always be some1
who is against your religion in any certain moment in time,
(4) religion creates a defensive mind
Please refer to pint (3) above.
in what religion do you not have a defensive mind? even as a
non-believer, you build a defensive mind&heart(if you know what
i meant, not literally) to keep out religion. i heard of this very
creative idea from my own pastor who i respect alot, he once said,
when we first set up a defensive mind, we build a thin covering
around our heart, most things can get thru, but some will get
blocked off.
when we continue to hold up this defensive mind, we build a even
stronger covering, which blocked alot of ideas from coming tru into
our mind/heart, when we continue even further, to the point where
the covering turn into somewhat a diamond, almost every1 is unable
to penetrate into your heart anymore..
(5) I want peace in this world
I came in and participated in this discussion not to create
tension. I want people to use REASON and show TOLERANCE to other
people.
i personally have been tolerating what you guys have said cus i
was lazy to type a whole passage of text(ok, i admit being lazy), i
dont know what other christians think, but i have been using reason
to explain to you as well, even point out some misconceptions that
non-believers have not noticed they had wrong. if you think i
haven't been using reasoning to answer your questions, please tell
me, because as a human, im not perfect, i cant know my capabilities
like it was common sense to me and others.
(6) I advocate EVIDENT
EVIDENT is the answer. Today, we are seeing things evolving.
Example: virus. That is why I want to say point (2) to
everybody.
true, nowadays, we tend to look into the evidence of things,
namely called the sciences, i myself is a pure science student who
studies chemistry and physics. if you studied physics, you would
have known that there are so many more things that remains a
mystery to us, for example, the black holes, the big bang (who
created the big bang? how would an explosion just happen out of
nowhere?), the large universe, how small and insignificant we are
compared to the huge universe, these are all but mysteries, we are
not able to/or not even forever?(depending on if you subscribe to
the linear understanding that the sun will soon expand to the point
where earth might be burnt to crisp.)
for your last point, i would have nothing to say, i myself
aren't all-knowing, i dont have capabilities of a both a bible
genius and a science genius, i myself will try to find out an
answer to your question asap and pm you if i ever find an answer to
your question one day.
thanks for your understanding~
amen.