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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alan Markoff who wrote (18592)	6/28/1998 8:38:00 PM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 39621

Alan, I am not trying to tear down the Bible. One of the things I am saying is that the Bible can be used to prove or disprove almost anything at all. When you add to that the fact that there are many different versions, depending upon what denomination you belong to, some with different chapters added and/or removed, and that there have been errors due to misunderstandings of the subtleties of the original words while translating it, and that new sayings of Jesus were discovered in Thomas' Gospel in 1945, but are not in the Bible at all, it is just impossible to say "But the Bible says so!" and use that to make any point that cannot be disputed. pbs.org pbs.org While I see very long posts here full of Bible verses, they seem to sometimes be utterly lacking in spirituality, and some people here use them for very negative purposes. In fact, the Bible, and arguing about what it says, often seems to be a very alienating and divisive exercise, particularly when the Bible is used to discriminate against groups of people. Certainly Jews, women and homosexuals have suffered as the result of using the Bible to exclude. Jesus was a very forward-thinking person. He believed that that the end of the world was coming immediately, and certainly right after his death his followers were waiting for it to happen, and nothing did. His followers then extended the timetable, and we are all still waiting. I guess one question I have is--if Jesus is the son of God, and the Bible is the word of God, why didn't the world end when Jesus thought it would? That in itself would tend in any kind of rational world to prove that Jesus didn't really know what he was talking about, and was not divinely inspired, although it certainly doesn't take away the positive aspects of what he did on earth, as a prophet perhaps like many others we have been privileged to know. pbs.org I also think that if everyone really backed off from their everyday lives, and floated above the earth and watched all the arguments about religion, all the wars about religion, and also just watched all the Christians who are trying to live exactly under the rules of two thousand years ago instead of trying to imagine what Jesus would do today if he came to earth, they would all be amazed at their shortsightedness. A religion must be alive to nurture people. The Bible was written by people who were ignorant of much in the world, and were heavily influenced by the pagans who came before them. They were superstitious, and had all sorts of beliefs that were conveniently dropped because they no longer make sense. But it seems that the parts of the Bible that are the most narrow and hurtful and male-dominated have survived. Here are some things that have been dropped: YOU ARE GOING TO HELL IF YOU.... ...eat fruit from a tree less than five years old. [Lev. 19:23] ...cross-breed animals. [Lev. 19:19] ...grow two different plants in your garden. [Lev. 19:19] ...wear a cotton-polyester blend T-Shirt. [Lev. 19:19] ...read your horoscope. [Lev. 19:26] ...consult a psychic. [Lev. 19:31] ...cut your hair. [Lev. 19:27] ...trim your beard. [Lev. 19:27] ...are tatooed. [Lev. 19:28] ...plant crops for more than seven years. [Lev. 25:4, Ex. 23:10-13] ...bear a grudge. [Lev. 19:17] ...collect interest on a loan. [Ex. 22:24] ...insult a leader. [Ex. 22:27] ...mistreat a foreigner. [Ex. 22:21, 23:9] ...spread false rumors. [Ex. 23:1] (Sorry, Pat Robertson!) ...drive a Mercury. [Ex. 23:13] (Look it up.)