BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Bible Basics Is The Old Testament - Fact, Fable or Myth?

I just looked at this post you made a while back.

The question was is the Old testament fact, fable or myth?
But you (BiblBasixEditor) wrote...

Is there anything left to debate?
This is a debating forum is it not?

How can you say we will not challenge the bible as the word of God?
HAVE YOU READ IT???
It says God is one and not to make idols of God in the commandments. Yet everyone is painting a picture of a blue eyed blonde guy and calling him God!!!

On your own account, is that not blasphemy???
There are some HUUUUUUUUUGE questions here!!! Like who was Jesus praying to if he is God?
Why is Jesus kicking trees when he cant find food? Doesn't he know what time of year the trees he created bare fruit? Furthermore does God need to eat?

The bible makes a mockery of God. The only reason you wrote your silly rules is because you didn't want me to post anything that may let the people see the truth.



Well why don't you also ask everyone to make up their own religion? If you want people to understand the bible in their own terms, than every peado, rapist, killer & racist will come to terms that what they are doing is fine by God. They will find a reason to carry on doing what they do...
ITS WHAT HITLER DID!!

Hold on .... This is the bible basics forum afterall, and most of the time instead of people posting about the bible they are posting attacks on it. God can handle your attacks, but lets not attack the forum moderator.

Now to answer all your rants......



who is everyone?

In the past artists have potrayed JESUS as a blue eyed blonde guy but I have yet to see a painting of God the Father. To be historically correct Jesus was not a blue eyed blonde. He was jewish, an isreali, a member of God's choosen people, NOT a European.

Last time I checked these paintings were just an artistic interpretation of a historical person. I'm pretty sure no one has bowed down and worshiped the painting. I may be wrong but I think it would be pretty strange to see someone at a museum worshiping a painting. You are also out of context - they were painted to help illiterate peasents identify with Jesus as human. Pretty hard for them to identify with a race that they never saw on a daily basis. Were talking about a time when people rarely travelled out of their village and wouldn't of known what a jewish person looked like. The goal was to show Jesus' humanity so they could understand the historical figure.

I can't speak for God, I can only interpret and offer up my opinion of what it means. Since idols were objects that people bowed down to and worshiped they were more important to the people than the real creator, or God himself. They were empty pieces of wood or gold that could not help the people. God's words are there as a parents to help and guide.

Would you allow your child to believe that at rock was their father? Would you not tell them that the rock is not their father and that you are?

God has to take it up a notch because at the time it was written there were 100s of false gods being worshiped, 100s of rocks. The way it is written is in an authoritative voice so that his children would listen.

When your disciplining your children do you use nice flowery words or a stern bringing down the law language?

An idol in today's world would be money... On it's own harmless, unless you begin to worship it, unless it consumes you and you can't get enough, it and what it buys is more important than anything else. If Jesus came tomorrow and said, me or it and you choose it. That's what an idol is a choice of a thing over God.

As for if Jesus is God and God is God who is God.......

Jesus is the Son of God, the humanity or body of God. Jesus was human as well as God. I know extremly confusing and there are theologians still trying to figure it all out. The best I can come up with is this:

God the Father or the head
Jesus the Son or the Body
Holy Spirit of the Spirit

Just as we have a mind, body and spirit so does God. It's like asking an ant to understand how we are made up, who we are. Just because the ant can't fathom who we are, doesn't mean we don't exist. Jesus is not God the father, he is God's Son. He stands at the throne of God and is our lawyer at judgement day. He is our mediator. This doesn't make him any less of God it just makes him the bridge between God and us, our life line.

Jesus was fully human and fully God. While on earth he was just like us, he felt pain, hunger, fear, love and compassion. He came to show us what God wanted us to be, he came to fullfill the laws of moses because the people were not comprehending the words, they needed a role model, they needed to be shown.

This has gotten way too long but I hope it clears it up for you.

I forgot something....

Jesus was a gift from God. He was the sacrifice needed so that we could be pured upon judgement day. It is with his blood that Satan was finally cast from Heaven and we were finally saved.

Satan has used those in power in religion to denounce it and to turn people away from God. Satan is a deceiver and uses deception as his tool to lure us away from salvation because he has lost it. Our perception of him as an evil in it's purest form, ugly and scary is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo wrong.

Satan is the angel Lucifer, the most beautiful angel created. So beautiful that he became vain and started looking to himself instead of God. So vain that he believed he knew better than God, that he could do what he wanted and still remain in Heaven until Jesus was sacrificed and he was cast out.

These are the same lessons he uses to convince us to turn from God, to start looking to ourselves. We are not God we cannot re write the Bible. We are only ants with a glimpse of a large shadow.

Carennedy, if you look at the paintings of Michaelangelo and William Blake, for example, both portray God as an elderly man with the white flowing beard and distinctly definite Westernised features.
Go into any Roman Catholic Church - today - and you will see statues of both Jesus and Mary looking distinctly 'pale and interesting'. And most Catholics (particularly the older generation) will tell you that they view these statues as a useful personification of those they are praying to....
Of course opinion of Jesus's temperament, and intention has changed over the centuries, and the interpretation of The Word has also undergone some metamorphosis. That's undeniable, because as Time has worn on, and we have supposedly become more 'enlightened' as to the original intention and message of the Holy Scriptures, so it has become evident that the way the message has been transmitted has also shifted.
If Christianity were as completely united in its interpretation of the Word of God, we would find fewer Churches proclaiming themselves the One True Church. Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, Protestants, Anglicans and Roman Catholics all vie side by side, to project the Word of God in the way they see fit....And unfortunately, amongst some of them, there is no Love lost...
This is not to say that all other religions have no problems. Far from it. Mysoginy is still practised in many of them, Buddhism being no exception, although there is a great deal of current evolution within different Schools of Buddhism to redress the balance... but to pretend that Buddhism and other callings are both infallible and blameless, would be naive, blinkered and biased of me. I'm not here to try to gain one-upmanship, nor to attempt to label Christianity inferior or flawed.
I am merely adding my experience - as a previous Roman Catholic - to the pile, to maintain the discussion, which I find both interesting and educational.

Thanks guys....

Regarding the paintings... your right, can I plead too early in the morning as a defense. I can't sleep and that's why I'm online, which of course isn't helping the getting back to sleep.

You are correct about the division of theologies being the issue. This is also why so many are able to come to a forum like this and question it so readily. Christianity has opened itself to reform and constant questioning. No one church has the right to say that they are the true church on the true path, to do so is vainity in itself. That said I do believe that Christianity needed to reform itself from out of the corruption of the Catholic Church. Although non christians used the Catholic Church for their own gains at the detriment of the church. Satan used deception to alter the intentions of individuals within the church and as a result the whole church needed a reformation, which has resulted in the huge amount of denominations and even splits within denominations.

I firmly believe that religions that can stand up to constant attacks and question itself as readily as Christianity have merrit in themselves.

Which is why I find it so puzzling that we have very little inter-denominational discussion and engagement in the Buddhist forum. Nobody ever comes in and asks questions, nobody ever comes in and engages in lively debate, and nobody ever comes in and makes enquiries about Buddhism, what makes US tick, and gets into a lively discussion on Buddhist Doctrine.

I mean, threads have started, but well, I'll be danged, they've never gotten anywhere!

care to discuss why you think that might be?
I'd be genuinely interested....

Because everyone has a bone to pick with a christian and everyone has an issue with the historical church.

They are ready to attack because the feel we have injured them in one way or another.

Or they want to prove we are wrong so they can prove they are right, ie. muslims.

The other reason is so many people think they understand christianity and what it means, so they have an arguement. Other religions aren't as readily avialable with their information or we didn't grow up with it so we don't understand enough to have an argument for or against.

Another is that most people lump all the denominations together and the sins of the father sorta speak.

Christianity isn't ethnic it doesn't belong to just one race.

Chrisitianity as well has gone out into the world to convert which is an issue for many.

I don't know anyone angry at a buddist, I know buddists but no one that has an issue with them being buddists. It's seen more as a ethnic religion, non aggressive, and no threat.

Wow, that is interesting!
Buddhism is one of the fastest-growing religions in the UK.
It's considered 'Ethnic?'
I just downloaded this definition from the Oxford online dictionary....

ETHNIC
� adjective 1 relating to a group of people having a common national or cultural tradition.2 referring to origin by birth rather than by present nationality: ethnic Albanians. 3 relating to a non-Western cultural tradition: ethnic music.

� DERIVATIVES ethnically (adverb) ethnicity (noun).
� ORIGIN Greek ethnikos �heathen�, from ethnos �nation�.

I'm flattered that it's not considered aggressive, and not a threat. That's a wonderful characteristic, in this day and age, and i thank you for that view.

I hope I don't come over as attacking, confrontational or argumentative.
I used to be a practising Roman Catholic, but I had many issues with what it required of me.
Additionally (and I've said this before, many times) I think it's not so much what the religion teaches, and it's fundamental message i often have personal issue with. it's those in charge. the leading Admin, if you like, and how thy chose to transmit and interpret in an often manipulative way. the problem is, it's often obscured, shrouded in doctrine and disguised as the real thing.

I hope Buddhism isn't dismissed as irrelevant or trivial, and nothing to really investigate by others because of course, nothing could be further form the truth.

IOncidentally, Buddhism had many different schools and traditions. It is also multi-cultural...there is Tibetan Buddhism, Eastern (Indonesian) Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism (Zen) and of course, Buddhism in India, where it all began.
Additionally, there is now a very strong community of Western Buddhism, with orders all over Europe, (France, Spain, Italy, Holland) and the USA has a very strong and growing tradition too....

It is still concidered an Eastern Religion though and not a threat.