georgerussia

Could you please try again then? And when you try again, could you please also address questions/comments from my reply? This would save time for both of us. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

First, this is not the only error in the Bible. I have mentioned more in this topic; you can check them. Second, if we admit that the Bible contains errors (even one), this means that: - the Bible was not inspired by omniscent and onmipotent God, or His words were changed during the last 2000 years. - you cannot build any religion based on the book, which contains errors. There may be other errors as well; how would you know where they are? What if God originally meant that you have to kill non-believers to go to Heaven? There are several problems with so-called Bible "literary interpretations" as well. The most important is that if the original is ambiguous, and there are no other soures to do a cross-check, there is no way to prove your interpretation is correct. You can interpret it this way, and I can interpret it in contradicting way. Obviously our interpretation cannot be both correct, so at least one is incorrect. More important is that our interpretation could be both incorrect as well. At the end you have to believe in the interpretation as well. This makes no sense to me. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I haven't met you yet, but I have met one of those ex-psychiatrists :) We got several drinks, and he talked a lot about those old times, and how things worked. And so? That system did not target weak people - there were simpler ways. Their "customers" were the most strongest and influent people, known both in USSR and sometime around the world. And their "success rate" was close to 100%. As a separate remark: it is much easier to die for something than, for example, become blind for the rest of your life. Well, at least I do it - we spent this weeking in Perris tunnel with my wife and daughter, and I managed to made 5 skydives :P * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This quote is incorrect. I personally "looked for it" since I was teenager, and my neighbor I loved to talk to was a Catholic priest (and a very patient and smart one, I have to add, because I was even worse kind of a$$hole than I'm now). So far all the "evidence" I have found, and I have shown was based on beliefs, not on facts. Which makes your quote a chicken-egg problem: you need evidence to believe (because there is no factual evidence), but the evidence will only become the evidence when you believe. So could you show us this evidence? So far ALL the evidence I was shown and we discussed ended up as "well, you have to believe in that". Which disqualifies it as evidence in my eyes. Let's start from the first one. I usually never discuss it with believers, because they cannot prove it, and it makes any discussion useless. However, as you claim you have evidence, let me ask you: do you have evidence that God ever exists? Just remember I'm looking for evidence (read: facts), not explanations or theories? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It is very easy to say something like that. But at the same time it is completely useless. Maybe I didn't understand what you meant, or there is still possibility that your reply was not clear. It would be waste of time guessing; could you please elaborate your answer? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This is correct. The problem is that you may not live long enough for this. Would it help you when you live in a country where reading Bible was a crime that you know that it probably won't be a crime 10 years after you die? No, you would not - you'll change. Even the Soviet Union psychiatristic system was very good in this (you probably know how modern narcotics and good psychiatrists can change a person). I'd suggest you some scary books, but I'm not sure there is English translation available. And yes - in a very unlikely case you don't change, you'll be shot. No kidding, when the majority is fighting, they are cruel. Unfortunately you completely ignored this part of my posts where I'm talking about changes based on beliefs and morals, and why those changes are bad. I'd like to hear your opinion on that. P.S. Could you please stop quoting your posts in bold? It is harder to read them that way. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

But you didn't ask for scriptural reference. I'll save our time for the rest of discussion with the following question: what book this doctrine is based on? And so? There are several opinions available. You stick with one, I stick with another. As it is typical in the Bible discussion, neither of us could prove he is right, because it leads to interpretations (and beliefs in those interpretations). And the first link describes it in the best: Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 contain two similar version of the Ten Commandments. Both Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 appear in the King James Version of the Bible as "Thou shalt not kill." This obviously cannot be interpreted literally, because people continually kill plants and animals for food. It has generally been interpreted as meaning that one should not murder a human being, except in cases of self defense or warfare. Christians are divided over whether these verses include suicide. Religious conservatives tend to say that it does; many liberals believe that there are circumstances where suicide is morally justifiable. To make it clear, let me rephrase it in the following way: "and some Christians believe that suicide is one of the worst sins according to their interpretation of the Bible". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, depending on your position about anything there is either a lot of debate, or not enough debate... However this was not the main idea of my post. I wonder why you missed the rest. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Your belief does not prove your point. I have shown several serious examples of contradictions inside modern Bible, which is - as we're told - a Book You Need To Learn How To Live From. That's what everyone is saying. However let me remind you about one thing. More than two THOUSAND(!!!) years have passed since introduction of the Bible, but the people still cannot agree on what message it sends to us, and whether there is any message at all. And the problem lies in "interpret it correctly". How do you know whether you interpreted something correctly? Every religion has its own interpretation, which it claims to be the only true interpretation. At the end you have to BELIEVE that your interpretation is correct. This doesn't make any sense. You're hiding the facts. Bible says about TWO LIGHTS: Sun and Moon (and stars). While we do know that Sun is light (and a star, BTW), Moon is not the same light as Sun - actually Moon is the same "light" as water in my toilet bowl. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

By "protecting children" do you mean preventing children, who are not interested in porn, to see it? Or to restrict teenagers, who are looking for porn, to see it? The first task is easily achievable, and modern parental control software could do it. The second task, however, is impossible to achieve. Was it impossible to get porn when we were teenagers? No, it was possible - and you'd think it is much easier to control physical entities like video tapes and pictures. Even in Soviet Union, where porn was illegal, it was not a big problem to find it. Sure, the quality was crappy - but still it was real porn. I work in software development industry, and my company makes parental control software. I can say for sure it is not possible to create a bulletproof filter unless ALL content providers are willing to cooperate. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, people wrote about a lot of different things. Some of them were adopted (like trinity doctrine), some were refused. But by the whole definition of the word "doctrine" it only became doctrine when it was officially adopted. Otherwise Unitarians could say that the Unitarian doctrine existed at the same time as Trinity doctrine, even though I could hardly find any valid reference to Unitarianism before 16 century. Good point. So let's look on the situation: - some people wrote that the God is 3-in-one (the Trinity doctrine); - some people wrote writing that there were 2 entities - God and Jesus, who was or was not the God, his son etc. - some people wrote that there were several Gods; and so on. Because all of them called themselves Christians, the Church was forced to make a decision - because having multiple contrading doctrines is dangerous. But choosing a mainstream doctrine was also a major task, because it would turn off the Church everyone else who followed other doctrines. So it didn't happen before 325 - we didn't have a doctrine, just several different teachings. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

If someone brings a crappy analogy, the best way to show it is usually bring another, very similar analogy. You consider it crappy because the original one was crappy as well. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Why did they ban smoking in school? Nobody smoked in my school anyway. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

http://www.religioustolerance.org/sui_bibl.htm http://www.christiananswers.net/q-dml/dml-y038.html http://www.christiananswers.net/q-dml/suicide-and-heaven.html Most sources agree that a Christian, which commits suicide, will not go to Heaven, as commiting suicide is a serious sin, and you obviously have no chance to fix it before the Last Judgement. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Nope. Laws are for good guys. Bad guys do not care about them. And I don't think a person who is going to murderl someone would care about violating one more law. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This is exactly the same case, like having punishment for profanity violates your Free Speech rights. Who, and based on what, said that military rectuiters must be allowed in schools? What about police rectuiters? Fire fighters? Street cleaners? Should we allow everybody to recruit in schools, or it is better and more productive to allow nobody? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

That's my concern too. Because the number of people using, buying and selling pot is much higher than for drugs like heroine, it is much easier for law enforcement to show a lot of drug fighting activity without doing anything. Obviously it is much more difficult to caught someone selling heroine than someone selling pot (and compare the harm done by the first person), but in statistic they are in the same column - "drug dealers". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The problem with your example is that no matter do you vote or not, it won't change anything - because the majority supports it. And I suspect your willingness would disappear quickly if keeping a copy of the Bible in your home would be punished by jail time, and as a priest of the only allowed church in your town you were required by law to report everything you learned during confessions to KGB. And yes, we had that too. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

No, the law does not work that directly. What you describe is forcing minority to follow majority moral. Real democracy is where everyone should be protected, not just the majority. This example is biased. Harm to environment is not something you either believe or not. There is scientic evidence available, and in the worst cases anyone can see it just with their eyes. However if the same group of people would lobby congress to enforce laws to protect Flying Spahetti Monster by banning pasta, this would be the example similar to what Christians typically have. The law should protect others in society from us, not ourselves from ourselves. That's why murder is illegal, but suicide is not - even though it is one of the worst sins in the Bible. The law should not restrict others from doing anything you don't like or consider stupid, but cannot prove harm to society other than your beliefs. Hey, the majority of people consider skydiving stupid - and some priests of Orthodox Church have said that skydiving is a kind of "suicidal activity", and therefore a sin. One of the best examples for this kind of logic is gay marriage. Sometime I get an impression that a lot of people treat "allowing gay marriage" is the same as "allowing some ugly, nasty, HIV-positive faggot marry ME". People take it too personal if you ask me. Personally thinking about having sex with another man makes me vomit. But it doesn't mean other should not do it ehther, and my reaction is emotion-based, and not logical - and the laws should not be based on emotions. Therefore I support gay sex and gay marriage, even though I would definitely object against someone's attempt to have sex with me (man or woman, so it really doesn't matter). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Okey, so your main concern was agains "pagan", not against "did not exist as a concept or doctrine before 325CE", right? But this doesn't make them invalid. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen were humans, which could make mistakes, including choosing the wrong doctrine. So what I'm trying to say is that: - Trinity doctrine didn't exist neither as a doctrine nor as a teaching before 325CE, so HairyJuan was right here; - The true origin of this doctrine is unknown. As you see yourself, there are several contradicting doctrines, which are based on the same source. This means that the gospels cannot be treat as a reliable source. So it would be fair to guess that this doctrine might be based on paganism as well, however I'm not competent enough to support this claim with evidence. This is very important point. If you have several doctrines, which are based on the same source, and they all seems to be equally valid - you cannot say that the source teaches this doctrine, as it teaches all three. And because the doctrines contradict with each other, we can say that the source basically does not teach anything, but provides ambiguous information which could be interpreted either way. Don't mind. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So you elect government representatives based on your view of morality, and you are fine that it will to govern you and everyone else according to your view of morality? Then could you tell me how your democracy is different from the "democracy" Taliban has? Yes, they did execute a Christian for his beliefs - but that's the polulation view of morality and justice, so it is ok, right? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Not long ago it was prestigious to have slaves. It is still prestigious in same places of the Earth. Yes, in the same way that banning profanity in schools is attacking your free speech rights. Schools do have a lot of restrictions. The list of clothes my daughter is not allowed to wear in school takes a page. But they are not based on beliefs. No. Our difference of opinion is with usage of the phrase "according to your/their beliefs". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I'd like to repeat my original question to make it clear: "It matters whether do you want to force others to act according to your beliefs." This one is clearly not a kind of example which would fall under this definition. It is not a belief that smoking is harmful for others who do not smoke; there is medical studies and evidence available. If they banned eating meat during Lent, this would be the case. But they didn't. I fail to see any "morality" case here. This would be a morality case if they banned eating beef in Silicon Valley on basis that there is a lot of people from India, and the cow in India is a holy animal. But again they didn't. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Yes, because my "universality" does not mean "accepted by everyone who share the same beliefs". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So let's make it clear. You have said that Christians have all the rights to lobby the legislators to stop everyone, including non-Christians, from doing things you do not like because of various reasons. But at the same time you definitely didn't like the example where some non-Christians lobbied (and actually got) the rights to force Christians stop doing things they did not like. Is this your definition of democracy??? ...and use it to force the government to tell others what to do. So what is the difference? So your definition of freedom is that you can change the laws you don't like because of your beliefs - therefore forcing everyone else living according to your beliefs? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *