Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Thomas... Ill respond in more detail tomorrow, but that was an interesting post... and one that I agree on to an extent. At any rate, Im glad we can discuss these things without tearing each others throats out... and I hope my posts havent been too preachy either, and if they have I appologize in retrospect. lol I will say though, I dont think its always the case that new Christians dont sit down with other religious texts and read through them... even though Ive been a christian for the last three years I would still consider myself new to the faith in many ways. Growing up in a home that pretty much had no particular set of religious beliefs other than Buddhism practiced by my Dads side of the family, I did a lot of research... but what ultimately lead me to faith wasnt an emotional need or logical reckoning. Again, as weve discussed before... this is all objective so theres no real way to explain. But it wa s a personal experience that cant be reasoned out by any of those... the first time I ever felt God pulling me in the right direction was before I even became Christian, so at the time I had no idea what it was, though I have no doubt about it now. As for the bible being a guide, well, the short answer which is all I have the energy to write at the moment is that its another thing that believers and non-believers will be at a stalemate about for a long time. Theres no way for believers to prove its inerrancy and divinely inspired nature to the satisfaction of atheists / agnostics, and no way for the opposing side to convince strong-faithed believers with rational and acceptable proof since thats not all there is to our belief.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178479#p178479 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Thomas, thank you for pointing out that passage in deuteronomy. It gave me something to think about. I actually wasnt surprised to see it. It seems like most christians like to start with the New Testament, reading all about Gods love, mercy and grace, and about the works of Jesus. When I came to Christ, I felt like God was telling me to start from the beginning, so Im reading from cover to cover for my first go at the bible. I think when I read it though, that verse went a bit over my head.Heres what I can come up with on the subject. Yes, deuteronomy says he has to marry the woman he raped, but he also has to give her father 50 pieces of silver. I get the impression that was quite a chunk of money back then. As I recall, Judis betrayed christ for 30 sheckels, or pieces of silver, which if Im remembering right was a lot, so 50 being almost double that might be someones entire fortune. Also, having to marry the woman, the man will most li kely never be in a loving relationship after that, at least not without angering God further. If you have to marry a woman youve raped, shes probably never going to love you, and your entire life after that is going to be completely miserable unless you go and take a second wife, which its quite clear in the bible gets you punished further. I see so many people going around having affairs in todays society, taking second wives, living a polyamerous lifestyle, and so often they seem to lose everything, including their happiness. It may not be the physical punishment youre looking for when someone gets raped, but from experience, I think that often times the emotional punishment can be a lot worse and a lot longer lasting, though we may not always see the effects of it.It seems like the woman is getting the short end of the stick here. I think that God put much more emphasis on being unclean in the Old Testament times. He also had a lot of other ru les that dont make sense to people, such as anyone who has had their penis or testicles damaged being unable to join the congrigation. No bastard was allowed to enter the congrigation either. That is punishing the child, or the person with the physical defect. Sin also tends to lead to more sin. For example, a lot of rape victims want revenge on their rapest, when God clearly says in the bible, Vengence is mine. So even to seek revenge against someone who you believe has done you wrong is a sin. I guess in a way its testing the woman to see if she can stay true to God and not sin or remain unclean. and Im not pointing out that rape makes women unclean because I think that rape victims deserve to be punished or some similar nonsense. God even back then seemed to consider even sex unclean. If you had sex with a woman, even your wife, you were unclean for 7 days and could not make offerings until you were purified. This all leads back to the fact that God is the most holy of all beings, and will not tolerate any kind of evil or impurity in his presence, even if to us mortals it doesnt seem like the victim has done anything wrong. I know that seems like some very twisted logic, it certainly would have to me before I was a believer. I can even see why that would push people away from God. A lot of the people around me were afraid of what was going to happen when I read the old testament, because its the one that christians seem to get bogged down in the most and have trouble with. Animal sacrifice, slavery, rape, sexual sin everywhere, main characters of the bible murdering others, God tossing his wrath around everywhere you look, some find that pretty horrific. I think that to me at least, God has given me the ability to see things from a different viewpoint. I know that I will never grasp for myself why some of those rules were such a big deal to God without being omniscient, but I know that they were and that they were t o be obeyed unfailingly.One thing also to remember is that Jesus specifically said, a lot of this doesnt apply anymore after his resurrection, and even some before. For example, we were only supposed to eat certain kinds of food back in old testament times, but Jesus made all food clean in the gosple of Mark, before his resurrection. The new testament is the one Im the least familiar with, so I dont know where things stand on rape victims now. But what I get out of it is that were supposed to use the bible as a guideline, both literally and metaphorically. For example, some people take that passage about all food being clean, and apply it to other things, such as video games or music. I dont know that I necessarily agree with that, but my point is that only God knows exactly how the rules are layed out, and as mortals, all we can do is try to interpret that and fit it in to our various societies. As I said before, James also points out that in tr ying to spread the word of god, when we open our mouth, we get it wrong almost every time. I also believe that not everything
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Thomas, you have missed finer points when drawing your own conclusions on the laws regarding rape in the book of Deuteronomy. This book is certainly one of the more daunting books in scripture thus I want you to know that I dont fault you for doing so, but should you decide to read closely, you will actually find that rape is very heavily punished and taken even more seriously than it is in todays western culture.First, let us look at the differences in our culture today and the culture of ancient Israel. IN those days marriges were not the traditional weddings weve come to expect, even sort of feel obligated to have for the sake of society. While it was not uncommon for a huge feast to occur to show the celebration of a couple getting together, the actual marriage was the act of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman and the festivities doubled as both a party and an event by which people witnessed the couple entering the tent where they would sexually commit themselves to each other. Dewteronomy, from 13 to 17 state, If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town,Obviously, since no one was allowed to go in with the couple and witness their nakedness which is again something forbidden by God there had to be some way to certify the marrige. Evidence of the woman’s virginity would be soaked onto a cloth as proof of their consummation. This showed evidence of proper moral behavior in the community. Rather than the western culture expectations where a man and woman are pronounced husband and wife before the honey moon sex, this was not the case in ancient eastern culture.Let us now look very closely for just a bit at Exodus 22:16-17: When a man seduces a virgin who was not promised in marriage, and he has sexual relations with her, he must certainly pay the bridal price for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must pay an amount in silver equal to the bridal price for virgins.We find that a man who seduced a virgin who was not already promised to someone else was obligated by law to take her as his wife and pay her father immediately, even if the father refused to let him keep her, implying that this sort of seduction was completely the mans fault and his punishment would be losing quite a bit of money. The father was in complete control at that point and could refuse to allow the woman to live with the man for any reason whatsoever, even if she ended up attracted to him in the end. What made the punishment worse is that the man was not allowed to have sex with any other woman from that point on, and having done so would result in his death.As is the case with every bit of the bible, this passage needs to be studdied to understand the significance of Dewteronomy 28 and 29, for here the same applies. The father is in complete control, and more than likely if he felt his daughter had been wronged he would never have allowed her to stay with that man, but that man was still obligated by law to be kind to her and treat her as his wife, even if she was not living with him. anything less than that, be it overt dislike or slander was a punishable offense.If we look closely at verse 26 we find that rape is taken very seriously, stating that it is like someone murdering a neighbor. Looking at the culture we find that a woman who had lost her virginity was no longer able to marry another man, since as we have already stated above, sex itself was used to seal a marrige rather than some other certificate. This meant that if the family died there would be no one left to pay for any provisions that might be required for her to live out the rest of her life. the responsibility therefor must fall upon the rapist, who would be obligated by law to protect her at any cost because of what he did for the rest of his life. This, on top of freeing the family of stress, also provides protection for the woman for the rest of her life. She is not forced to sleep with him, have sex with him, even live with him, for such things would be absolutely ridiculous. Still, he is forced to act as a husband for her nonetheless and anything less than that results in death.These laws are strictly cultural and social, not moral. God did not intend for them to be translated into matters by which one could say that a woman must be forced into marrige by any man even if he had wronged her. they were put
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Thomas, you have missed finer points when drawing your own conclusions on the laws regarding rape in the book of Deuteronomy. This book is certainly one of the more daunting books in scripture thus I want you to know that I dont fault you for doing so, but should you decide to read closely, you will actually find that rape is very heavily punished and taken even more seriously than it is in todays western culture.First, let us look at the differences in our culture today and the culture of ancient Israel. IN those days marriges were not the traditional weddings weve come to expect, even sort of feel obligated to have for the sake of society. While it was not uncommon for a huge feast to occur to show the celebration of a couple getting together, the actual marriage was the act of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman and the festivities doubled as both a party and an event by which people witnessed the couple entering the tent where they would sexually commit themselves to each other. Dewteronomy, from 13 to 17 state, If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town,Obviously, since no one was allowed to go in with the couple and witness their nakedness which is again something forbidden by God there had to be some way to certify the marrige. Evidence of the woman’s virginity would be soaked onto a cloth as proof of their consummation. This showed evidence of proper moral behavior in the community. Rather than the western culture expectations where a man and woman are pronounced husband and wife before the honey moon sex, this was not the case in ancient eastern culture.Let us now look very closely for just a bit at Exodus 22:16-17: When a man seduces a virgin who was not promised in marriage, and he has sexual relations with her, he must certainly pay the bridal price for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must pay an amount in silver equal to the bridal price for virgins.We find that a man who seduced a virgin who was not already promised to someone else was obligated by law to take her as his wife and pay her father immediately, even if the father refused to let him keep her, implying that this sort of seduction was completely the mans fault and his punishment would be losing quite a bit of money. The father was in complete control at that point and could refuse to allow the woman to live with the man for any reason whatsoever, even if she ended up attracted to him in the end. What made the punishment worse is that the man was not allowed to have sex with any other woman from that point on, and having done so would result in his death.As is the case with every bit of the bible, this passage needs to be studdied to understand the significance of Dewteronomy 28 and 29, for here the same applies. The father is in complete control, and more than likely if he felt his daughter had been wronged he would never have allowed her to stay with that man, but that man was still obligated by law to be kind to her and treat her as his wife, even if she was not living with him. anything less than that, be it overt dislike or slander was a punishable offense.If we look closely at verse 26 we find that rape is taken very seriously, stating that it is like someone murdering a neighbor. Looking at the culture we find that a woman who had lost her virginity was no longer able to marry another man, since as we have already stated above, sex itself was used to seal a marrige rather than some other certificate. This meant that if the family died there would be no one left to pay for any provisions that might be required for her to live out the rest of her life. the responsibility therefor must fall upon the rapist, who would be obligated by law to protect her at any cost because of what he did for the rest of his life. This, on top of freeing the family of stress, also provides protection for the woman for the rest of her life. She is not forced to sleep with him, have sex with him, even live with him, for such things would be absolutely ridiculous. Still, he is forced to act as a husband for her nonetheless and anything less than that results in death.These laws are strictly cultural and social, not moral. God did not intend for them to be translated into matters by which one could say that a woman must be forced into marrige by any man even if he had wronged her. they were put
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Amen to that, my friend. All of it. I confess I havent done as much old testament research and study as I should have, but I hear and agree with everything you said about giving those questions to God... which is exactly what Ive also done. I was recommended to start with the new testament and slowly work my way back, and its what I try to do. Usually when I sit down to study the world Ill read one chapter from the old testament and one from the new after Ive had some time to ponder and process the chapters from the old testament which definitely can get a little daunting.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178546#p178546 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Eh, far be it from me to tell you how to keep your faith or read the word of God. So long as youre getting the message and not trying to twist it around to benefit you as many have done to benefit themselves and youre staying true to the message and that youre praying that God reveals whatever it is he wants you to learn, the rest of it is all between you and him. Ill advise you if you ask me, will lend an ear if you want to talk, study with you if you ever feel the need, but your walk with the lord is very much your own.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178549#p178549 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Oh of course. Thats a given... especially about not twisting the message around. But I do agree... that tends to be a problem sometimes, even among other Christians.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178550#p178550 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Oh I dont know. Slaughtering all the firstborn of Egypt isnt exactly a just and noble thing. I for one could never love a being whos still punishing us more ta two-thousand years later for the actions of two people, even if I believed that that actually happened.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178349#p178349 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Everything is capable of evil.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178349#p178349 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Id first like to address those who have proclaimed their relationship with Jesus Christ on this topic. You have been a direct answer to prayer for me. I myself am new to the faith, converted by selfish motives, though I suppose we all come selfishly to God in some form or another, since we are all sinners and must admit that no one of us is good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. I awoke 4 hours ago with a restlessness I first thought was anger or unhappiness, something weighing heavily on my soul I had never felt before and thus could not recognize. Following that feeling I did the only thing I could think of doing; I started studying the word. I wanted to know how God wanted to use me today, what it was I needed to do to rid myself of this feeling,URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178357#p178357 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Id first like to address those who have proclaimed their relationship with Jesus Christ on this topic. You have been a direct answer to prayer for me. I myself am new to the faith, converted by selfish motives, though I suppose we all come selfishly to God in some form or another, since we are all sinners and must admit that no one of us is good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. I awoke some 7 hours ago with a restlessness I first thought was anger or unhappiness, something weighing heavily on my soul I had never felt before and thus could not recognize. Following that feeling I did the only thing I could think of doing; I started studying the word. I wanted to know how God wanted to use me today, what it was I needed to do to rid myself of this feeling, perhaps even subconsciously or absentmindedly praying, no true realization that such a thing was even happening. I remember what Paul said to the Romans in chapter 8 about how sometim es in our weakness the spirit prays for us, uttering words that cannot be expressed by mortals, praying for our needs when we ourselves know not what to pray. Today I found the truth in this, for as I began browsing this topic I realized with clarity I must respond and felt peace at long last. Keep courageously standing for that which you have willingly believed, being a living testament and willing tools of Christ who lives in us. Be firmly grounded in his ways, prepared with his truth and shielded by the greatness of his salvation, ready to fight another day for the great cause of his glory and his honor and his mighty name forever and ever, trusting not in your own words or your own ways to bring people to this great road we travel, trusting not in numbers or in persuasive speech or writing, but instead in the holy spirit that has been left by the one who came to deliver us from the weight of all our wrongs.To those of you who have not yet believed, read what I have written above. It is not our doing, but that of the holy spirit delivered by God himself that will impress upon your hearts a conviction, the conviction of things not yet seen, the assurance of things hoped for. IN short, there is nothing I, nor any other Christian can say to persuade you, no evidence we can give you whatsoever to use as a substitute in place of the assurance God himself can provide, but he is not forceful, not some tyranical being who would have you believe just because he wants your praise or because he is worthy of every part of your life. He created you with a will to choose, a chance to be whatever you want to be with the understanding that your choice is very much your own, but with a need to believe in something greater than yourself. You can believe in science or in the pursuit of happiness, in charity, in the realm of supernatural beings and inexplicable powers, in other people, in your job, in your relationship, and many other things that this world has to offer. Be not surprised however when all of these leave you feeling empty or hopeless. One of the greatest, wisest kings who ever lived wrote that everything he experienced, from the greatest of pleasures to the most marvelous of human works was meaningless, vanity of vanities, as long as life was lived without God. If a man who was perhaps wiser than I could ever hope to be has written such a statement, who am I to suggest otherwise? If happiness were an act of humanity then why are we not all happy, seeing as how we all seem to seek it? if life can be lived completely without a God, then by whos standards can we judge what is good and what is evil? If we are all equal and there is no one higher than ourselves, how then can we suggest that a person is right or wrong if we ourselves could be judged by another persons standard who is equal to us? One could say that we appoint people to d o such things, but what right do they have other than the result of a popularity contest, and by whos standard if not by that which is divinely in place can they judge if they themselves are as human as the rest of us?And if none of us is worthy of judging right from wrong because we are all equal to each other because of our humanity, prone to error and ill judgement, who is to say that what we have interpreted as evil is not seen as good by those who commit such deeds or that they are right for their interpretation? If there is no god, then we should all live selfishly for there is nothing else to live for but ourselves, as we can safely conclude that without God there is no true purpose to life, for as evolutionists and scientists have clearly stated we are all freaks of natural disaster and disorder, the result of random chance that really has no purpose but to die and cease to exist altogether, with no ultimate meaning value or purpose, for why would it matte r if any one of us existed at all? Certainly we can impact lives, but they are lives like our own with no purpose since we head for the same
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Id first like to address those who have proclaimed their relationship with Jesus Christ on this topic. You have been a direct answer to prayer for me. I myself am new to the faith, converted by selfish motives, though I suppose we all come selfishly to God in some form or another, since we are all sinners and must admit that no one of us is good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. I awoke some 7 hours ago with a restlessness I first thought was anger or unhappiness, something weighing heavily on my soul I had never felt before and thus could not recognize. Following that feeling I did the only thing I could think of doing; I started studying the word. I wanted to know how God wanted to use me today, what it was I needed to do to rid myself of this feeling, perhaps even subconsciously or absentmindedly praying, no true realization that such a thing was even happening. I remember what Paul said to the Romans in chapter 8 about how sometim es in our weakness the spirit prays for us, uttering words that cannot be expressed by mortals, praying for our needs when we ourselves know not what to pray. Today I found the truth in this, for as I began browsing this topic I realized with clarity I must respond and felt peace at long last. Keep courageously standing for that which you have willingly believed, being a living testament and willing tools of Christ who lives in us. Be firmly grounded in his ways, prepared with his truth and shielded by the greatness of his salvation, ready to fight another day for the great cause of his glory and his honor and his mighty name forever and ever, trusting not in your own words or your own ways to bring people to this great road we travel, trusting not in numbers or in persuasive speech or writing, but instead in the holy spirit that has been left by the one who came to deliver us from the weight of all our wrongs.To those of you who have not yet believed, read what I have written above. It is not our doing, but that of the holy spirit delivered by God himself that will impress upon your hearts a conviction, the conviction of things not yet seen, the assurance of things hoped for. IN short, there is nothing I, nor any other Christian can say to persuade you, no evidence we can give you whatsoever to use as a substitute in place of the assurance God himself can provide, but he is not forceful, not some tyranical being who would have you believe just because he wants your praise or because he is worthy of every part of your life. He created you with a will to choose, a chance to be whatever you want to be with the understanding that your choice is very much your own, but with a need to believe in something greater than yourself. You can believe in science or in the pursuit of happiness, in charity, in the realm of supernatural beings and inexplicable powers, in other people, in your job, in your relationship, an d many other things that this world has to offer. Be not surprised however when all of these leave you feeling empty or hopeless. One of the greatest, wisest kings who ever lived wrote that everything he experienced, from the greatest of pleasures to the most marvelous of human works was meaningless, vanity of vanities, as long as life was lived without God. If a man who was perhaps wiser than I could ever hope to be has written such a statement, who am I to suggest otherwise? If happiness were an act of humanity then why are we not all happy, seeing as how we all seem to seek it? if life can be lived completely without a God, then by whos standards can we judge what is good and what is evil? If we are all equal and there is no one higher than ourselves, how then can we suggest that a person is right or wrong if we ourselves could be judged by another persons standard who is equal to us? One could say that we appoint people to do such things, but what right do they have other than the result of a popularity contest, and by whos standard if not by that which is divinely in place can they judge if they themselves are as human as the rest of us?And if none of us is worthy of judging right from wrong because we are all equal to each other because of our humanity, prone to error and ill judgement, who is to say that what we have interpreted as evil is not seen as good by those who commit such deeds or that they are right for their interpretation? If there is no god, then we should all live selfishly for there is nothing else to live for but ourselves, as we can safely conclude that without God there is no true purpose to life, for as evolutionists and scientists have clearly stated we are all freaks of natural disaster and disorder, the result of random chance that really has no purpose but to die and cease to exist altogether, with no ultimate meaning value or purpose, for why would it matter if any one of us existed at all? Certainly we can impact lives, but they are lives like our own with no purpose since we head for the same
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Nocturnus, thank you for posting that. It was incredible to read. A lot of that is what I was so desperately trying to say, but I was afraid I had royally screwed it up with my last post. Especially after reading James 3, where he says that in trying to spread the word, every time we open our mouthes, we get it wrong nearly all the time. I think you stated it in a much more clear and concise manner, and I learned a lot from your post. I completely agree, from experience, that there is no way to truly convince a non-believer that there is a God. The problem is that you really have to accept the gift of Christ before God will show you that yes, he absolutely is there and he does love you. Otherwise, hed be taking away your free will. If God wanted to, he could come down to earth right now and prove, beyond any doubt, to every one of us, that there is a God, and there is a heaven and a hell. That isnt the way God says he wants it though, at least not how I understand it. What God seems to want is a relationship with all of his creations. He seems to want us to choose to follow him, not out of fear or to save ourselves, but because we need him and want a relationship with him. It might be at first that you just start following God to save yourself, but for me, that isnt where it ended. At first, when I was told it was a binary decision, either you accept Christs gift of salvation or you dont, I thought, well, this is easy. Ill just wait until Im about to die, then say, I accept Christs gift of salvation. That way Im all set. I can live the way I want and just in case there is a hell, I wont be going there. Im pretty sure, that would not have worked. I think that works if someone accepts Christ on their death bed and is genuin, but not if they had premeditated the idea strictly to save themselves and not to form any kind of a relationship with the saviour.Yes, I could absolutely go back to m y old life of drinking gallons of alcohol a week, trashing people for fun, filling my life with humor of all kinds and mocking God at every turn. But I absolutely will not. God has blessed me in so many ways already that not only would I be disrespecting God in an even worse way than I used to, but Id have to live with myself, knowingly accepting that I had thrown away a loving relationship with my creator and gone back to my life of sin. I almost lost everything once over that past life, and only through the grace of God was I able to catch myself and get things back on track. If I were to renounce God at this point, the bible says my demons would come back 7 times as strong, and Ive no doubt Id end up losing everything important to me, probably ending up in jail or dead.I understand that not everyones life is like mine. Not everyone is chugging alcohol for entertainment, or even getting humor out of mocking God. But our culture seems to be so heavily based around chasing the next high, what I now believe to be trying to fill that God-shaped hole everyone has with things. Whether its something as obvious as drugs or finding the perfect woman, or as simple as just trying to leave a physical legacy in a writing business. For me, nothing was ever enough without God, there was always something to reach for, and happiness was so fleeting. I dont ever want to go back to that.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178419#p178419 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Bladestorm and Nocturnus, both of you have taken the time that I didnt have to write down what I wanted to say. All I can do is echo it and say Amen to that. I dont have time to write down a lengthy response... but I agree with everything that was said, including being a skeptic. Though having been a Christian for three years, I would actually say its very hard to imagine myself going back to my life without God.. a life where I lied and found amusement in anything that made me feel good, from partying and drinking to trashing others. And Nocturnus also had a point... the last thing that anyone wants to admit is that we just arent good enough. No matter how we might want to try and deny it. To humble yourself and realize that in fact, you are not as good a person as you think... or that there is a higher standard you cant meet is a thing that is hard for anyone, even Christians, to admit. Yet its the willingness to open up to that idea and turn to Jesus for help when God reveals himself to us in whatever way he chooses. Some say God is a tyrant, and that the two understandings of God being tyranical vs. being merciful and forgiving cantt go hand in hand. Well, of coourse they cant... if you dont have the ability to see the big picture. and which one of us is as omniscient as God? We can only understand so much... and from our limitted viewpoint, that may be how it appears. Thats not to say I dont sympathize with non-believers. There are times when I do ask why God lets something happen, or why God is so brutal in a given situation... yet there are details surrounding events that I just cant understand, and nuances which are impossible for my limitted human knowledge to see, because to be all knowing is something not humanly possible...URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178423#p178423 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Bladestorm360, I for one dont consider your post too preachy. I for one am just happy that we can openly discuss our individual points of view, share ideas, and express our opinions without resorting to childish behavior like name calling, putting the other person down, or making the other party feel stupid for having an apposing viewpoint. I appreciate and respect the right to believe as one so chooses, and to express and share that viewpoint even if I may not always agree with it. I am sure there are some here that may consider some of my posts too preachy or militant towards the bible and Christianity as I no longer share those religious viewpoints myself, but I feel we all have a right to at least express our opinions as long as we do so in a way that is respectful of the other partys opinions.As for the subject of morality Im not at all surprised that we have differing opinions on morality and that is okay. As I no longer believe in a literal God I ob viously dont take it on faith that the bible is the inspired word of God thus have come to my own conclusions of what is moral, what is right and wrong, and those are based mostly on modern humanist principles. In short, for me in order to declare something evil, a sin, I first determine what harm it does to someone or to society as a whole. With that definition in mind its obvious that murder is evil because it wrongly takes someones life without justification. Steeling would be wrong because it deprives someone of something that is rightfully theirs. Adultery is wrong because it deprives a husband or a wife of their spouses emotional and physical affections. Sins like those were considered crimes long before the bible was ever written, and we know from our oldest writings that people have considered things like that to be morally wrong for thousands of years. Thus as a humanist I am in no position to disagree with those viewpoints as I do see how and why th ose sins do quite a bit of harm to individuals as well as society as a whole. Therefore outlawing them was a necessity.However, there are some sins I would call questionable. In the bible it outlaws fornication, sex outside of marriage, as a sin. Well, if you go by my humanist point of view a sin is something that harms people or society you may be able to justify it as a sin if you consider that fornication can lead to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies outside of marriage. The thing is thanks to modern medicine both of those are really not problems if someone is responsible. The use of condoms or a diaphragm, for example, can both act as reasonable birth control and a preventative for sexually transmitted diseases. There are medications such as the birth control pill that can help prevent unwanted pregnancy so if a couple are responsible I dont see a major problem with fornication as being too sinful from a humanist perspective. Interesting enough my main complaint with the bible was not so much what it considers sinful, but more to do with what it doesnt consider to be major sins. Take rape as an example. It may surprise you to know that the old testament doesnt seem to take rape that seriously as a crime. According to the book of Deuteronomy it states if a man catches a young virgin out alone, rapes her, his punishment is to merry the young woman. However, if a man rapes another mans wife it is considered to be adultery and must be stoned to death. Thankfully, today we have much more rational laws regarding rape and nobody would insist that their sister, daughter, or some other unmarried woman just up and marry the man who sexually assaulted them. Thats a ludicrous idea, and one that doesnt really punish the rapist for the crime he committed.So you are right we all judge the bible according to mortal standards, often from our current societal values today, and I dont consider that to be a bad thing. I do think though that in terms of justice and morality we as a society have gone far past what was considered right and wrong at the time the bible was written, and that we must compare the bible to our current values to see if it is still a good guide to follow when it comes to morals and basic values. As a non-Christian I obviously have done that, and simply do not agree with everything the bible says to be right and wrong. I reserve my own judgement on that subject.All that said, your comments makes sense to me. As I said before I was a Christian for the first 25 years of my life, and I thought a lot like you do at that time. It is interesting that I am an atheist who use to be a Christian and you are a new Christian who use to be an atheist so we have switched rolls. That makes our discussions all the more interesting, because I think we both have unique perspectives on the subject and we are both in a sense going through a tr ansition from one end of the spectrum to the other.I know, for example, you mentioned in a few
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Sorry for bringing this back up so late, Im terrible about checking this room.Thomas, my belief on the rapture is basically this. If it be Gods will that I stay and help the non-believers through the end times, thats exactly what Ill do, no questions asked. I dont see why hed do that, since the judgments are meant to bring those to him that havent made a decision yet, but I dont presume to know how God thinks, and I see it as a problem with christians almost globally thinking they do know what he thinks, because something is written in the bible.I know this isnt going to help any, but this is the way I see it. We, and yes Im including myself here, are trying to judge the bible by mortal standards. By what were taught is right and wrong in our culture today. What the bible says, is that we are all absolutely disgusting to God. Every one of us, from the guy who donates all of his money to charity to save little orphans on the street, to the guy who raped and killed 30 women and never went to jail for it. Wed all be dead in our sin if it werent for Jesus. One thing to remember is that even something as simple as pride is a sin. So if that guy who donates all his money to charity starts feeling good about what hes done, hes just sinned. I think the concept that people have the most trouble grasping is that God finds every one of us utterly repulsive, and yet he still loved us enough to sacrifice his son for us, thus making us perfect in his eyes. Its what I struggled with the most as a non-believer. Id ask my wife, How can he possibly be a loving God if the only way we can go to heaven is if we love him in return, not how much good we do in this life? I mean to me that just seemed ridiculously petty. Itd be like me going up to a girl on the street and saying, Hey, I want to be in a relationship with you. And if you don t like it, Im going to kill you and your entire family. By mortal standards, that seems absolutely sick.God points out in the bible that his thought processes are to ours what our thoughts are to an infant. Something like that. I dont think he put it in those exact words, but basically, God is the absolute embodiment of holiness. When Eve chose to eat of the fruit of good and evil, we suddenly had the capacity for evil. We dont have those higher thought processes that God has, and thus we became unholy. Allowing us into heaven at that point, without following his holy laws, would have been evil, and God is incapable of doing evil himself. But instead of just trashing the whole thing and starting over, which he almost did once, he layed out this incredibly elaborate plan, so that we could be made perfect and be with the most holy being in the universe.I know this is getting a bit preachy, and I dont mean to aim it at anyone. Its just something that was made clear to me when I became a believer in Christ. Id also agree with you Thomas, George Carlin seems very rational, and hilarious, from an atheist or agnostic point of view. I used to listen to him bash religion for hours. Now, to me, his material seems disgusting, knowing what I know, but that isnt to say Im judging others for listening to it or finding it funny, that isnt my place.As for scientific evidence, all I can say there is Ive found enough to suit me. But the thing about Gods plan is that noone is ever forced into anything. Everyone has to come to their own decision, in their own time, and that means choosing either way, whether you choose to follow God, or not. I am personally very glad I chose to follow God, its made some massive changes in my life. But the last thing I want to do is drive someone away, or further away, from Christ by getting preachy and judgmental. It used to not just irritate me, bu t actively anger me. I dont think personally, that theres any way to explain to a skeptical non-believer how everything just falls into place when you accept Christ, at least not the way it happened in my case. I certainly would never have believed, or even wanted to believe, that I would be where I am now, even 3 months ago. Its just something everyone has to come to in their own time, if it ever happens at all.Thanks for reading, and I hope I havent irritated anyone with my testimony. Its not something Im ashamed of, I just remember how I was and how, to me, sometimes even just hearing someones personal experience could seem pushy.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=178269#p178269 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Bryan, agreed. Being stoned to death would be one of the worst ways to die, because unless a person gets knocked out or killed early on during the stoning they would be awake and conscious as everything from a tiny pebble to huge rocks would be hitting the person from all angles causing serious bruising, breaks, and cuts until the person faints, is knocked unconscious, or is killed. Its a cruel and inhuman way to die.Although, stoning is bad a lot of the so-called more human ways of putting a person to death in the United States isnt much better. The electric chair has to be extremely painful, and I cant imagine the last few minutes of a persons life as thousands of volts of energy repeatedly shock a person to death. The gas chamber is even worse as a person has to breath poison gas which is apt to be quite painful and terrifying until the person dies. Some states use a firing squad where the prisoner is strapped into a chair while guys with guns take turn s shooting him or her. If all that isnt bad enough there is always the option of hanging someone by their neck until they are dead. If they are lucky they will break their neck in the process of falling and have a quick death. If not they will hang their until being strangled to death. No matter what way we devise to kill a person for their crimes against society they are all pretty cruel and goes against my code of human treatment of people. that is why I am personally against capital punishment, and if it has to be done at least reserve it for the worst offenders.My problem with the bible is, particularly the old testament, that it makes no distinction between major and minor crimes or sins. If one looks through the book of Leviticus there are all kinds of capital offenses, and most of them arent that serious according to todays standards. I can see someone wanting to put someone to death for murdering a small child which is something I would regard as a p retty serious crime, but I cant see killing two people for simply being gay. The issue of stoning someone to death for heresy especially bothers me since that is often subject to someones opinion of what is and is not heresy and I wonder how many people were unjustly put to death for merely having a different opinion than the one performing the execution.Of course, for Christians they claim that all of those laws, statutes, and ordnances were nailed to the cross so dont apply to modern society. Maybe so, but even if that is true it still gives one an insight into Gods nature that is offensive to my humanist principles. Namely that we all have certain rights to have differing opinions, that punishment should not be worse than the crime one is accused of, and that a persons mental state of mind should be taken into consideration before carrying out such a harsh and cruel punishment. Yet, in the pages of the old testament we dont find an y kind of guide how to judge which crimes are truly deserving of death and which require a bit of mercy. The punishment is the same regardless of how major or minor the offense which makes the old testament law pretty inflexible.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177847#p177847 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Exactly. One thing I always heard my ex talk about was how her pastor kept stressing the fact that there were going to be people in Heaven whom one would definitely not expect to see there, while people whom one would expect to see in eHeaven were going to end up in Hell simply because they either didnt believe the correct beliefs or did one thing that, while maybe fairly minor in te s of most people, wasan afront to god. All I nowis if Phillip Garrido and Ariel Castro end up in Heaven I wouldnt want to go there.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177879#p177879 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Exactly. Im not gay either but I definitely would not stone to death someone who was. I agree it would have to be one of the worst ways I could imagine to die.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177591#p177591 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible I came to my Agnosticism precisely through studying the Bible and realizing what a petty, genocidal tyrant its god really was. I also cant respect a deity who loves his creations but condemns them to eternal fiery torment simply because they believe in a different being, even if in all other ways they lived decent, honest lives. I could perhaps accept the Deistic notion of a god who created everything and set all the laws of the universe in motion in the beginning before stepping back to allow things to unfold however they might. But anything else is just too farfetched for me.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177485#p177485 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Well, some people believe that instead of being raptured out, christians will still be here during the end times judgments to guide people to Christ, but well be personally protected from said judgments. That was one thing I fought with a lot before I became a believer. If God is such a loving God, why does he allow for all this suffering and death? And in the end times, why would he just rapture all of his followers out and leave the rest of us to die, either at his own hands or at the hands of the antichrist? Of course in the Left Behind books, its the jewish converts after the rapture that help guide new believers, and the believers are protected, though they can still die by accident, such as being hit by an uncontrolled car. I havent really formed an opinion yet as to what I believe about the end times, since Im only up to Psalms in the bible and have only read someone elses interpretation of revelations.Its definitely been a big change fo r me. George Carlin used to be one of my favorite people to listen to about religion, and anyone who has ever heard him knows hes got some pretty harsh views on the subject. And dont get me wrong, I definitely still have questions. But so far, Ive been able to find answers to them that strengthen my faith rather than shake it. For example, one of the first big questions I had was that I was pretty sure I saw a contradiction in Genesis. In Chapter 1, it says that God created animals on the fifth day, and humans on the sixth. But then, in chapter 2, it makes it seem like he created man first, then animals. Hes saying how its not good for man to be alone, so he forms animals from the dirt of the ground for man to name as companions. So it sounds like man was there first, then God formed the animals. But I was talking to a friend about it who had a different translation than the one I was reading, and his version says, So God had formed the animals, rather than making it sound like he did it right then, he took the animals he had formed and brought them to Adam. I also thought that maybe God had already created the animals, but he hadnt put any in the garden of Eden yet, so he formed some of the animals he had created and paraded them before Adam.The bible is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult books to understand. Especially since we dont know how much of it is meant literally, and how much figuratively or metaphorically. Theres also translation issues, which is why when Im reading, I do a lot of translation comparison if something doesnt make sense. I can definitely understand why there are still non-believers. Many of the things God does seem absolutely wrong, I know a lot of people have trouble with the book of Job. I also remember that first step from logic to faith. Before that, it just seemed completely illogical, and stupid, to put my trust in something that I didnt really belie ve existed. I dont know if it can ever be explained adequately to someone who doesnt believe, I know I sure didnt get it when people would try to explain it to me. I dont mean that as an insult to anyone, I just know how hard it was for me to take that first step back into christianity.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177286#p177286 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible You know bladestorm, christian or no, i really respect you for turning your life around, no matter how you did it. From dealing with drinking problems in my family, i know how it feels to be on the wrong end of someone who wont put the bottle down. I also realize its hard for them to see the error of there ways, much less quit, so my hat is off to you brother. Im not a christian, but i do believe that if we want to change our personal lives bad enough, we will figure out a way, whether through religion, rehab, or a little of both.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177311#p177311 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible I like George Carlins take on religion. I was just watchingg avideo where he streamlines the Ten Commandments into something that actually makes a reasonable degree of sense.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177325#p177325 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible hi.my favourite people which i like to listen to are:sergey shydlovskiy from belarusia but he speaking russian.secondly: aleksey kolomeytsev also his sermons in russian, but he puting in the middle english words because he live in USA.and a pastor whos name is oren lev ari, his sermons in russian and hebrew.more sermons are in hebrew.also i some times listening to a sermons of the messianic jewish congregation in tel aviv yafo.also i listening to the sermons of nikolay lemeshkin, a pastor from the congregation where my grandma is going.and i recommending to listen to:kathrine koohlman, klausy rozmari, and finally to david pilegi.their sermons are in english.kamochek.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177368#p177368 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible hi.my favourite people which i like to listen to are:sergey shydlovskiy from belarusia but he speaking russian.secondly: aleksey kolomeytsev also his sermons in russian, but he puting in the middle english words because he live in USA.and a pastor whos name is oren lev ari, his sermons in russian and hebrew.more sermons are in hebrew.also i some times listening to a sermons of the messianic jewish congregation in tel aviv yafo.also i listening to the sermons of nikolay lemeshkin, a pastor from the congregation where my grandma is going.and i recommending to listen to:kathrine koohlman, klausy rozmari, and finally to david pileggi.their sermons are in english.kamochek.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177368#p177368 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Bladestorm, both your posts are a great testimony... and my respect goes to you for willing to humble yourself and ask for gods help in dealing with the issues you are dealing with, especially coming from the position of a skeptic. Though sine I come from the same background... I can relate. And I cant really speak about the rapture... I dont know too much about it. But I have some friends who are head over heels for that subject. lol But I agree with pretty much everything else youve said... so no point in echoing it. And its exactly why Bible study and discernment are so important... because those are the only ways we can truly and honestly understand even some of Gods word. And I also echo the sentiment that going from logic to faith can be a huge step... and one that many people dont feel very comfortable taking. Though Thomas, I think you have an interesting point... because for some people, that deeply rooted belief is probably what allows them to do those things. But at the same time, there are too many things thatve happened to me personally that I cant atribute to anything but God and thus more evidence to prove my faith is in the right relationship. But the problem for me, and anyone else who says that... is that from a skeptics point, theres no concrete, sure fire way to prove it, there it cant be possible. And thats exactly what puts atheists and Christians in a deadlock stalemate so often.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177391#p177391 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Brian, yep, that was one of my favorite routines of his before I became a christian. I also used to listen to his one about him being a sun worshiper a lot.Arq, thanks. I appreciate that. In my case it just turned out to be religion, because I couldnt seem to find any other way to do it.Assault, I agree. I think that we can try to help people as much as we can, but ultimately, you can never force anyone to make a decision, which is what a lot of christians seem to like to do. Preaching at someone and telling them theyre going to hell if they dont pick up a bible is just the wrong way to go about things, I think a lot of times that approach can drive people away from God. Youve got to be able to adapt to the person youre talking to, just like any other conversation. Even though Ive already had some personal blessings, the most Ill do is talk about them, because I remember what its like to be a non-believer and how hard i t was to step out of my logical comfort zone and throw myself upon Gods mercy.Having said that, if anyone reading this would like any help coming to Christ or understanding the word of God, Id be more than happy to give it. I am by no means an expert, but Id like to help out in any way I can. I know many of the people who have responded on this topic are already set in their beliefs, and thats absolutely fine. But just thought Id toss the offer out there in case someone is only reading and not responding, or something.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177411#p177411 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible tward I completely agree with your point of view. I am a scheptic too. I have to admit that I cant believe in something that I dont have proof of. I think about my self as very open minded though and I am searching for proof. Ive used some astral travelling or out of body experience techniques to proof that the soul exists.. I managed to get out of my body but I dont have enough proof, I still believe that my brain did all this.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177171#p177171 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible I am a newly converted christian as of about a month and a half ago. I can say that I was a skeptic until I found my faith, and a huge one at that. I would take passages of the bible out of context to try to prove that God wasnt a loving a merciful God, I would try to shoot down all kinds of scientific evidence that proves that at least some of the events in the bible did happen. I would often get drunk and rant for days about how much I hated even the concept of God, and how if he was real he should be fixing the world, not letting us run rampent. It was bad.I dont exactly know what changed. I can speculate. One thing might be that I got tired of doing stupid and sickening things while I was drunk. I nearly lost everything that mattered to me over drinking, and it was just starting to get old. Another might be that I met some mormon missionaries while I was working for my mother, and while they were helping us work I had a more generalized discussion with them about religion. Ironically I didnt turn out to be a mormon, I consider myself to be a non-denominational christian. But that, combined with the fact that Id been talking to my wife about religion for the past 3 years or more, seems to have contributed to my conversion. One day, I just decided to give it a try.What Ive found personally is this. They call it a leap of faith for a reason. Its like stepping off a cliff without looking down and hoping theres a safety net at the bottom. God, the way I see him, can not be run through the logic process, and that is what we, as mortals, try to do. Once you actually start believing, logic is taken completely out of the picture. At least, thats how it was for me.I find the God follows his word, from personal experience. Ive already been blessed several times with things I never thought would happen since I converted. The most major of which is that I no longer have the urdge to drink, aft er praying about it. Its just gone. I had tried to quit on my own several times before, and the longest I ever made it was 6 months. And only then because I was having heart problems. I also got a job I never thought I would get. Last I heard there was just too much paperwork, too many requirements I didnt fill. Then one day after I had been praying about it for a week or so, my boss just calls me up and says, Hey, youre hired. I consider both of those things to be major blessings.As for a code in the bible, well the only one I know of specifically mensioned by the bible itself is Revelations, and Ive heard it says that only believers will truly understand the book. I havent gotten there, but I just finished reading the Left Behind books, which cover the future events of Revelations in a more personal light than profacy and which I found to be really cool.Having personally attacked several members of this community, I know that my credibility is far from stellar. I just wanted to share my personal experiences with the bible here and say that for the most part, I agree with Assault. Theres no way to prove that God exists, he wont allow for that. Which is why they call it faith, not science. But you can find evidence that a lot of the biblical events happened, at least good enough evidence to suit me. I try to mix faith with said evidence, and so far its been working out very well.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177184#p177184 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible I am a newly converted christian as of about a month and a half ago. I can say that I was a skeptic until I found my faith, and a huge one at that. I would take passages of the bible out of context to try to prove that God wasnt a loving a merciful God, I would try to shoot down all kinds of scientific evidence that proves that at least some of the events in the bible did happen. I would often get drunk and rant for days about how much I hated even the concept of God, and how if he was real he should be fixing the world, not letting us run rampent. It was bad.I dont exactly know what changed. I can speculate. One thing might be that I got tired of doing stupid and sickening things while I was drunk. I nearly lost everything that mattered to me over drinking, and it was just starting to get old. Another might be that I met some mormon missionaries while I was working for my mother, and while they were helping us work I had a more generalized discussion with them about religion. Ironically I didnt turn out to be a mormon, I consider myself to be a non-denominational christian. But that, combined with the fact that Id been talking to my wife about religion for the past 3 years or more, seems to have contributed to my conversion. One day, I just decided to give it a try.What Ive found personally is this. They call it a leap of faith for a reason. Its like stepping off a cliff without looking down and hoping theres a safety net at the bottom. God, the way I see him, can not be run through the logic process, and that is what we, as mortals, try to do. Once you actually start believing, logic is taken completely out of the picture. At least, thats how it was for me.I find the God follows his word, from personal experience. Ive already been blessed several times with things I never thought would happen since I converted. The most major of which is that I no longer have the urdge to drink, aft er praying about it. Its just gone. I had tried to quit on my own several times before, and the longest I ever made it was 6 months. And only then because I was having heart problems. I also got a job I never thought I would get. Last I heard there was just too much paperwork, too many requirements I didnt fill. Then one day after I had been praying about it for a week or so, my boss just calls me up and says, Hey, youre hired. I consider both of those things to be major blessings.As for a code in the bible, well the only one I know of specifically mensioned by the bible itself is Revelations, and Ive heard it says that only believers will truly understand the book. I havent gotten there, but I just finished reading the Left Behind books, which cover the future events of Revelations in a more personal light than profacy and which I found to be really cool.Christianity stealing things from other religions is messy. Rome did not like christianity at all, so they tried to corrupt it as much as possible. And they did a good job of it. Ironically, Christmas isnt even a christian holiday. Its some weird combination of a pagan custom and catholic Mass. Ive heard it wasnt even Christs birthday and that the Gregorian calendar miscalculated there, though I havent had a chance to sit down and study this in any detail.Having personally attacked several members of this community, I know that my credibility is far from stellar. I just wanted to share my personal experiences with the bible here and say that for the most part, I agree with Assault. Theres no way to prove that God exists, he wont allow for that. Which is why they call it faith, not science. But you can find evidence that a lot of the biblical events happened, at least good enough evidence to suit me. I try to mix faith with said evidence, and so far its been working out very well.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177184#p177184 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Bladestorm360, thanks for sharing your conversion story with us. It is interesting although not entirely uncommon. What I mean by that is a lot of new converts claim to have been having real serious problems in their life, they convert to Christianity, and suddenly everything begins changing for the better. There are of course two ways to view those situations, as everything else in life, and the one thing we do agree upon here is that God cant really be run through the logic process. Trying to apply logic to God is a bit like trying to catch smoke with your hands. You cant just hold onto it because there is nothing solid to hold on to.All the same as a skeptic I do have a hypothesis as to why so many people experience real change after their conversions. It is not that I personally believe in any personal god, but I think that the belief or faith in a personal god allows people to have courage that they might not have, causes a radical change in their thi nking, etc that allows them to go above and beyond what they might be able to do without that personal belief. It is beyond dispute that many Christians have done some amazing things such as during the protestant reformation they sang while being burned at the stake for heresy, or have dared to do things like run into a burning building to rescue someone they didnt know. For Christians such acts of courage and fortitude is evidence of the holy spirit, but for a skeptic like me I think that their unquestioning faith, their belief in something greater than themselves, which gives them that courage and fortitude. In short, I believe it is just a change in the persons state of mind that allows them to do things they could not or would not do before more than any supernatural force.As far as Revelation and the Left Behind series goes I disagree with the interpretation of the end times as portrayed by the Left Behind books. Although I am not a Christian now I use to be when growing up, and my family and I did not agree with the pre-trib rapture doctrine at all. For one thing it didnt make any logical sense then, and as a skeptic even less so now. I found myself laughing at the Left Behind books, because in the first book after the rapture of the church everyone is running around wondering where everyone went like, where did they go, George? The ironic thing is after the Left Behind books, movies, and other media about the rapture one would think most people would be at least familiar with the concept and if nearly two billion people disappear, all of them Christian, the conclusion would be obvious. Yet, according to the Left Behind books it is all suppose to be some big mystery which I dont think is at all realistic from a theological or practical point of view.Besides there is something more than a little disturbing to think that Jesus would come back secretly and rapture away all the Christians leaving everyone els e to their own devices. So if the pilots of a commercial jet are both Christian we are to believe Jesus will just rapture them away and let the jet crash killing x number of passengers just because they didnt convert yet? If x number of people in a car are going down the road and the driver is a Christian Jesus will take that person and let everyone else in the car possibly die because the car went off the road hit a telephone poll, go off a bridge, or have a head on collision with another vehicle? I think you see the point. The pre-trib rapture is absurd, and if Jesus would allow such things to happen I certainly would not consider him worthy of my worship. He would be lower than scum, and not be the all loving, all caring, deity I was raised to worship growing up.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177243#p177243 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible hi.yep, i know some things about that.really: jesuss real name is yeshua, and christ is mashiach which means i dont know how to say it in english.for christians here on the fourum i recomend to read the hebrew new testament, which is in english but have hebrew names and comments about things.for example: in the letter of romans in the standart new testament they are writing: to the church of rome.in the hebrew new testament they are writing: to the messianic jewish congregation of rome...so, for christians here on the fourum i recommending to read the hebrew new testament.kamochek.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177279#p177279 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Exactly Thomas. There was even a flood story in Navajo mythology thanks to Coyotes trickery. I remember wondering about that after getting a book of their folktales as a talking book.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177069#p177069 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Assault, and that is the very problem with faith. In order to have faith one must have faith in faith and assume something to be true without supporting evidence. Sometimes someones faith may be justified but in many cases faith is used to maintain a belief in something that can not be true in spite of proof otherwise. Thats what really bothers me about faith being used to prop up a belief in somethings reality.For instance, back in post 13 above you pointed out that not all Christians believe in a literal six day creation or that the earth is only 6,000 years old. As I was raised a Christian but not taught to believe those things myself I know that to be true. However, the problem is there is a fairly sizable group of evangelicals, fundamentalists, etc who believe exactly that the earth was created in six days and is only 6,000 years old. Whenever anyone tries to reason with them that their beliefs are in error, cant possibly be true according to th e scientific evidence we currently have on the subject, they inevitably fall back on the faith argument. That their faith justifies their position rather than any empirical evidence to the contrary. As a result the concept of faith can be used to justify any position, any idea, no matter how reasonable or far fetched the case might be.Im not saying everyones faith is completely unjustified or absurd, but merely that as a tool for determining truth it is a poor substitute for actual evidence supporting a belief. Many people who rely on faith are not very skeptical of the world around them and that is why there is a gullible segment of the human population that believe in almost anything they hear or see on TV. People believe in Big Foot, the Lock Ness Monster, UFOs, ghosts, psychics, and so on. Weather any of these things have a shred of truth or not I really do not know for certain, but there are people that swear up and down they are true even though their belief s are based on hear say and roomers.When I became a skeptic I realized I needed to have what I view to be higher standards than just believe in something I read about or heard about on TV. As the late great Carl Sagan use to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The problem with what a lot of religious people claim dont even have basic evidence supporting their claims let alone extraordinary evidence. Sure the bible can claim angels exist, but until someone can show me one or I can talk to one I dont have any evidence that they exist. I have no way to know if Jesus was crucified, was raised from the dead in three days, since he has never appeared before me and talked to me in person. therefore I personally have no rational reason to accept what I read in the bible as gospel truth. One might as well be claiming they saw leprechauns or elves since they have about the same amount of believability as many things in the bible.< p>Bryan, as far as flood stories goes they are really a dime a dozen. I think every culture and just about every major religion has a flood story of some kind or another. Of course, floods have been common throughout history, and have often become a part of folklore and myth.The problem with the biblical flood story, Noahs flood, is that it has some pretty serious problems from a historical point of view.. For one thing the biblical account says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and covered the entire earth. Well, there isnt any proof of a global flood any time in human history that wiped out all the people, plants, animals, etc therefore the flood, if it ever happened at all, would have been a local event. Making it far less than the mass extinction event claimed by the author of Genesis. Another thing is that the bible says Noah took two of every kind of animal aboard the Ark, but we know that could not be possible. For one thing the bible never mentions vario us species of animals that would not have been known to the people of central Asia such as Kangaroos, and therefore one has to wonder how they would have come from Australia to Asia to board the Ark in the first place. We certainly know they could not have left the Ark and hopped their way all the way to Australia because kangaroo fossils have never been found anywhere else but Australia. So it is exceedingly unlikely they left the Ark and hopped their way on mass to Australia. Finally, such an event would have left its mark on the DNA record of every species on earth, and of course there is no narrowing of DNA down to a point were only two of each species remained. Therefore the scientific evidence pretty much indicates the biblical story is a myth and nothing more. I am sure Christians will go on believing the story as true, taking it on faith that their bible cant be wrong, but as flood stories goes Noahs flood has very little credibility from a scientific point of vi ew.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177121#p
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible I once heard an argument that went something along the lines of because almost every culture has a flood myth, it means a global flood must have happened. The problem is that these myths are so different from each other it doesnt really make sense to compare them with each other. Of course all cultures would have flood myths, floods are a world-wide occurrence and most cultures would have experienced their devastating effects. There are a group of closely-related flood myths that seem to all have been influenced by the one in the epic of gilgamesh, but the great flood of china for example bares no resemblance to these.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177163#p177163 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible I tried the whole Christianity thing when I was younger, but aside from all the contradicitons I couldnt reconcile the notion of a loving, merciful god with the one depicted particularly in the Old Testament. He is most assuredly not merciful. In fact I find him to be even more of a petty, inconsistent tyrant than the Greek gods and goddesses were. Then of course the fact that Christianity borrows events from other religions. Even Greek mythology had its flood story. I wont even start on the holidays Christianity stole from Pagan religions. Even the cross was originally a Pagan symbol before it was stolen by Christianity.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176947#p176947 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Assault, I appreciate the link. It does make various contradictions at least plausible depending on how one interprets the events described. While there is too much for me to read at this time I did read some of the explanations on the page, and I am satisfied that many things probably can be worked out reasonably if one is of a mind to accept the biblical stories as being true.There in lies the problem though. Obviously a Christian takes it on faith the stories that they read about are true and will work towards explanations that fit their hypothesis, their beliefs, and can explain away things that bother a skeptic. A skeptic on the other hand starts with a position of doubt and therefore is likely to be somewhat biased towards anything said in the bible regardless if there is a reasonable explanation or not.For example, lets take my comment about the number of angels at the tomb on Sunday morning. Okay, I can accept that Marks and Johns accounts a re talking about two separate events happening at two separate times. That would explain away the apparent contradiction that would satisfy a Christian that the accounts are true. However, since a skeptic doesnt believe in angels explaining how two differing accounts could be true still doesnt make the accounts themselves any more true in the mind of the skeptic simply because there isnt any proof for the events being described. Therefore without faith the accounts cant stand alone on their own merits.My underlying point is that I am satisfied that Christians can come up with explanations that make various contradictions plausible, but as a non-Christian I still dont think any of it is true. I remain unconvinced that any of it happened and need more proof before I could accept it as having happened.Bryan, well, interesting enough your point about Christianity borrowing from other religions is one of the things that helped me come out of th at religious background. I took a few courses on comparative religions in college and it was amazing to find out how many things I believed were Christian were simply borrowed or modified from earlier religions and accepted by faith by Christians who obviously arent taught what other ancient religions believed, and therefore are ignorant of how much was borrowed from other religions. There really isnt anything novel or new in the bible that hasnt been discussed in some other ancient religion or religious sect before.One thing that consistently gets overlooked is that the fact the time Jesus lived in was one where everyone was looking for the Messiah. Consequently there were a number of people before and after Jesus who claimed to be the Messiah. Most notably one of them named Simon claimed that he would be put to death and raised again on the third day. That happened about 4 BC meaning that the idea of death and resurrection certainly wasnt a new idea when Jesus came along. It just happens that Christianity was the one religion that survived the test of time, and is the one most people consider to be true regardless of the fact history might have gone a totally different direction had one of these other Messianic religions taken off the way Christianity did.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176993#p176993 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Completely agreed, Thomas. But thats the very definition of faith... belief in something true that isnt always necessarily provable. I believe as christians our faith is founded on a combination of things... and belief in the truth of the Bible is one of them. My faith is not perfect, and I have questions very often... but I think while there may not be enough archeological and or historical evidence to answer everyones questions, so far all my beliefs have been in the realm of at least being possible historically and thus, my belief. As Ive stated before, I wasnt always a Christian... certainly wasnt raised that way. But Ive seen and experienced things thatve helped to build my faith and belief in a lot of things that non-believers would have a hard time believing, and Ive been able to rationalize a lot of it to my satisfaction. And what I havent been able to, I can only do two things... do more study and see what the co nclusions are from both christian and non-christian angles, and the second one is pray about them. And I also appreciate the openness of this discussion... I enjoy sharing my faith and telling others what I think abut Jesus and how hes changed my life. but far be it from me to be able to force anyone or even attempt to do so to believe what I do.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=177011#p177011 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible The only thing I can really comment on right now due to time is the biblical contradictions... I wasnt raised as a Christian, and there was a point where I didnt think all that much of christianity. Ive only been a Christian for three years so I dont know the Bible cover to cover... but one thing I have done is a lot of study. The contradictions thing was a question I had for a long time, and still is something I struggle with... yet I do find that the more I read, the more those contradictions arent entirely impossible... the argument with two angels versus one is explainable if you know that the accounts in Mark and those in John, though refering to the same event, are covering different aspects of the discovery of the empty tomb. Mark is talking about the very morning of the day when the group of women discovered the empty tomb... and John is writing about a later episode when Mary goes back to the tomb by herself. At least, thats how I under stand it... there may be more to it than that, but so far I havent had a contradiction that cant be explained reasonably, at least to me. Im not invalidating others opinions, just expressing my own beliefs and faith as a way of contributing to the discussion. Christian or non-Christian, for those who are interested in analysing the Bible and its proported errors... check out this website.http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/bible.htm#110Even if it doesnt explain the contradictions satisfactorily to you, it may offer another perspective or at least possibility. If nothing else, I hope its at least an interesting read.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176927#p176927 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible This claim has been made for many texts, not just the bible. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacyI find it interesting that people always want to read some modern idea or event into ancient texts. The problem is these are always postdictions, a meaning is always imposed on the text based on something that is already known. If people could accurately predict something before it happens, or enlighten us about some idea or form of technology we do not yet possess, then Ill be impressed.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176785#p176785 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Another thing to considder is that actually the modern bible is a large collection of various ancient texts put together. The old testament for example comes from a lot of hebrew writings and the Jewish Tora, while the new testiment was written mostly in aramaic and translated into Griek, indeed their are gospels and other bits of text from that time in history didnt make it into the Bible.That is why I find the idea of a code so unllikely, sinse your dealing with such a random collection of things translated into so many random languages,even if the original authors had one in mind there was no way it would survive for 2000 years or jell with all of the other writings that now make up the Bible. I also dont particularly see why our modern science should be reflected in 2000 year old writings anyway, heck just look at the people who believe in creationism to see that sort of problem. If you know about how science rpogressed you know that its essenti ally a set of educated guesses piled ontop of each other and that its quite likely much will be proved wrng in the future just like the switch from newtonian to einsteinian physics.to even attempt to tie our scientific guess work to the ideas of another time and culture so distant from what we know today like the bible seems to me rather pointless and quite unlikely to say the least, indeed it seems rather as if your trying to fit a round peg into a square hole with that one. The bible is more than important enough as a work of philosophy, ethics and religious meditation, just look at the many people whove died over interpretations or translations of it throughout history, you dont need to invent more significance. If you want a conspiracy, well there is more than enough bad stuff going on in the world that is! documented. \Oil companies owning patants for alternative energy research, the world trade organization specifically increasing the deb t of poor countries to line their own pockets, governments engaged in very shady operations in the name of security. There seems no need to invent more bad stuff ontop of all of that :d.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176796#p176796 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible you might be surprised but some of those conspirations really exist. I know from my familys experience but I really dont want to talk about that. lets just say that the world doesnt agree with a really innovating invention. this made me think what else are they hiding from us? even some of the text in the bible might be translated wrong and this might give us a completely wrong perspective in stead of the one intended. for example in genesis its written that the world was created in 6 days but what was translated as day from Hebrew originaly meant an undetermined period of time. so if there is a mistake there may be countless others.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176802#p176802 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible |Oh, I would never say we know everything that is going on, although I would rather not guess about what is happening particularly as regards inventions and progress. I do know for example a lot of the alternative energy research into things like neuclear fusion was bought up by major oil companies like shell. As for the Bible, well what you say about translation is exactly my point and why I find the idea of a biblical code slightly less likely.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176806#p176806 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible yeah.. they were bought and never came to production. they never produced them so we will continue to buy their oil when there could be a free alternative.Ive read about two gospels that are not introduced into the bible. one is the gospel of toma and the other is the gospel of mary which created a huge controverse.what i was trying to say with the mistaken translation is that today gods word might be wrongly translated.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176811#p176811 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Actually there are various gospels in the appocrapher which were left out of the Bible, for example the Gospel of Thomas. Indeed this is one reason why its a very bad idea to take the bible as literally true.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176817#p176817 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible As someone who believes the Bible to be the authoritative word of god without error, I dont believe the Bible to be wrong... and by that Im not just talking about the modern book, but the collection of texts from ancient times that made up all of it. The contemporary English Bibles translate the words day from the Hebrew word yom, meaning period of time as Nin said. But this is why as Christians or even people seeking to understand the Bible intelectually should at least have an understanding of theology at some basic level. And whats interesting is... you wont find all creationists believing in a 6000 year old Earth. Many of us believe the world was created by God. But is the six days an actual litteral amount of time? Who knows? All this also keeping in mind that from a biblical position, God is eternal and acts on a different time frame than us. Six days could be four billion years, it could not be. Its impossible to know, unless were God... and we most certainly arent.As to conspiracy theories and the rest.. I find those somewhat interesting as well. Interested to see if anyone here listens to Coast to Coast AM? If noone does, its a show that features everything like this. Conspiracies, the paranormal, etc. It isnt a Christian-based radio show though there are many christian speakers and topics surrounding Christianity.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176837#p176837 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Well, I have read quite a lot of interesting comments on this subject, but to be honest I think many people commenting on this subject seem to be misinformed as to what the bible code is and what books are included in it etc. Therefore I will attempt to address as many comments here as I can when and where needed.First, Dark is correct that there have been many translations of the books of the bible over the past few centuries from language to language , and yes several names have been changed as they have been converted from one language to another. The name Jesus Christ is Greek in origin, and it goes without saying that most bible scholars are aware that the person we know as Jesus was actually named Yeshua in Hebrew. In fact, many of the saints we know today as Jacob, John, Joshua, James, Peter, etc are not the original names of those people assuming they actually lived. They were changed in the process of converting the various books of the bible from one language to a nother. However interesting that may be to you it actually has no bearing on the bible code, because the people who first discovered or came up with the bible code were working from ancient Hebrew texts, in fact the first five books of the bible, so all of this speculation of multiple translations, the changing of names, and so on doesnt really matter as none of that effects the old Hebrew manuscripts themselves. It would only matter if they were working with a more modern translation of the texts.I would like to point out that when the bible code was first introduced to the world the person who came up with it was only working with the Torah, the first five books of the bible, so speculations about other new testament gospels etc really is an irrelevant point in debunking the original hypothesis. Now, there have been others who have come along later on and tried to say there were bible codes hidden in the new testament, and in that case yes the point that the oth er gospels etc might have a bearing on this subject would matter, but only if one is debunking the people who have come out in favor of bible codes in books beyond those supposedly discovered in the Torah. So I think we need to be more specific on which bible code scholar and hypotheses we are discussing here.Second, Nin wonders if the original is stored somewhere. I since we are discussing the bible I am going to assume he is talking about the original scrolls that made up the bible. Specifically, the old testament.In answer to that we dont have anything dating back to when they were supposed to have been written. It is believed by biblical scholars that the first few books were written between 500 BC and 600 BC, but there are no in tact scrolls from that time. All we have is remnants, scraps really, and all of the modern translations of the bible were translated from much newer copies of the old testament. As I recall the oldest copy of the old testament we cur rently have that is in tact was dated around 900 AD so that makes dating and comparison with the originals difficult.Third, as to what is contained in the bible code there is all kinds of supposed predictions such as the Challenger Explosion, the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the Kennedy assassination, etc. Basically, all the usual historical events that normally get ascribed to Nostradamus as predicting and now are supposedly contained in the bible once you know the secret to unlocking the bible code. However, as Zakc93 pointed out they are always interpretations based on making the event match up with the text to sound like a prediction. I have yet to hear someone make a quantifiable prediction.Fourth, Nin pointed out that some of the text in the bible has been translated wrong. On that he is correct. There are many places where one can go through there favorite English translation of the bible and find various errors where the Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic texts w ere improperly translated into English. This is something well known to bible scholars and not something that is in any doubt.For example, in some of the King James versions of the bible scholars have noticed that wild ox was translated as unicorn in a couple of places. I want to say in the Psalms. Since there arent any unicorns, never were such a thing, its obviously a translation error made by the men who translated the Hebrew texts into English for King James I. I am sure they did the best they could, but mistakes were obviously made, nor is that the only example of things that were poorly translated.In many cases the problem was that English simply didnt have any words analogous to what they were attempting to translate. In Genesis 1 the translators simply used the word God instead of Elohim. the problem for the translators is there is no word in English with the exact meaning of Elohim. The name Elohim can be singular or plural depending on conte xt , and can mean both at the same time. If the translators used
a code behind the bible
a code behind the bible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code … nce_methodwhat do you think about this? do you think that there is a secret code hidden behind the lines of the bible? I think that there is strong evidence for this and this makes sense for me I dont want to offend anyone but I think that the bible seems too simplistic. I am waiting for your oppinions.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176673#p176673 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Nin, Ive read about this before, and to be honest I am not really convinced that there is a secret bible code. This idea has been going around for the past twenty to thirty years, and while it has its supporters I am not one of them.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176728#p176728 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Even if there were some sort of secret code how the hell it would survive through goodness knows how many translations of the bible over the last two thousand years I dont know. Just to take one example, the name Jesus is not what he wouldve actually been called. Last I heard its believe the original name was yoshoua (which Im likely horribly miss spelling), a name from the same route as the modern Joshua. As the two names are very different and only in fact have two letters in comon, how the heck could you create a code? And that is just a problem with a very basic name of the most important person mentioned in the new testiment of the bible, let alone the rest of the thing. while stories like the Davinchi code are very good fiction, the basis for them in fact is very small indeed, at least as far as the evidence we know is concerned.heck, we cant even get the basic historical details write, (the mans name was nt even Jesus).URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176757#p176757 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible thats a good point but I wonder if the original is still stored somewhere... Ive heard that the people that tried to identify a code used the Hebrew version which was the language in which the bible was written.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176769#p176769 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible while Im prone to believing in conspiracy thearies and such, dark makes more than enough sence to me.while its not conclusively proved, people even new and young scientists around here, believe there are scientific information hidden in many ancient texts. while I can not deny it,(therere evidents, apparently), I have often wondered about exactly what dark wrote about.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176770#p176770 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: a code behind the bible
Re: a code behind the bible Dunno about a code in the Bible... and if so, what secret message its supposed to have. But I think that while Dark has a point, if the original manuscripts were used, in so far as all the manuscripts we have anyway... then something could just possibly be worked out. And its true while the actual persons name was not Jesus... we know what his original name was in Hebrew. Jesus is simply the anglicized version of the name Yeshua. And all the different translations used, particularly after the KJV, would most likely not be used to decode any such secret code... more likely the original hebrew and greek would be used where posible. But Im not entirely sold on the idea... and frankly as a christian, while its interesting, I dont think it matters all that much... the good news and most important of Gods messages is plainly spelled out in the new testament as well as the old.URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=176771#p176771 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
