Topic awaiting preservation: Vatican University Debuts Satanism Classes (Page 5 of 5)

That is what the discussion is all about dear Jade...fact versus faith.

It is a fact there are no facts for the faithful to rely upon.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

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It is a fact there are no facts for the faithful to rely upon.

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Well....likewise. Is it a fact you are going to wake up tomorrow morning or will you die in a wreck on the way home today? You hope, you assume you will live till the end of the week. That is called faith.
Even though you cannot see the end of the week. There are no facts to base on which you can calculate you will live thur to the end of the week. So from the moment or second you are in, what comes after is a mystery until you live it thru. I am sure you have faith in a person(s). You put your trust in persons because you can see them. I gather you cannot put your trust in anything you cannot see, but then you put your faith in the future of every second, hour or day that you live which is a mystery.

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Even then, they stole the idea from the Babylonians didn't they?

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This is incorrect. Satan is at the beginning of Scripture in the Old Testament in the Jewish Torah. In the story of Genesis. http://www.saintaquinas.com/original_sin.html

http://www.faithnet.org.uk/KS4/Believing%20in%20God/satan.htm

Third paragraph down.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

I want to dispell the whole 10% of the brain deal. This is completely wrong, and it is a perpetuated myth that for some reason just keeps on enduring. We use all of our brain, we might not understand how all of it is working, but we do make use of all of it.

http://www.csicop.org/si/9903/ten-percent-myth.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html
and for your searching pleasure:
http://www.google.com/search?q=10+percent+of+the+brain+myth

The myth really has to die.

Dan @ Code Town

Satan was hardly a creation 200 years after Christ. The page you site, Ehtheist, clearly shows he is mentioned throughout the bible. In fact, he appears at the beginning in Genesis and is mentioned gobs in John's Revelation. The understanding of what and/or who Satan is, deserves study, but to say the concept was invented after the fact just isn't right.

For reference:
Jesus and Lucifer the same person?
Satan...

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Yup, but they stole it from the Babylonians.

Furthermore, so much of the bible has been re-written and 'edited' by xian apologists over the years, only those with blind faith would put any faith in any of it.

In addition, it appears the bible was pretty much not put together until long after the alleged messiah trucked off.

As for the stories and tales of which it is comprised, it seems that while the majority of the yarns were around BCE, xians as an "organized" group weren't using them until 100-200 years after the death of that there mythical lad.

The bible did not spring whole from a bud in the burning bush (another myth).

So Satan was clearly introduced to xianity after the myth of xist arose.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

Similarities in the concept of Satan in the OT compared to Babylonian beliefs sounds like a very interesting topic to look into.

Just how much of the bible do you think was 'edited' by apologists? We have approximately 8000 copies and fragments of the NT documents that constitute the type of hard evidence we talk about here so often. What that means is that you cannot simply say that "it was edited over the years" without actually taking a look at what we have that points to source documents *before* the end of the first century.

For certain, there are variances in the texts we do have but you will not find a wholesale rewriting of the gospels as your comments seem to suggest. I am open to examining the differences that we do find there but it simply isn't accurate to dismiss the whole book based on yet another broad brush stroke like that. What worries me about your position is that you come across *wanting* what you say to be true rather than basing what you say on what we actually know.

Yes, the bible was "closed" many years after the life of Christ. But as I say above that does not necessarily mean the documents that were included were simply tailored to fit an arbitrary position. The people who put together the NT were interested in sticking to what the apostles taught and were trying to avoid the exact thing you charge was done, which is perverting the original message. The challenge was to determine what documents were authentically written by the apostles and which were not.

I'm not sure you're understanding what books are which by your 3rd to the last paragraph. The entire OT was written long before Christ came on the scene. There was a period of several hundred years there called the "intertestament period". All of the NT was written after Christ's death (and resurrection ). Satan is mentioned in the OT and in the NT. Another important point is that the apostles who wrote the NT were almost all Jewish and held the OT as sacred and valid scripture. Where is the separation of 100-200 years of xians picking up the idea of Satan?

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that does not necessarily mean the documents that were included were simply tailored to fit an arbitrary position.

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No, they were selected and tailored to fit a very purposeful position =)

You have to remember that there were *many* gospels around, expressing many views, and being interpreted in many ways. While many of the apostles were jews, and espoused the jewish laws and traditions, paul fought practically tooth and nail against that. While I don't view paul in very high regard, most christians appear to hold him in practically the highest...

Odd that his views were so vastyl opposed to Peter's to whom god gave the 'keys to the kingdom' and all...

I believe the entire bible was 'edited' by apologists and hundreds of times.

In the days when pretty-much only priests could read 'n write, there is evidence popes and other religious leaders frequently had sections re-written to reflect whatever current bias they were promoting. Same for various Monarch's who ordered 'bowderlization' to suit their own political or religious needs of beliefs.

In fact, I believe it is still going on today.

This does not even begin to take into account the intentional and unintentional mis-translations through...how many languages?

I don't need to want to have what I say be true, from the reading and documentaries I have doneand seen over the better part of 60 years my conclusions are firmly based in fact and history.

Only the faithful 'want' to have what they believe to be true and that is because at heart, if they are honest witrh themselves, they know there a lot more doubts than certainties.

As for the OT, where do you think it came from? It is a compilation of old shepherds tales told around the dung-fire to pass the night away. Certainly there are some good bits of advice here and there, but mankind came upon those long before it had religion and much longer before xianity raised it's superstition-laden head.

I have read that much of the OT is based on ancient Babylonian writings and mythology as well as other older mythologies (probably where the Babylonians got it). Now, we likely agree the Babylyonian mythology was just that, myths.

Xianity is largely based on those self-same myths.

So you see ,a discussion on who wrote what and when and whether or not and how often it was 'edited' is moot as it is totally irrelevant to reality.

Organized religion is nothing more than institutionalized superstition, with no more substance to it than the fear of black cats or walking under ladders.

Yet millions of people adhere to those and other such silliness as dedicatedly as you hug your xianity to you.

And more power to you.

My objection to religion, as put forth here before, is those adherants who insist in the face of physical evidence that something totally imaginary is real. I don't mind them so deluding themselves, but to try to force those delusions on others is completely untenable.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

Eitheist Judaism came from old middle easter pagan beliefs

I would highly recommend for you to read a book called : A History of God

=)

Thanks Ruski if I run across a copy I will. The point is, xianity, Islam and doubtless countless other religions owe their current existance to prior religious myths.

It is really as simple as that no matter how the faithful will rail against the truth.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)