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I've kinda made up my own beliefs over the years. I like to believe there is a God, I like to believe in an afterlife, and I like to think that as long as you're a good person then the afterlife will bring great things to you, whatever the afterlife actually is. That's pretty much my whole religious philosophy right there. I don't think it matters what you believe or how you believe - as long as you live life to the fullest and are a good person then you've got it made.
That's a beautiful philosophy, Greg. There's only one problem with it. When Adam and Eve broke God's one law and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they inadvertantly gave the authority of this world over to Satan. And now we are all born of a sinful nature.
Just look around at the state of the world and you can see that's not unfathomable. The heart is decietful above all things and desperately wicked. That's why a holy and just God sent His only begotten son Jesus to redeem us.
Why is the message of the cross so dispicable to some people? God is good. Unfortunately he's gotten some real bad PR over the decades.
Despite my religious beliefs, I don't feel the need to beat people over the head with them. Adults are fully capable of making up their own minds, and I don't have a dark and storied past that I feel hard pressed to make amends with.
Here is some proof from outside the Bible that an event in the Bible actually happened. I selected this event because out of everything in there, it's the most likely to have outside proof since it would have affected the entire world.
I give you Joshua 10:12-14: "12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!"
This event occurred at about 1448BC by Biblical reckoning (you know, counting back through the kings and dates and all that).
Egyptians had accurate clocks that measured time and they recorded a day that lasted twice as long as a normal day.
China recorded that there was a long day in the year of the world 2554, which works out to 1448BC.
The Aztecs ran up against a long night, and called a conclave of the Gods and offered a sacrifice to bring it back.
Peru recorded the sun hidden for nearly 20 hours during the reign of a king from the 1400's BC.
The Quiche Mayans of Guatemala despaired for the rising of the sun.
In North America, there are more stories of a long night. The Ojibways, Wyandots and the Bungees tell of a long night. The Omahas tell of the sun being caught in a rabbit's trap and only released just before dawn.
Finally, on the eastern island of Fiji an explorer recorded that the natives tied weeds together to stop the sun from going down, as their tales say it once did.
The guy on that site worked all this out here and figured out that in Israel, it was about 9am, since the West Africans were waiting for the dawn that didn't come, and the Fijians had stopped the setting of the sun. There's even a map.
So there you go, Phil. Non-Biblical evidence. If you want to find it, there has been scientific and archaeological evidence for a lot of the Biblical events. Some can't be dogmatically proven, but others have been because man has wanted to prove the Bible's existence (and the lack thereof, in some cases) for quite some time.
I am personally a die-hard Christian, but I prefer to demonstrate my faith instead of ramming it down anyone's throats. I dislike religion because it's a conceptualization created by man to pigeonhole people into a sect. It's also something that people tend to practice as opposed to live. Rather, I find Christianity to be a lifestyle as much as any other. It's not religion, since that's preached by people to be separable. Instead, it's the way I live my life every day without thinking about it. I hope you would be hard-pressed to find me hypocritical, though no one is perfect.
People will choose their own paths and make their own decisions based on their lives and their personal influences. It is a far better choice to be a positive example than to be a persuasive speaker. Or as we say around here, show, don't tell.
So do not let this thread become a battle of wits or words. If you want to preach, write a screenplay with a subtle message. It's the best way to get it across. Have you read my slasher script, Vengeance? It's a horror tale with no profanity, no on-screen sex, and the message of "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Weird huh?
Mike Shelton, You and the sock puppet should take your act on the road. You guys are a real hoot.
And to think this whole thing stemmed from me trying to rally SS'rs to match my simple $10.00 donation for the Haiti relief fund. Bert tried to warn me this thing might get out of hand, but I wouldn't listen...yeesh. Live and learn.
Any-who, let's all try to please keep sending out those donations:
A religion that is pure and stainless according to God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows who are suffering. James 1:27. Maybe we can all just agree on this one for now.
Mike Shelton, You and the sock puppet should take your act on the road. You guys are a real hoot.
I wasn't making a joke. Look at that stupid family that sits by the road with the hate signs, or people who were involved in the Branch Davidian cult. Fanatics, and far worse for religion than anything that can be stirred up about God.
Another outlet is all the issues with the Catholic church, namely the touchy priests. It's become so widespread that it's now a commonly used stereotype.
This isn't bad PR for God. It's bad PR for those who act "on behalf" of God. Anybody who takes that at face value is a fool.
Yeah. I think I said that all the back in post number 2.
Phil
That is true, Phil. But people must've overlooked it at some point because there were people on both sides who looked like they were guaranteeing that what they said was fact.
I felt it needed to be stated again. It didn't seem like me saying it helped either, but it was a shot.
Why is the message of the cross so dispicable to some people? God is good. Unfortunately he's gotten some real bad PR over the decades.
It's not dispicable, Mike. It's just not believable.
Bible thumpers say that the world is six thousand years old because the Bible says so. Archeologists prove that the world is a couple of million years older than than. And they've proven it with carbon dating and how deep fossils are buried.
One 'theologian' went assofar as to say that God planted the dinosaur bones to test the faith of the scientists.
Too much faith is being placed on a book, plain and simple. We were taught that the Bible is true, without questions. In the past, those who questioned it, and the church, were branded heretics and killed... so people learned not to question it.
The church doesn't have this kind of power anymore. And, with the advancements in science, people can believe in facts that have been proven through scientific method.
Is the Bible true because people say it's true? If so, then Amityville Horror is true. And the Hitler Diaries. And the Blair Witch Project.
There's no logic behind religion and there's no faith needed for science - so never the twain shall meet...
Also, there's a difference between being religious and being spiritual - churches are filled with embezzelers and mafioso and the like.
I'd rather be a spiritual person who doesn't profess any sort of faith than be a hypocrite who shows up every day but is devoid of real goodness.
Of course, it's possible to be both religious and spiritual.
For a great lay person's view on this, you should all read "Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James. James goes on for pages on how he admires the complete and utter devotion to their faith by the martyrs. He doesn't conclude in the end that anything religious is true, but he longs for that feeling - the peace a martyr feels when someone says "abandon your faith or we'll kill you" - the peace that allows the martyr to say "no" and to go to his or her grave with absolute faith.
I for one don't believe in any of it - but it's an admirable trait just the same, no?
Mr. Blonde, you started this with a question. I say read William James. Read Aquinas. Read Nietzsche. Read Howard Thurman. Read the gnostic gospels and books by people who comment on them.
All much better qualified people and sources than the SS board, my esteem for all you people aside...
There's no logic behind religion and there's no faith needed for science - so never the twain shall meet...
Ah, but there are a number of brilliant researchers who have reconciled their science with their faith.
A know personally of a physicist who claims that his work brings him closer to God.
In the biochemical sciences, there are a great many instances where some unseen hand seems to be working behind the scenes.
There is a lot of poppycock to Intelligent Design, but to those who have studied it with a true scientific eye, there are some nuggets there, and compelling questions.
To throw anyone's beliefs onto the fire is ignorant. To implicate any belief system by pointing to a subset of individuals with flaws that are all too human is unfair.
This is the second time you've referred to me as the 'sock puppet,' at least in this thread. A little insulting, don't you think? I'm being reasonable and logical in what I say. Since you can't use these two character traits in this discussion, you resort to name calling. Phil
Phil,
I'm sorry for calling you a sock puppet. I have nothing but the utmost respect for you as a fellow screenwriter, and Mike Shelton, too. You guys are great sports.
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