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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Vilanat]

Basically if we all learnt Hebrew and Latin things would be simpler

In this context, sadly yes. Not too sure about Latin though.

[Arx]

Basically if we all learnt Hebrew and Latin things would be simpler

In this context, sadly yes. Not too sure about Latin though.

Greek would be better. And yes. There's a reason three out of six of my family have a grounding in Ancient Greek.

[Loud Whispers]

In this context, sadly yes. Not too sure about Latin though.

Covers the biblical to renaissance and provides etymological roots for the Romance languages

[origamiscienceguy]

Some of these animals might not exist today either. But for the "big fish" It could be a whale shark. That's a pretty massive fish.

EDIT: Nevermind, whale shark is a filter feeder. It could have been some other kind of shark though.

[Rolepgeek]

Exactly.

Context. Thank you, Villanat, for illustrating my point far more adeptly than I.

[Orange Wizard]

I would strongly suggest to avoid the english translations of the bible, since in the case of the Birds, it is rather confusing. in the English translation of leviticus it says Birds, in the hebrew text it says Of, which literally means "flying". there is also a passage (in Deuteronomy) where the bat is included with Tziporim, which is indeed the modern hebrew word for Birds, however, early on in Noah tale, Tzipor is defined as "those with wings".

In the case of the grasshopper argument, or rather, the "4 legged insects" in some english translations it says insects and in some it says creepers, while in the hebrew text it says Sheretz which is a general word to describe small creatures. other inclusions of Sheretz, beside the obvious are mice, worms and moles.

A decent study bible will point out things like this in the notes, which is really helpful for those of us who don't want to learn Hebrew or whatever.

[penguinofhonor]

What about things that aren't open to mistranslation? The New Testament says that the Roman census happened during the reign of Herod but we have evidence that it happened after his death.

[Orange Wizard]

Herod the Great had a son called Herod Antipas who ruled over Galilee.

If not, it sounds like one of those things where people wrote it down like fifty years later so they were probably just guessing by that stage.

[penguinofhonor]

 Sorry, I should've said Herod the Great.  The Bible does specify.

[Orange Wizard]

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah...

Luke specifies that King Herod was alive when John the Baptist's birth was foretold. This was a couple of years, roughly, before the census.

1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

When the time for Jesus' birth rolls around, Herod the Great is dead, Herod Archelaus has succeeded him (in Judea), Archelaus was banished, and Quirinius was appointed governor of Syria by Augustus.

[Rolan7]

Pointing out factual inaccuracies is fun and all, but mostly just applies to KJV literalists.  Which is a depressingly large number of people, with a lot of influence in American politics, but they coincidentally don't really care about factual arguments.  Generally.

The differences in God's morality between the New and Old Testament are actually important, and not a result of translation.  Discussion of them is harder, though, because it usually involves comparing concepts instead of facts.  Heavily loaded concepts...  Morality is a touchy subject.

But I'd like to attack a common argument: That God gave the Israelites the disgusting laws of Leviticus because the Israelites weren't ready for actual morality.
Nonsense.  The Israelites lived in absolute fear of God, because he would murder hundreds of them over the most trivial disobedience.  He killed a man for trying to catch the Ark when it fell.  He ruined a Jewish king for being too merciful, daring to capture an enemy king rather than killing him outright.  Time and again he specifically commanded the Jews to conquer, slaughter, and rape their neighbors.

I don't accept that he "wanted" to show them proper New Testament morality, but that they weren't ready.  He forced them at smite-point to do atrocities in His name.

I'll say it again:  Completely different entity from Jesus, with nearly opposite goals.

[Vilanat]

I am not sure why there's even a need to refute the bible through pointing its obvious scientific errors since it makes them as early as its first chapter.

Pointing out factual inaccuracies is fun and all, but mostly just applies to KJV literalists.  Which is a depressingly large number of people, with a lot of influence in American politics, but they coincidentally don't really care about factual arguments.  Generally.

The differences in God's morality between the New and Old Testament are actually important, and not a result of translation.  Discussion of them is harder, though, because it usually involves comparing concepts instead of facts.  Heavily loaded concepts...  Morality is a touchy subject.

But I'd like to attack a common argument: That God gave the Israelites the disgusting laws of Leviticus because the Israelites weren't ready for actual morality.
Nonsense.  The Israelites lived in absolute fear of God, because he would murder hundreds of them over the most trivial disobedience.  He killed a man for trying to catch the Ark when it fell.  He ruined a Jewish king for being too merciful, daring to capture an enemy king rather than killing him outright.  Time and again he specifically commanded the Jews to conquer, slaughter, and rape their neighbors.

I don't accept that he "wanted" to show them proper New Testament morality, but that they weren't ready.  He forced them at smite-point to do atrocities in His name.

I'll say it again:  Completely different entity from Jesus, with nearly opposite goals.

Different, yes. better? totally subjective.

[Orange Wizard]

I am not sure why there's even a need to refute the bible through pointing its obvious scientific errors since it makes them as early as its first chapter.

Because people insist that it is scientific, or that "science" is wrong/evil/untrustworthy for disputing the Bible.

[Loud Whispers]

Fundamentalists, empiricists, all are problematic

[Rolan7]

Different, yes. better? totally subjective.

OH yeah, absolutely.  Not arguing that at all.

It's just that modern Christians almost always claim that God is, well, nice (is love, is good, is merciful, etc).  And that's clearly untrue based on the Old Testament.