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[Phmcw]

...

I suspect that this is starting to venture off of the topic, even for religion...

Shouldn't an all-knowing god have foreseen all this concern over the translations of holy texts and made a set in Modern English, probably the most popularly accepted language since Latin? Give someone a fey mood and have them buried then to be discovered now. Living languages tend to drift a fair bit, even if a book was written in the same language that is being used centuries later it would still require a historian and linguist to derive accurate meaning from it.

...he'd rather have disciples writing it of from memory, twelve years later, than scribbles writing down Jesus's word,
and you still ask why he didn't think about writing it in modern English?
Although the most reliable of all holy book surely is the coran : it's partially written by people that weren't even there, partially written on the spot on whatever was available (: wood, stone,... ) and compiled several year later by peoples that had obvious interest in making it fit their views.

The torah was a random compilation of old text...

But let's take it by the word against modern science my friends. Whichever may you choose.
Because god broadcasting the universe make ho so much more sense than the stupid hypothesis that we don't know for sure what is happening and that the best way to find out is to search by ourselves without waiting for the help of an hypothetic god. 

Edit : better like that? I try write properly but even in French I tend to make sentences longer than reasonable, thus incomprehensible.
Add a few grammar errors and a misbehaving "t" key and you have weird posts.
If there still are grammars errors feel free to point them out.

[Jackrabbit]

I actually totally lost track of what you were saying in the second paragraph and gave up. Read through your posts before you post them so you know they make sense, please.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

it's a continuation and a response to the previous post in the previous page, it makes more sense if you read those together

[Siquo]

Nope, even then the grammar, content and spelling make it incomprehensible.

Really, this is one of those cases where being a spellingnazi has nothing to do with it, I really can't distill from that post what Phmcw is trying to say.

[Starver]

Agreed on the concept of making sense (not that I always do), but I think I it worked well enough even through the noted bad-grammar points (which I interpreted as bad editing).

Basically, my interpretation is [Paraphrasing] a (purely sarcastic) suggestion that one should trust to a the random jottings of past civilisations[1], use "God made it so" to answer any questions about the universe that aren't already 'answered' by whichever religious book happens to be your One-And-Only holy work, and deal with any such answers that defy observation by appealing to the ineffability of the Creator.

And naturally (!) that's a far better way of working with the world than thinking for ourselves...[End Of Paraphrasing]

My interpretation.

[1] Actually, while random, it was a 'random jotting' that has survived.  It may help that it includes a phrase along the lines of "Do not change any words when you make copies of this." and had a number of other memetic codes to heavily integrated within its society.  But the Bible does not have that (and/or it was not followed) so has ended up with the multiple interpretations ("thou shalt not kill/murder/whatever") of various texts, aided and abetted by the necessarily imprecise nature of translation through a variety of intermediary languages of the various parts of source material.  As well as some 'selective' editing by a couple of 'executive decisions' by the 'board of directors' of the early Church.  But arguably that's produced a Darwinian environment for the holy texts, making a diverse number of "Bible-ish" end-results to compete with other holy works.  But also, of course, it means that there's competition between sub-sections of the Christian church (witness Northern Ireland and countless other examples, which was at least part of the "us and them" attitude).

[Askot Bokbondeler]

actually, i don't get your confusion :\
he's saying that god, instead of writing down jesus words, had jesus followers write it down from memory 12 yeas* after jesus death. then he implies that it would be unreasonable for us to expect that said god would write down the bible in modern English for modern people to understand.
he then mentions the coran**ironically implying that this one is even better than the bible, saying that this one was written by people who didn't witnessed what they were described, written in stones or pieces of wood, and later compiled by people who had their own interests in mind instead of "god's"***
then he mentions the torah, saying that this one is a recollection of old folk tales, and he ironically advises us to take it literally, instead of accepting that the secret of the universe wasn't revealed to us by an almighty god, and instead  of exploring the universe through science, we should wait for god to tell it to us

*i've read that the bible wasn't written anywhere near christ's death, tough, nor by any of his disciples, it was over a 100 years after christ's death. wikipedia:All of the works which would eventually be incorporated into the New Testament would seem to have been written no later than the mid-second century.
**(Coran is an infrequently used English spelling of Qur'an)
***it's the bible's story also, not just the quran's

[Siquo]

The Qur'an was written and compiled not long after Muhammed's death, a lot sooner than the bible (NT), and that one was a lot sooner than the Thorah (OT). It seems God is making slow progress in getting his words heard.

I also don't understand the science/holy book dichotomy. That only occurs when you take those books literally, and apply them onto things they weren't meant to describe.

There's a description of a temple in the Old Testament, for instance, that, when you actually try to build it, makes no sense at all. The inside is bigger than the outside. Lesson: Biblical interpretations where you explain nature or the real world through the bible, fail.
Biblical interpretations for what to do when you've been wronged, when you're struck by bad luck, when you experience happiness or misery, when you feel love or hate, those are useful. And "science" can't help you there

[Askot Bokbondeler]

There's a description of a temple in the Old Testament, for instance, that, when you actually try to build it, makes no sense at all. The inside is bigger than the outside. Lesson: Biblical interpretations where you explain nature or the real world through the bible, fail.
Biblical interpretations for what to do when you've been wronged, when you're struck by bad luck, when you experience happiness or misery, when you feel love or hate, those are useful. And "science" can't help you there

nope, lesson: god is magik!
or lesson:bible is dumb

how do we interpret a passage that clearly states that someone should be stone to death?

[Siquo]

There's also a passage where the stoning of a person is stopped, because it's inhumane. What is your point?

[fenrif]

There's also a passage where the stoning of a person is stopped, because it's inhumane. What is your point?

That the bible is inherantly contradictory nonsense because it doesn't even conform to its own internal logic and messages?

[kuro_suna]

The problem with the bible in addition to being translated and reinterpreted countless times is that it probably wasn't the original documentation for Christianity, its more likely a cliffs notes of several older documents that have been lost to time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

[Phmcw]

The problem with the bible is that too many people take it as an excuse not to think.
The same goes for any religion or philosophy ever invented.
They try to make the world fit their views instead of fitting their views on how the world work.
Except scientist, when they don't screw up, of course.

[Siquo]

There's also a passage where the stoning of a person is stopped, because it's inhumane. What is your point?

That the bible is inherantly contradictory nonsense because it doesn't even conform to its own internal logic and messages?

Neither do you, or 99% of all text written by man. What is your point?

Kuro_suna: Does that make it less valuable, as a text?
Phmcw: Agreed. Except that science-believers (something else than practitioners) can fall into that same trap: "Oh, it's illogical/paradoxical/inauthentic, so it's nonsense, so I don't have to think about it".

[Micro102]

Before you go making ridiculous assumptions like that, get some proof. People's writings may contradict one another, and that means one of them is false. But this is one book and supposedly accepted by god, an omnipotent and knowledgeable.....thing. (I just came up with a topic to last another 30 pages  )

If it contradicts itself, it is false in one way or another, and thereby whoever wrote it and accepts it is wrong.

[Siquo]

Before you go making ridiculous assumptions like that, get some proof. People's writings may contradict the bible, and that means it is false. But these are many books and supposedly accepted by scientists, potent and knowledgeable.....humans. (I just came up with a topic to last another 30 pages  )

If it is not written by God, it is false in one way or another, and thereby whoever wrote it and accepts it is wrong.

Fixed that for you. You believe in the importance of logic. Others do not share that belief. Both of you can keep calling eachother "wrong", because of your beliefs.