Re: [OT] Good, evil and religion [WAS] Re: A way to compile 3rd party modules into deb system?

[judd@wadsworth.org]

On  9 May, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> On Wed, May 09, 2007 at 12:45:49PM +0200, Joe Hart wrote:
>> 
>> 2) The bible that you refer to is full of contradictions.  If one is
>> not to commit murder, based in the Ten Commandments, then how can a
>> god request that one sacrifice one's son?  That is murder.  There are
>> many more examples, but that stands out to me.
>> 
> Well, there are a few fallacies in your argument.
> 
>  1) The Ten Commandments and in fact the whole law, were given *after*
>  Abraham's test.
>  2) It was quite clearly a test from God.
>  3) Anything God does is, by definition, right.
>  4) The argument can be made based on Abraham's recorded words that he
>  knew God would resurrect his son.
> 

     It helps to know something of the context when reading the
bible.  The people who Abraham lived among (Canaanites, IIRC?),
practiced sacrificed the "first fruits" to whatever gods they
worshipped.  It was not uncommon to include the first born 
son in this.  One of the remarkable parts of the story of Abraham,
to a contemporary audience is the fact that the God of Israel does
not actually call for his people to sacrifice their children.

>> However, I will agree that Christianity does preach moral goodness,
>> but historically, that has seldom been the practice.
>> 
> Well, anything involving people inherently gets fouled up.
> 
>> 3) If the Bible didn't need updates, then why are new versions
>>    created?
> 
> Because of any number of reasons:
> 
>  - people want to intentionally change The Word to fit their own views
>    (the Jehova's Witnesses are probably the best known example, but
>    there are plenty of others)
>  - people are prideful (they think that previous translations are
>    inferior and that they can do better)
>  - many are the work of the devil
>  - there are plenty of other reasons
> 

     A more positive reason is that research and new archaeological
discoveries give us a better understanding of the texts that we have
(which are all nth generation copies).  

>>  Ah, differences in interpretation from the original.  Can one really
>> know what the authors' meant with certain metaphorical phraseology?
> 
> I believe yes.
> 

Their is a whole discipline known as textural criticism which strives
to do just that.  No scholar would state that it is 100% successful.

>> ...
>> 
> Sure, people can quibble over the meaning of words.  But, for example,
> the King James Version (the one that I use) was translated by a
> committee of imminent scholars and men of God.  While they may not
> have been in absolute perfect unanimous agreement over every single
> thing, every single disagreement was discussed until a general
> consensus was reached on each.
> 

I like the King James version also, for the expressive language that
it uses.  On the other hand, we have learned much more about the 
ancient societies and texts since it was written.  I think that the
translation of the Rosetta stone in particular provided a lot of insight
into those cultures.

-Chris 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   Christopher Judd, Ph. D.                      judd@wadsworth.org   |
------------------------------------------------------------------------