Titan:I really admire your enthusiasm Iron Fist and not trying to change that or anything. You are a good person to debate religion with other than *cough* clowd *hack* 
Hey, clowd isn\'t so bad.
He and I are alike in many ways. He really reminds me of how I used to be on these forums just a couple years ago. Heh.
But anyways, sometimes I feel a little too enthusiastic, and I feel like I go to far (I\'m sure lots of people are sick of reading my religious posts
). If you get sick of hearing me talk about my beliefs, go ahead and tell me to shut up. I won\'t be offended.
You probably know this but those stories were written down years after jesus lived and died.
Actually, no, I didn\'t know that. I guess I\'ve never really thought about it. Thanks for bringing it up.
After doing some research, I have found that you are right -- Many of the books were written years after the events happened. It is believed that Luke didn\'t even see the events of Christ\'s ministry first hand. He got his information from the apostle Paul and other missionaries. But I still believe that the events told in the Bible are true. Take the four books on Christ\'s life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Even though these books were written by different people, at different times, in different places, they all contain many of the same events. And the details of these events are the same in each version, for the most part. Some versions have additional details that other versions left out, but they all support each other. I don\'t think there could be four seperate accounts saying the same things unless the events really did take place.
Things could have gotten twisted around. Its kind of like the game telephone. People add stuff, take away stuff or completely exagerated.
I agree with you to an extent, but I also disagree. If the Bible is a book written for the purpose of guiding future generations to salvation, there is no way God would allow his prophets to write false things into it. Not even exagerations. He would not lead us astray. As it says in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine...[and] instruction in righteousness." I guess it\'s kind of circular logic to use a scripture to show that the things the prophets wrote can be trusted, but hey, its a nice scripture. I had to use it.
So I believe that the when the scriptures were originally written by the various prophets and apostles, they were written under the supervision of God himself. I believe that the things written really did happen.
And now, the part where I kind of agree with you about the Bible stories losing their accuracy as time went on...
I entered this thread defending religion as a whole. And I still believe that every religion that teaches good morals and kindness is a good thing. I even support the religions that some people call corrupt (it isn\'t fair to call a whole organization corrupt based just a small number of the members). But this is where my beliefs of the Bible break away from the rest of the Christian community. I believe that when the apostles were killed off after Christ\'s death, the church that Christ established on this world apostized. For nearly two thousand years, the churches on this world were self governed -- not lead by Christ. Through the innumerable translations and revisions, the bible slowly changed from how it was originally written. Because the translators were not being lead by God, they made mistakes and did things they didn\'t realize were wrong. Many things were purposely taken out or altered, not because the people doing the revisions wanted the Bible to be untrue, but possibly because the people wanted to make sure the Bible matched their own beliefs.
I believe that later on in the 1800s, when God set up his church on the earth again, he had his prophet fix many of the problems that were in the Bible. This fixed version of the Bible is called the Joseph Smith translation. He was able to retranslate a lot of the Bible, the first 6 or 7 entire chapters in Genesis, and lots of select scriptures throughout the whole Bible, but he was killed before he was able to finish his work. So I believe that the Joseph Smith translation version of the Bible is the most correct version, but it is still not exactly how it was when it was first written.
Just to clarify though, even without the Joseph Smith translation, the Bible is an invaluble tool that can guide us every day of our lives. After two thousand years of slight alterations, the Bible still contains the truth; just not the full truth.
Also, the bible could have been a story book not to be taken literally.
I just don\'t think this is plausible. The bible has 4000 years of records in it. It wasn\'t just one person, or even a group of people getting together to write this book. It is a compilation of records, from many different generations, that all point to the same thing. It doesn\'t make sense that over the timeframe of 4000 years, a book was written by many different people just for the heck of it.
I had faith for over 16 years and nothing. I didn\'t see a reason. I started believing scientific theories and its possible evidence. I thought those sounded better than a \'being\' appearing and creating the world for us.
I was born into a Mormon family, and grew up in the church. I pretty much believed in what my parents believed throughout my whole childhood -- like most religious children do. Around the same age you were at when you stopped believing, my church leaders started to tell us that we needed to stop riding around on our parent\'s coat tails and develop our own testimony of God and the church. It was around this same time that I was questioning the same things you were questioning. The whole idea of there being a God, the very thing I grew up believing, just sounded so strange. The story of where we came from, who we are, and where we are going sounded like a story in a video game. The whole idea of there being a life after this one, a life of much greater magnitude than this one just boggled my mind. I figured I had to find out the truth. I had three real choices, continue to blindly believe the things taught to me in church, blindly believe the scientist\'s theories that were taught to me in school, or actually try to find out the truth for myself. I was sick of not knowing for sure, and I didn\'t want to just believe other people anymore.
So I took the advice given in both the books of James and Moroni:
James 1: 5-6:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Moroni 10: 3-5:
Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
God wants every person in the world to believe in him, but he cannot just reveal himself to us. That would take away our freedom to believe in what we want to believe in. He can only make his presence known if we ask "with a sincere heart, with real intent, and having faith in Christ."
Living-In-Clip:Make note: I am not religious, but Iron Fist is damn educated in his religion and theory.
Thank you LIC. I appreciate the compliment. I\'ve still got a long ways to go though; a lot more to learn and understand.
