Religion.
Especially when you 'REALLY' think about it.
I am personally not an atheist. But I do feel that the current Bible has been altered to suit the needs of the developing Roman cities of ancient time.
The United States is based upon a Roman government.
It's scary because if you really pay attention, you can see it being applied to our economy. A losing battle where many people in the US are born with a deluded sense of reality.
Now...there is nothing wrong with religion(s), you just need to dig deeper. And the bad you see is the intentions of 'greed' and 'desire for control' manipulating the ideas for their own benefit.
JESUS was great! So was Buddha! Even Muhammad!
But.....there is now more to see than before.
The universe expands like a compressed sponge in water. Those gapping holes within the sponge represent the 'missing history' and 'conflicting disharmonies' that keep humanity apart. But because of those insignificant strands of sponge holding those gaps together, we are actually more connected and shared in common belief if one was to see things as a whole.
But like the expenditure of the Universe.
This is just the way of our existence. To spread apart, to expand our knowledge, and to maybe even evolve.
We see it in nature and in developing cultures.
For our current existence...We owe EVERYTHING to our past history and culture.
Every religion, every culture, every self determined good and every evil. You cannot dispute them. And we can even learn from them.
But because of the internet, we are more connected now than before
We must continue to strive for interdependence and harmony.
Put our pride and beliefs aside and learn from each other.
Let us experience what each other has to say, think, or feel.
Because logically, you cannot determine what 'Truth' is until you've see the whole world...maybe even the whole universe as a whole.
Good, Evil...these are just interpretations.
Justification will always be determined by circumstances.
And now that we can 'communicate' better through a tool known as the internet.
We can finally put the 'puzzle pieces of life' together.
We can finally be HARMONIC!
"All sentient beings have the right, responsibility, and freedom to self-determinate."
AlvinHew
Actually, the Christian bible we have today is extremely accurate to the original manuscripts.
Historians use a technique called the Internal Evidence test to determine the accuracy of any ancient document, and one of the ways they go about doing this is to compile a collection of extent copies of any given manuscript. The more copies they have, the more they can determine how much the original document has been changed over time.
Presently there are about 5600 greek manuscripts discovered so far for the New Testament. And within all of those copies, historians have determined that the bible is over 99% accurate to the original text. So it hasn't remained exactly 100% the same, but such accuracy is not found among any other ancient document.
If you compare the bible to the works of Aristotle, for example, the difference is stunning. There are currently only 49 surviving manuscripts for the works of Aristotle. And even within those few copies there are discrepancies which historians say occurred when the original manuscript was damaged and then poorly repaired by Apellicon, causing some errors to be introduced.
The only ancient document that even comes close to the bible in terms of number of manuscripts is Homer's Iliad, which has about 650 extent copies. And even then, within those copies there is about 95% deviation between the copies.
So as far as textual accuracy goes, the bible is pretty much second to none. I've found that the more I study the bible, the easier it is for me to discern when some power-hungry individual decides to warp and misquote the bible to suit his needs.
JakBaronKing (Updated )
I did study the bible.
But for starters, I really appreciate the fact you took time to read my blog.
But I'm still firm on this belief.
Whether the Bible is accurate or not, I don't completely agree with everything they mention.
I can't really support a religion that once justified slavery and killing, and still bashes small insignificant moral conducts towards homosexuality.
However, I really appreciate the methodologies of peace that Jesus expresses. I take what I feel is real wisdom from the Bible and what is just nonsense technicalities.
However, I think that some parts are superimposed. Like there is a balance of desire for control through means of fear and subjugation against an "ALL KNOWING GOD". The Roman Government knew of the influence Jesus had on his followers so they tried to superimpose it as a mean of control. We wouldn't have Christianity today if it wasn't for the Roman Catholic System, which has their OWN set of beliefs compared to modern-day Christians.
Overall, accurate or not, the stuff they mention seems contradictory to the ideals of a benevolent God.
The interpretation and logic seems...dictatorship-ish.
Especially when you decide to look at it from a logical point of view.
(Using Eve's punishment for her naivety as a primary example.)
I don't hate Christians nor "God" for that matter, but I think that because there are so many interpretations of what 'reality' is, we can't really disclose the potential of everyone being right or wrong in their own way.
Again I referrer to the ancient Hindu parable of the "Seven Blind Men" which was re-translated into a children's book "Seven Blind Mice".
LOGICALLY, everything came from God. The interpretations of Good and the interpretations of Evil.
It's no so much that things are polarity, but rather they work in conjunction with each other.
You can't have matter without anti-matter.
You can't have hot without and absence of hot (cold).
Perhaps this is just the way our Universe is.