God, a hard act to follow!

[@Li3n]

It's impossible to misunderstand the Word of God. As the Bible was written by Him and not man it doesn't matter what we think because the text is perfect.

Unless you are Conservative and want to rewrite the Bible and take out all that liberal bias.

Technically, part of it was written by man, but dictated by God, and the other parts were 4 guys writing about him.

Imagine Stephen King dictating stories to some of his fans, and then 4 followers of his writing about his life and what he says.[/quote]

eh... i'm pretty sure even the protestants, who need the Bible to be inerrant to justify sola scritura only say that God just made sure the writers didn't make mistakes (where divinely inspired about what to include), not that God wrote anything.

 

[Rob King]

Technically, part of it was written by man, but dictated by God, and the other parts were 4 guys writing about him.

Imagine Stephen King dictating stories to some of his fans, and then 4 followers of his writing about his life and what he says.

eh... i'm pretty sure even the protestants, who need the Bible to be inerrant to justify sola scritura only say that God just made sure the writers didn't make mistakes (where divinely inspired about what to include), not that God wrote anything.[/QUOTE]

Nobody needs the bible to be inerrant to justify sola scriptura. They need it to be infallible. There is a difference.

Inerrant: there are no mistakes, inaccuracies or contradictions between the first and last pages of the bible.

Infallable: the bible is the one stop shop for Cristian doctrine. Whether samson killed 499, or 501 philistines with the jawbone of an ass is immaterial. The gist of what the message is is what's important.

And regarding what the bible is, someone has already cleared up that it's Muslims who believe their scripture is the literal word of God. Christians ... yes there are some nutjobs, but on the whole we're sensible. It's easy to see what the bible actually is.

Old Testament:
Collection of Israelite History, Myths, and Wisdom, with some prophecy thrown in there.

New Testament:
Biography of Jesus, and letters between different pastors and churches trying to sort out exactly what the implications of the life of Jesus are, and sending encouragement to each other because their sect is under heavy persecution at the time of writing.

---------- Post added at 11:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 AM ----------

That was one of the things that always floored me about images of Mary and Jesus in America. They're always portrayed as Caucasian when there's so obviously no way they could have been.

It's not just America. We visited a catholic church when I was down in Haiti last, and they had a big ole carving of Jesus on the cross. In a 98% black culture, Jesus was whiter than me.

 

[Silver Jelly]

It's impossible to misunderstand the Word of God.

¿What, He doesn't speak even when His mouth is full anymore?

 

[Hailey Knight]

Bah, someone has their cilice on way too tight.

Also, heareth ye wordes of Rufus, the Thirteenth Apostle:

Bethany: Jesus didn't have any brothers or sisters. Mary was a virgin.
Rufus: Mary gave birth to CHRIST without having known a man's touch, that's true. But she did have a husband. And do you really think he'd have stayed married to her all those years if he wasn't getting laid? The nature of God and the Virgin Mary, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that's just plain gullibility.

Dogma is one of the best films about religion I've ever seen.[/QUOTE]

Way to pick the worst scene from it though. In a movie that lampoons religious dogma it makes it come off as stupid when it jokes about Mary remaining a virgin when it is explicitly stated in the Bible that Jesus had younger brothers and sisters.[/QUOTE]

Umm... It was picked because it was relevant to the conversation in question, maybe?[/QUOTE]

Also, most people could care less about what is said in the bible: (at least in catholicism), Mary was a virgin PERIOD.[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure it was only developed that way out of a point in Catholicism for worship of Mary, stemming to draw in the goddess quotient of European heathens (along with Christmas and Easter), not because it was factual or even important. If she was a virgin at conception, and sex is original sin, then she can't be worshipped if she was a married woman having sex with her husband.

They had beds like Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, dammit.

 

[fade]

There was a CD of South Park songs that included one where Kenny mumbles something, and then Stan or Kyle sings "and still be a virgin, Mary!". If you listen, you can make out that Kenny is singing "You can suck all the dick you want".

 

[@Li3n]

@fade

I always thought that was more like "you can take it up the %^&*"...

EDIT: and seems i was wrong:

Nobody needs the bible to be inerrant to justify sola scriptura. They need it to be infallible. There is a difference.

Inerrant: there are no mistakes, inaccuracies or contradictions between the first and last pages of the bible.

Infallable: the bible is the one stop shop for Cristian doctrine. Whether samson killed 499, or 501 philistines with the jawbone of an ass is immaterial. The gist of what the message is is what's important.

Dude, it took me 10 minutes to figure out how inerrant was spelled... and infallible literally means "can't fail", they're close enough for posting on a forum...

I'm pretty sure it was only developed that way out of a point in Catholicism for worship of Mary, stemming to draw in the goddess quotient of European heathens (along with Christmas and Easter), not because it was factual or even important.

It was before Catholicism... though catholics did run wild with the whole Mary worship.

 

[Rob King]

Nobody needs the bible to be inerrant to justify sola scriptura. They need it to be infallible. There is a difference.

Inerrant: there are no mistakes, inaccuracies or contradictions between the first and last pages of the bible.

Infallable: the bible is the one stop shop for Cristian doctrine. Whether samson killed 499, or 501 philistines with the jawbone of an ass is immaterial. The gist of what the message is is what's important.

Dude, it took me 10 minutes to figure out how inerrant was spelled... and infallible literally means "can't fail", they're close enough for posting on a forum... [/QUOTE]

Please tell me you're being facetious ... because there is a major distinction between the two of them. And I need that distinction to put some distance between myself and them damn seven day creationists

 

[@Li3n]

Nobody needs the bible to be inerrant to justify sola scriptura. They need it to be infallible. There is a difference.

Inerrant: there are no mistakes, inaccuracies or contradictions between the first and last pages of the bible.

Infallable: the bible is the one stop shop for Cristian doctrine. Whether samson killed 499, or 501 philistines with the jawbone of an ass is immaterial. The gist of what the message is is what's important.

Dude, it took me 10 minutes to figure out how inerrant was spelled... and infallible literally means "can't fail", they're close enough for posting on a forum... [/quote]

Please tell me you're being facetious ... because there is a major distinction between the two of them. And I need that distinction to put some distance between myself and them damn seven day creationists [/QUOTE]

Yeah, yeah, i was just saying you know damn well what i meant, and this isn't an ecumenical council, you don't get to split off because you felt the wording condemning a heresy isn't strong enough and leaves too much space open for another.

 

[Rob King]

Not everyone is a native English speaker, Rob. And even those that talk English every day on an internet forum might not have the same vocabulary you do. I certainly don't use "inerrant" in every day talk. In fact, I had never heard of it before until this very post.

No, I understand that, although I thought @lin was a native speaker. Even so, I get that not everyone would understand the distinction, which is why I explained them. And I thought I explained them politely.

I was just trying to disagree with the notion that the two are 'close enough,' while also informing those interested that it's an important distinction (implying that the 'close enough' statement is hopefully facetious), and at the same time keep it all a bit lighthearted (a reference to the seven day creationist folks). I even included a colon and a capital P!

Sorry if I came off as a zealot. But make no mistake: it's actually a pretty big deal. And not even in a metaphysical sense. Infallibility vs. Inerrancy is a fundamental worldview issue which makes debate across the divide very difficult.

---------- Post added at 08:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 PM ----------

Please tell me you're being facetious ... because there is a major distinction between the two of them. And I need that distinction to put some distance between myself and them damn seven day creationists

Yeah, yeah, i was just saying you know damn well what i meant, and this isn't an ecumenical council, you don't get to split off because you felt the wording condemning a heresy isn't strong enough and leaves too much space open for another.[/QUOTE]

I actually honestly thought you meant the other thing. Sorry to have doubted you!

 

[@Li3n]

Actually the part where i said i looked for the spelling for 10 minutes was meant to imply i didn't really think about the actual meaning the word had in religious circles. But i'm pretty sure there are denominations out there that see it as inerrant too.

I would have just said "Oh, right!" if you had just said "I think you meant infallible!"


But the words themselves can easily be used as synonyms... they just have a certain history in this case.

 

[Rob King]

Actually the part where i said i looked for the spelling for 10 minutes was meant to imply i didn't really think about the actual meaning the word had in religious circles. But i'm pretty sure there are denominations out there that see it as inerrant too.

I would have just said "Oh, right!" if you had just said "I think you meant infallible!"


But the words themselves can easily be used as synonyms... they just have a certain history in this case.

Tell me about it. Another great example: "Evangelical" churches aren't necessarily evangelical. I had a half hour conversation with my mother about that a few months ago, when I told her I didn't like "Evangelical" churches that much.

Back to Inerrant vs. Infallible though, they both do have a definition "incapable of being wrong." But again, since the discussion began with sola scriptura, I presumed that we were discussing the theological positions involved. And as for why I didn't say "I think you meant infallible!" it's because I didn't think you meant infallible. I thought you were making a mistake, and I was trying to inform you of the difference.

So ... are we cool? I realize text is a poor way to convey tone, and despite my attempts to keep this light, I fear that my misunderstanding may have caused me to offend someone. It's fine if we don't want to get into theology here, but I thought that was where the conversation was going so I assumed you had the same lexicon I was using.

 

[@Li3n]

Relax, i was just ranting at the stuff in general, not you.

 

[RocketGirl]

Dogma is one of the best films about religion I've ever seen.

S'got Carlin; automatic win.