I'm sorry, but I really need to get this off my chest. Mainly because, people keep providing “proof” and backing up their arguments with the the phrase “I'll prove …”
Which is fine, as long as your proof isn't source material that is known to be manipulated and distorted from already unreliable documents based on stories passed via word of mouth a few thousand years before the written word.
And please. I'm not mocking your faith. I would just like to clear up why you can't “prove” you're right by using your current source, even in its fancy black leather bound form.
Lets start with the basics. It is indeed an amazing book. It is full of knowledge, wisdom and stories about morals highlighting a righteous way to live life. But, it is based on knowledge and science of the time, which let's be honest, was a little off.
These were times where anything that could not be explained, was classified as magic. Since the average man, who still lived in fear of dying a gruesome death for unexplained reasons, like exploding from a lightning strike, had to attempt to make sense of this magic, and so they formed the bases of a higher being, who'll like to play games with them. Just as they played games with the ants below them.
With this knowledge, we can already see why this higher being seems so human like, in the jealousy, rage, and pure cruelty shown in some of the acts of pride. Not because we took shape in the form of our god, but because, we shaped him in our own form.
So these stories about floods, where poor Narg in the valley yonder lost all his children in a flood when the banks of a river broke, were now being passed on via word of mouth. It's a simple and sad story. So it's news amongst the men, so it gets passed on. Of course, no one can write yet. So as the story gets past on, a game of broken telephone is created.
Soon simple facts like “he lost everything in his world, his children in the flood” Became “the world was flooded”. The log he used to float on, that happened to have two rats on it, became the Ark. Next thing Narg doesn't sound like a good name any more, a bit outdated, so he becomes known as Noah.
By this time in history, words can now be written. And so the story at last (after a few thousand years) becomes Noah's Ark, so broken over time that not only did his children survive, but somehow he was in Africa to save some elephants.
But now it is written. So it must be fact. Is a good moral story anyway. But again, we need to face facts and at this point, there were no schools. So the written languages was not taught, and it also evolved.
A language evolving you ask? Well yes, just like the English you speak now... look back only a few hundred years ago, to Shakespearian. And a few thousand years before that, English was actually German.
Again the story gets manipulated. Noah's Ark now had dragons on it!
This was still a good story, and it was written down. It still taught values. But the problem is that the tribe next door spoke their own language. The story is then changed during translation (in fact, this still happens today, just use Google Translate and see what happens).
Those dragons become crocodiles, but no one asks why crocodiles were allowed on a boat with children.
Suddenly... boom... the texts are lost. People forget the stories. Until they are found again, written on stone tablets. With pieces missing. And translation onto the new paper happens yet again. Sadly, those missing words need to be replaced. With what, only God knows.
Now lets jump forward thousands of years, to a point where we have cities of people. And in those cities, we have people in power. People in power have a few ways of controlling people, but since no one really had the vote back then, fear was the best way of control. And how better to control someone, than with the belief that if they misbehaved, they'd be zapped by a loving all forgiving god?
But not all of these stories in this book, suited the rule of the leader, and so propaganda was mixed into these stories, and in some cases, changing the whole moral value altogether.
Now of course you get disagreements between humans, and so some of them would look at something and state “well, this is damn silly, it makes no sense. Obviously these things need to be changed for a more literal meaning?” And so different versions of the book sprouted. To the point where whole separate religions were formed. Let alone different sects within those religious.
Lets give you a rather current point. On the very first page of the bible, it clearly states that “God filled the seas with living creatures”. So.. cool.. fish. Actually, it used to say that “God filled the seas with living souls”. So by that point alone, fish have souls. Yet later on in the book, it states that animals were put down for human use. You can't eat souls! Hence it was changed to living creatures.
Hell, actually with the Hebrew version stating that God filled the seas with living souls, could be a perfect argument of the bible supporting the primordial soup concept of evolution. I'm mean, how dare you as a mere human, have the audacity to compare one of your days with one of God's days?
Basically, this whole rant of terrible examples is my way of telling people who base all their arguments out of a verse of a contradictory book, to shut up, and find real proof. If you continue to use a book of “prophecies” as proof, you might as well believe in the texts of Nostradamus and claim them to be all knowing fact.
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