History shows that when man receives beauty.

Man waits not even a century before performing cosmetic surgury upon it...

Perhaps thinking that 'plastic' surgury is necessary to bring out the true beauty.

Example...

Book known as the 'bible' was submitted to 'surgury' 300 years after its principle figure passed into the hands of god.

Further example.

Book know as the 'koran' was submitted to 'surgury approxmatily 300 years after its principle figure passed into the hands of 'allah'.

What causes mankind to feel it is greater than the source of its greatness?

Actually "The Bible" didn't even exist until 1600 years after the death of Jesus. It's not even a "book". It's just a collection of various different writings. Some of them are nothing more than commentary and personal opinions written by later authors on their views of earlier writings.



I personally don't believe that this was the motivation behind the collection, editing, and fabrication of religious doctrines. I personally believe that the people in power saw the power of religion to control mass opinion. And so they all worked toward creating their religious doctrines in a way that would appear to trump the religious doctrines and/or practices of other cultures.

In fact, there is something rather interesting to note here, I think.

The religions that did not become dogmatic (i.e. formally written down as verbatim doctrines claiming to be the word of God), were the religions of the people who were truly innocent. They weren't trying to control the masses or get over on anyone. They had no reason to create dogma. They worshiped God freely and naturally, and saw God in nature.

It was the conniving controlling societies that created 'bibles' and other religion dogma that they then tried to force onto people at sword point as the "Only true word of God".

So the irony here is that modern people today look at the religions that have very little in the way of man-made dogma as having less credibility then religions that have great volumes of dogma to back them up.

Yet, it may very well be true that the religions that had no dogma were far closer to true spirituality than those that become highly dogmatic.

Because dogma actually indicates a desire to "define God" and use those definitions as a means of controlling the way the masses think.

I also personally believe that these dogmatic religions shot themselves in their own foot when they started going around trying to enforce their dogma at sword point as the "only true word of God". And simultaneously renouncing all other views of God.

That, to me, says it all right there. Mankind's greedy need to dominate others (especially other cultures) permeates those kind of dogmatic religions.

And from my point of view, that's far from being "divine".

Perhaps it's not the way you describe.

Maybe it's the fact that some are actually scared of the "beauty" and not the other way.

Perhaps some people are just "ugly" and the only way they can feel better is to put down everything and everyone.

This should be obvious by the short amount of time it takes some people to respond to some of these posts and twist them into anti-religion rhetoric.

Actually the title of this thread is a bit misleading is it not?

"Why does mankind twist the word of god?"

Wouldn't there first need to be an established source of "The Word of God", before it could even be twisted?

And if such a source existed, what would it be?

Where would we ever find it?

Everything we have have in terms of written language is nothing but the twisted words of men.

About the only thing we can truly point to as the authentic "Word of God" would be the universe itself.

And science does it's best to read that book.

In fact, in that sense science is the "Only True Religion".

If you want to look at it that way.

All other claims to "religion" are nothing other than the twisted fables of men.

....time will tell

This is for those who say science and religion do not mix...



Habakkuk 2:14 (New International Version, ©2010)

14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

"...as the waters cover the sea."

Therefore it will be a recursive knowledge, one that, if man were to uncover it, would need to remove the very thing that covers it, itself.

This is not very helpful. We, scientists would like to see a structure of knowledge that is not so heterogeneous, but we do with what we have. This setup can be psyched out, too, with a lot of effort and scientific grants, plus with outsourcing of computation to SETI participants.

Yeah, I say we go for it. Let us find the water in the water, that's covered with water. And thus shall the marriage between knowledge and faith be consummated.

U are lie

What does "knowledge of the glory of the LORD", have to do with science, or scientific knowledge?

You post an obscure verse from a collection of fables that fly in the face of scientific knowledge and act like that obscure verse should somehow meld science and religion together seamlessly?

Well, that's a typical tactic for sure.

Funny how religious people often quote a single obscure verse to try to justify an idea, and act like that should stand as having some sort of merit, yet when a non-religious person points out the absurdity of a verse or two the religious people start screaming, "It's meaningless to quote out of context!"

In truth, the biblical fables taken as a WHOLE are in total contradiction with their own premises and claims of what God is even supposed to be like, not to mention also being totally incompatible with known scientific knowledge.

It's not my fault you have no sense of beauty while looking at the universe or the fossil records.

Men have always seen the need to be sombody.

Yahshua came because the men who knew it was thier job changed things to give them more power.

A sabbath days journey.. does not say how far that is but the men in control decided how far that was.. same with the washings of cups.
ect.

The Nt stands or falls by the scriptures of Yahshua's time.

They had visions and sorts and tells of thier journey but after Yahshua leaves very little is thier that says, "Thus says Yahweh"

Like Moses being told exactly what to write.

300 years later Men decided for thier own purpose to make the Scriptures basically what they are today.

One thing it does not seem they messed with though.

The scriptures Yahshua spoke of.. The Scriptures of the day or the OT.

But today the OT is a pick and choose Testament for the New.

What field of choice today can do that? Shalom...Miles

That doesn't even remotely have anything to do with with anything that was said. Besides what does beauty have to do with knowledge?

Contrary to your totally unwarranted conclusion-jumping I actually find everything in the universe to be quite awesome indeed. I'm even amazed at toilets and septic tanks. I say that because I just had a bit of a plumbing problem which I was able to fix. But it really brought my attention to just how beautiful the old porcelain throne is and we often take it all for granted.

The Glory of the LORD revealed through a porcelain throne.

Sounds like it should be the title of a book.

Considering men wrote them to begin with as stories, editing his own work doesn't seem like such a crime. Men who read those original stories saw potential in them to create an avenue of control and they needed the stories to meet their ideal of what the best community looked like for man literally.

Man is master over all he sees.
Man is the center of universe and god loves only him
etc...

Why? Because I had the adacity to point out a truth.

Mohommad's sucsessor (as appointed for that time) was poisioned during a time when men convened in council and chose what would be his 'words' going forward...

300 years after his death.

Just as did the christians at the Council of Nicea 300 years after the passing of christ.

Poisioned and another 'appoinited' by that council to.

It is a truth... Documented by history.

Because neither of those books came from a god. Then were written by men from the brains of men and, largely, for men.

Perhaps...

but to a person of faith there is no doubt that both of the books were initiated by an event...

A pulse from god.

Else we would not be arguing about them still today...

Things not initiated by god tend to fade away in but a few years.

What does the above quote have in common with this quote?



Show your work.


-Kerry O.

Deities are invented by humans; they are given attributes by the societies that invent them.

The "twisting" (as you term it) of the books reflect the need/desire by various societies for their god(s) to change.

When King James had the Bible translated into English, he had the translators deliberately "mistranslate" some things, including the infamous passage, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." The Jews didn't have a concept of "witches" in the same vein as King James' concept of witches. The passage, thus translated, validated the persecution of so-called witches.

Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon: they only people who would probably dispute that would be Mormons. In it, he validated his beliefs, including polygamy. Because the Mormon faith continues to grow, the book will not fade away any time soon--does this mean that it was truly initiated by god?

If we speak of things initiated by god(s) that do not fade away, does this mean that the myths of the Greeks and Egyptians are as valid as the Bible and the Koran? They are much older, but people have a keen interest in them.

Civilizations based upon the works of the 'gods' of the greeks and Egyptians no longer exist... they have faded away.

Ergo... Not a 'pulse' initiated by god.

Truly.

Various concepts of Eastern Mysticism go back at least as far as the earliest stories of the Bible, if not far earlier.

In fact, if we want to give credence to the oldest stories as being the most likely to be divine, then shamanism and traditions that today we refer to as "magic or witchcraft" indeed predate the Bible.

In fact there are even stories in the Bible where kings go to witches, shamans, and/or sorcerers for divination or to speak to the spirit world. So clearly those concepts were already well-established before these biblical "stories" of these kings were ever written. Otherwise how could they have ended up in these stories in the first?

Anything that is in the stories must have pre-dated the stories themselves. That's should be obvious.

And surely the Gods of the Egyptians are at least as old as the biblical stories since they too are included in the very earliest stories of the Bible. The whole first few books of the bible were supposedly written by Moses. So that means that the Egyptian concept of God must have clearly predated the biblical stories by a very long period time.