tell the truth about the bible

Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself.

There are many millions of people who believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God -- millions who think that this book is staff and guide, counselor and consoler; that it fills the present with peace and the future with hope -- millions who believe that it is the fountain of law, Justice and mercy, and that to its wise and benign teachings the world is indebted for its liberty, wealth and civilization -- millions who imagine that this book is a revelation from the wisdom and love of God to the brain and heart of man -- millions who regard this book as a torch that conquers the darkness of death, and pours its radiance on another world -- a world without a tear.

They forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its religious persecution; they remember heaven, but they forget the dungeon of eternal pain. They forget that it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart. They forget that it is the enemy of intellectual freedom. Liberty is my religion. Liberty of hand and brain -- of thought and labor, liberty is a word hated by kings -- loathed by popes. It is a word that shatters thrones and altars -- that leaves the crowned without subjects, and the outstretched hand of superstition without alms. Liberty is the blossom and fruit of justice -- the perfume of mercy. Liberty is the seed and soil, the air and light, the dew and rain of progress, love and joy.

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/about_the_holy_bible.html

THE REAL BIBLE.

For thousands of years men have been writing the real Bible, and it is being written from day to day, and it will never be finished while man has life. All the facts that we know, all the truly recorded events, all the discoveries and inventions, all the wonderful machines whose wheels and levers seem to think, all the poems, crystals from the brain, flowers from the heart, all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, the great dramas of Imagination's world, the wondrous paintings, miracles of form and color, of light and shade, the marvelous marbles that seem to live and breathe, the secrets told by rock and star, by dust and flower, by rain and snow, by frost and flame, by winding stream and desert sand, by mountain range and billowed sea.

All the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles life, all that avoids or cures disease, or conquers pain -- all just and perfect laws and rules that guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed the flames of love the music that transfigures, enraptures and enthralls the victories of heart and brain, the miracles that hands have wrought, the deft and cunning hands of those who worked for wife and child, the histories of noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faithful loving wives, of quenchless mother-love, of conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the truth, of all the best that all the men and women of the world have said, and thought and done through all the years.

These treasures of the heart and brain -- these are the Sacred Scriptures of the human race.

taken from
about the holy bible
by Robert G. Ingersoll
1894

 

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Another load of crap from an idiot who reads too many Hallmark cards..

For someone who claims the "ignorance and savagery" of the Bible is sidestepped, this paragraph seems awfully hypocritical.

Stupidity must be your virtue.

 

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I did'nt write it, Robert G. Ingersoll did.
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 - July 21, 1899) was an American political leader and orator, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of atheism.


His father, John Ingersoll was an abolitionist preacher. Ingersoll was born in Dresden, New York, but his family moved frequently because of his father's radical views before finally settling in Peoria, Illinois. Ingersoll apprenticed himself to lawyers there and hung out his shingle.

With the advent of the American Civil War, he raised the 11th Illinois Cavalry Regiment and took command. The regiment fought in the Battle of Shiloh. Ingersoll was later captured, then paroled on his promise that he would not fight again. (This was common practice early in the war.)

After the war, he served as Illinois Attorney General. He was a prominent member of the Republican Party, at that time the more progressive party. Although he never held any office, he was an active participant. His nominating speech for James G. Blaine in 1876 did not result in Blaine's candidacy, but the speech itself, known as the "Plumed Knight" speech, was considered the gold standard for political oratory.

Ingersoll was involved in several prominent trials as an attorney, notably, the Star Route trials, a major political scandal in which his clients were acquitted. He also defended a New Jersey man for blasphemy. Although he did not win acquittal, his vigorous defense is considered to have discredited blasphemy laws and few other prosecutions followed.

Ingersoll was most noted as an orator, the most popular of the age, when oratory was public entertainment. He spoke on every subject, from Shakespeare to Reconstruction, but his most popular subjects were atheism and the sanctity and refuge of the family. He committed his speeches to memory although they were sometimes more than three hours long. His audiences were said never to be restless.

His radical views on religion, slavery, woman’s suffrage, and other issues of the day effectively prevented him from ever pursuing or holding political offices higher than that of Attorney General.

Many of Ingersoll’s speeches advocated freethought and humanism, and often poked fun at religious belief. For this the press often attacked him, but neither his views nor the negative press could stop his rising popularity. At the height of Ingersoll’s fame, audiences would pay $1 or more to hear him speak—a giant sum for his day.

Ingersoll died of heart failure at age 65. Soon after his death, Clinton P. Farrell, a brother-in-law, collected copies of Ingersoll’s speeches for publication. The 12-volume “Dresden Editions” kept interest in Ingersoll’s ideas alive and preserved his speeches for future generations.


What an organ human speech is when employed by a master." Mark Twain on Ingersoll.

I am sorry southstar, but it appears you are the fool once again.

 

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How nice, you type up/paste some more information and totally sidestep my comment to call me a fool.

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A little show of respect can go a long way.

Now, after saying that, I will get to my real point.
This is you!

 

S*S Now that was funny!!.

But do take notice, it was the "friendly" thiest who called The Preacher "virtue of stupidity" then called him a fool, after letting this IDIOT know who's quote Preach was refering to.

Was that friendly enough observation?

Godless.

 

"Load of crap" and "idiot" were actually referring to the article and it's author respectively.

I consequently explained my choice of words in the next sentence.

I do find it interesting however that the issues I raised are being ignored here..

 

Southstar;

(Stupidity must be your virtue.)

And this you were refering to whom?.

(I do find it interesting however that the issues I raised are being ignored here.)

We already know your opinions; the bible is right, it's the word of god, there's no fallacy in the bible, (OUT OF CONTEXT!), when ever discrepancies are shown, heck even thiest amongs themselves contradict one another, with bible rhetoric. Nough said.

Godless.

 

The one who agrees with the posted article, even considering the points I raised (but since no one else commented on the article and there is still no relevant comment to the article, I suppose it was at that time directed to the poster).

Gee.. all that and still no one is able address my comments I made.

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southstar:the original post is split by a link. so the first part being so long is continued
there.
and if you follow the page down on the link, you come to the new bible, which are just the thoughts of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll.
this is proberly why, nobody as answered your, awfully hypocritical statement, as it's not.

 

I have skimmed it and found it to be in the same strain of foolishness. Such attempts to appear "scholarly" are in no way novel, if he thinks he's got an argument against Christianity that has not already been tried and easily reconciled.

For example:

In other words, insinuating that the disciples went around getting beaten, lashed, humiliated, spit upon for a lie that they made up..

This stupid argument has already been put to rest, and you will note that very few critics even use this silly avenue of attack:
http://www.christiancourier.com/archives/miracles.htm



Ingersoll (1833-99) was a mediocre Illinois lawyer whose flair for oratory thrust him into fame in the latter portion of the 19th century. He criss-crossed the nation lecturing to large crowds with vitriolic tirades against the Bible. He charged that the Scriptures contained “a great deal of error, considerable barbarism and a most plentiful lack of good sense” (Clinton Ferrell, Ed., The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, New York: C.P. Farrell, 1900, 8:1). When Ingersoll so hatefully turned against the Bible (he had been raised in a religious home), he abandoned any solid hope for the future. Yet, strangely, the “hope” jargon sometimes crept into his vocabulary.

When once he was asked to deliver an address at a little boy’s grave, Ingersoll said: “We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living, hope for the dead.”

In a eulogy delivered at the funeral of a beloved brother, Ingersoll poured out his soul.

“Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud – and the only murmur is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death, Hope sees a star, and listening Love can hear the rustle of a wing” (Farrell, 12:391).

ingersoll: When adversaries of the orator confronted him with the implications of this expression of “hope,” he rationalized by suggesting that his words were simply the spontaneous eruptions of affection; literally, he contended, he was “agnostic” relative to the immortality of the soul.

The hope that death is not the termination of human experience is not to be nurtured, however, by well-meaning desires, bogus seances, or illusory post-death, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel “experiences.”

------------

His own words condemn him.

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EDIT: farenheit 451

As this is the case, we find that my comment was justified by the continuation of the text which persevered in the same vein of hypocrisy. Amusingly enough, you are unable to come to terms with my expose but rather choose to sidestep it.

 

there is nothing to side step, you very nice person you, I love you.
I bow to your expertise, I am not worthy. please do not smite me, I wont paste anything by ingersoll again.
I promise.

but as you are so wise and allseeing could help me on this
As a child my mother made me go weekly to Sunday school and I often wondered about the truth in the stories we were told in the weekly lessons about various miracles and so forth.

As a result of my perfect attendance I received a bible as a reward. I began to read it and thus began asking questions my mother could not answer. Among other things, why in the commandments, god says he will punish people three or four generations down the line for the sins of their grandparents and great grandparents. Not very rational, even to an eight year old.

The more I read, the more I realized that the whole thing was quite ridiculous. One thing especially, the core of the Christian religion rests wholly on the alleged resurrection. The church we went to had a big banner over the altar "If He is not Risen, our Faith is in Vain". Now if god wrote (or inspired) the four gospels, why in the name of peace can't he get the story straight? Read all versions of what happened after the crucifixion up until the ascension into heaven, they are all different, the number of witnesses, who saw what, who was there, when events took place, etc. The only logical explanation is that the whole thing was made up.

I could go on about the Bethlehem story, all the world being taxed by Caesar, (just a minute, Nazareth was outside the borders of the Roman Empire, thus not subject to a Roman tax) and why travel miles to pay taxes, I am sure the Roman tax collectors were more efficient than that, they surely came and collected and not expected you to travel miles across the desert carrying sums of money. Highwaymen would certainly be aware of all this and would have a field day. And if wise men came from the east following a star, then the star must have risen in the west for them see it as they traveled from the east, otherwise the star would be behind them. No astronomical object rises in the west anyhow. But you get the idea.

 

have you gone soft preacher, that the ameoba man your refering to.

 

Surely you don't dispute this charge?

Are you actually of the view that, for whatever else it contains, the Bible contains none of the above?

 

@ the preacher

Apologies for my great and stupendous ignorance, but what exactly did you want me to help you with?

 

To a blind mystic, everything in the bible makes sense. To a person who gives up reason, logic, and follows blind teaching of ancient myth even considering of murdering one's only son, is justifiable to please god, though the act was not followed through, the person in question would have killed his only son, for the "love" of his freaking god.

And Yes; I'm speaking of Genesis 22:2-12. And it seems like this freaking god likes smelling burnt lamb. I wonder why the hell they don't do that anymore?. Can you imagine being in church today, and burning a live lamb?. LOL..

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God likes human sacrifice:
Leviticus
27:28
Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD.

All devoted things,
whether man or beast,
shall surely be put to death.
27:29
None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death.

Also read or explain please the human sacrifices your GOD!! demanded way back then when mysticism ruled and men were fooled, to do such acts as these:
Judges
11:29-31.
I won't post them here since you are a "bible scholar"

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If this be your god, I don't want part of it, if this be your religious devotion, I call you a fool, if this be rightious act, I wonder why then today this would be considered a murderous act. It was justifiable back in the days when IDIOTS ruled by Mythical BS.

Godless.

 

If this is indicative of the type of problems you have, I think you should backtrack and put in a little more effort before you reject anything else.

"A last attempt to restore the former glory of the Hasmonean dynasty was made by Mattathias Antigonus, whose defeat and death brought Hasmonean rule to an end (40 BCE), and the Land became a province of the Roman Empire." - History of Israel: Roman Rule (63 BCE-313 CE)​

Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem because they were required to register for a census of (or "prior to", depending on how you translate protos) Querinius (for taxation purposes) at their town of birth (Luke 2). Judea was under indirect Roman control of Herod the Great, an Edomite and Jewish convert.

"In the first century BCE Pompey reorganized much of the eastern Mediterranean to suit Roman interests. Subsequently Palestine became a client kingdom or group of client kingdoms under such local monarchs as Herod the Great. After Herod's death, its heart, Judaea, became a province under the authority of the governor of Syria, but the Jewish Revolt of 66 to 73 or 74 CE prompted Vespasian to reorganize it as a senatorial province with a permanently stationed legionary force." - Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces: Palestine​

"In 6 or 7 CE the governor of Syria, Quirinius, supervised the initial tax assessment of the newly constituted province of Judaea. The Romans divided the Jewish regions of the province (Judaea, Galilee, Peraea, and Samaria) into districts called toparchies (eg, about a dozen in Judaea); in the rest of Palestine they organized taxation by cities with their territories." - ibid: Palestine's Administration​

also:

The Roman census was mainly designed to register people for paying of taxes. Mostly the census counted male heads of households for just this purpose, but Augustus seems to have added women, children and perhaps non-citizens. The census of Rome in 70 BC was recorded at about 900,000, but Augustus' figures place it at over 4 million, less than 50 years later in 28 BC. - UNRV Roman History​

As for evidence that people could be required to return to their home:

Gaius Vibius Maximus, the Prefect of Egypt, declares:
The census by household having begun, it is essential that all those who are away from their nomes [A "nome" was an Egyptian administrative district] be summoned to return to their own hearths so that they may perform the customary business of registration and apply themselves to the cultivation which concerns them... - Census Edict of 104 CE​

Who said the star rose in the west? The Magi said they saw "his star in the east" - it had appeared in the east (or astrologically speaking "at the rising") - indicating that they were responding to a prophecy, not blindly following some phenomenon around the earth. By the time "it went out ahead of them", they were already at Herod's palace in Jerusalem, with Bethlehem north-north east. It might not even have been a star, but an aligment.

"In the Ho Pen Yoke catalogue is found a hui star that was sighted in the lunar month falling in March/April of 5 BCE, and it was visible for seventy days. Also recorded during this period is Haley's comet in 12 BCE, a comet in 10 BCE, and a comet or nova on April 24 of 4 BCE; the following entry is a comet in 13 CE. Of interest in this search are the appearances in 5 and 4 BCE." - The star of Bethlehem​

This explanations might or might not be accurate, but it will at least show you that there are more consideration to take into account than you might have realized: Revealing the star of Bethlehem.

 

Jenyar:

I commend you, that is the first time I've have came across a well formulated argument without using scripture
from a xian. very well done.


you see the bible has no Validity to me.I have no reason to believe that the xian religion has any more divine validity than Zeus and Hera, then absolutely nothing the religion professes has any worth in debate whatsoever in any greater degree than the profession of the divinity of Santa Claus.

The most glaring conceptual flaw with any religion whatsoever, is the lack of any rational evidence of its validity. The moral and spiritual aspects of Xianity, and all other religions, are entirely founded on stories from people who claim that a god divinely inspired them to write them down, or pass them along verbally. Isn't it strange that the all powerful god talked to so many different people and told all of them such despairingly different things?.

Validity is the Alpha and the Omega. It is the conceptual catch all. All other arguments about specific religions other than validity are "superfluous, redundant, repetitive, and entirely without necessity," he necessarily repeated once again. The xians/muslims(any), always have been, and always will be, entirely incapable of giving you any reason to believe in their god more than Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and sexual desire. Given the choice, Bacchus is much more fun, and has no Hell clause in his contract to worry about.

all power to you Jenyar.

 

Thanks preacher, but if what I have said hasn't shown you the validity of the Biblical account, I have failed in my attempt.

I think you simply won't recognize the evidence as rational, and therin lies the problem. The people who wrote the Bible weren't raving lunatics - they were thinking, reasoning, and above all sincere people. That's what made God choose them, not their spiritual purity or insight.

Any valid experience will some day have to be passed on to someone else. If you consider all passed on accounts to be stories per se, then how will you ever hear or read a valid account?

The difference between the Christian religion and Zeus or Hera is that Christianity never would have existed, or been thought up, if something real and verifiable didn't happen. It is entirely based on the events of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. And the fact that it relies solely on the validity of the God of Israel would have counted against them if the connection wasn't explicit and necessary for them. We rely on the history of people who knew and walked with God, nothing less. Their accounts are different as their personalities, experiences and commissions differ - what you should pay attention to is where they are complemenary, where they say the same thing.

I wish to ask you one question: how does one attest to the validity - or to use a better word: integrity - of a living breathing person? How can it be proven to you, if not by the person himself?

 

Unfortunately in your haste to denounce the Scriptures, you cunningly showed only a part of the story in order to make yourself feel good or whatever.


I don't know whether or not you really are interested in hearing my answer or whether you're simply trying to jest but if you do want to know, read Hebrews 9. When reading it, have Hebrews 9:22 in mind.

After reading this, when you read Romans 3:25, you can see that Jesus ended all need for blood sacrifice because as God, His blood was so much more valuable in atoning for all sins instead of just one.

And finally, in reply to God "liking" human sacrifice, simply read 1 Samuel 15:22-23.

If you still have any questions, feel free to ask.

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