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Does anyone know anything about a course about religion or the bible?

edited September 2008 in General
I thought i remembered reading a year or two ago about some controversial course debating the existance of god or the bible, is it still around was it a special topic? Can anyone tell me anything about it
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  • edited November 2007
    it's hum 130 and is offered for spring 08.. i might actually check this course out myself but it's starts at the ungodly hours.. and i'm not sure if i want to start off with a lecture about preaching 8:30 in the morning.. =P lol..
  • edited November 2007
    does it uncover all the lies and bullshit in the bible?
    that would be pretty sweet.
  • edited November 2007
    i don't know.. that's what i would like to find out.. am i too stupid to spend abt two hundred bucks on a course to uncover a book of bullshit, even when we know it's full of it? =\
  • IVTIVT
    edited November 2007
    Triple;16942 said:
    does it uncover all the lies and bullshit in the bible?
    that would be pretty sweet.
    for example....:confused:
  • edited November 2007
    touchy subject haha
    I remember reading about this course in 24 or Metro as well
  • edited November 2007
    Triple;16942 said:
    does it uncover all the lies and bullshit in the bible?
    that would be pretty sweet.
    Honestly, I think it's giving the Bible far too much credit, to devote a university course to debunking its nonsense. Call me a fuddy-duddy, I guess. :p
  • edited November 2007
    Triple;16942 said:
    does it uncover all the lies and bullshit in the bible?
    that would be pretty sweet.
    Yes this class does sound interesting, and yes it is cool that you have your own personal opinions but please don't start spewing around such controversial topics. To you, the bible may be a book of 'lies and bullshit', to me, it is a book of metaphors on how one should live their life ethically.

    I hate calling this out on people, but please don't go shouting out these controversial opinions. If you want to, go start a thread about it and then I'd have no problem with it.

    As for this class, yes it does look interesting, there are many classes out there that I want to take and I may have to add this one to it.
  • edited November 2007
    JayDub;16954 said:
    To you, the bible may be a book of 'lies and bullshit', to me, it is a book of metaphors on how one should live their life ethically.
    im not going to lie, i only read maybe the first 100 pages when I was a kid, so I'm just going on stuff I've read online, but didn't some guy murder his kid or something because god told him to?

    What kind of metaphor is that?
    I'm actually curious, not screwin around.
  • IVTIVT
    edited November 2007
    Triple;16968 said:
    didn't some guy murder his kid or something because god told him to?

    What kind of metaphor is that?
    I'm actually curious, not screwin around.
    well then you didn't finish reading the story...

    http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2022:1-18;&version=9;

    there you go...
  • edited November 2007
    interesting... so Ab should go to hell because he was actually going to do it!! lol
  • edited November 2007
    What does the bible or this course say about the Qu'ran (Koran)? The bible is a book packed with a bunch of other smaller books. Now who is it that allowed some books to be in and some books to be out of the bible? I say the Holy See publishes the bible for those in the public and keeps those books that are meant for private viewing in Vatican City.
  • edited November 2007
    i got another question, doesn't the bible state something about the world only being here since 5000bc or something? yet theres dinosaur bones with carbon data showing them to be millions of years old?

    or is it humans being here since 5000bc, haha.

    and dun say read the bible, its way too long for my liking
    i like picture books with 3 or 4 words under the photo :)
  • edited November 2007
    i got another question, doesn't the bible state something about the world only being here since 5000bc or something? yet theres dinosaur bones with carbon data showing them to be millions of years old?
    The Bible claims to document the unbroken heredity of generations from Adam and Eve, down to a known date. By adding up the average lifespans, many Christian churches have concluded that the earth must be between 8 and 6 thousand years old. Utter nonsense, of course, though that's hardly the biggest offense to reasonable thinking to be found in the Bible.

    It's of course possible to take it all metaphorically and nicely sidestep the whole "truth" issue, but at that point, I really don't think you believe in the Bible. If it's all a metaphor, and up for personal interpretation, then it's hardly a definitive authority on anything - so why care what it says. Or at least, why care any more about what the Bible says than about what, say, J.R.R. Tolkein says. Both can have nice lessons, but we don't have much regard for people who construct their lives around the stories of Middle Earth - why should we have any more regard for people who construct their lives around the stories of the Bible?
  • edited November 2007
    well said morro.. it's all about "personal interpretation" and i can't stress that enough because i get ppl blowing up on me when i said i don't believe/read the bible.. some generic ones i get run along the lines of.. "well you should keep that to yourself.. nobody wants to know" well guess what? i don't wanna know about the religion or have ppl preach about it at my doors.. i will stop voicing my opinions once these ppl stop trying to force preach me intentionally or not... then there's the "you'll burn in hell for disregarding the bible" hey hey hey.. as if anyone doesn't know that.. i'll see you there.. cause i don't see how living life behind a book makes you any better.. =)

    bottom line.. i accept people having their own religions.. but please do not go preaching to someone who has no interest in knowing or has already make it clear they don't want to know.. force preaching doesn't make you get into God's good books.. it just shows him you're trying too hard.. =) and probably for the wrong reasons too..
  • edited November 2007
    Just to briefly restate what I said earlier, more towards suiying, saying that you don't believe/read the bible is one thing and that is fine and all. However, it's when one starts claiming it is lies and bullshit is when it goes to a different level that is not necessarily appropriate towards the general public.
  • IVTIVT
    edited November 2007
    seriously, show me some "lies and bullshit" in the Bible...

    anyone...?

    hello...
  • edited November 2007
    seriously, show me some "lies and bullshit" in the Bible...
    Genesis - This account of the creation of the universe is directly contradicted by absolutely everything we know about the world

    Adam and Eve. - Nonsense, written by people who thought the heart was where our thinking went on. Can't say I'm surprised they were so wrong about biological history, though I am surprised that so many people will defend it.

    Exodus and splitting the Red Sea. - There was no mass enslavement of Jews in Egypt, and thus obviously no exodus of Jews from Egypt. Israeli archaeologists have spent the past 60 years specifically searching for confirming evidence of this myth, but none exists. Ironically, the failures of their attempts to find evidence confirming their faith have highlighted yet another brazen Biblical fabrication.

    The genocide of the Canaanites. - Ordered directly by God himself - kill every man, woman and child; the old, the infirm, everyone. Moses tells his soldiers to kill all the prisoners of war, except for the young men who were to be made slaves, and the young virginal women who they were allowed to rape, then either enslave or kill.

    Sodom and Gamorrah. - The incitation to homophobia, not to mention a hideous display of Biblical "morality" in which a man offers up his daughter to be gang raped by an angry mob, in order to save the honor of a man.

    The Great Flood and Noah's Ark. - Again, absolute gibberish. Fairy tales of the most obvious sort.

    The Immaculate Conception. - This one isn't even in the Bible! A mistranslation of the original word for "young woman" and "virginal young girl" led to this myth.

    The Ressurection. - Not only does each and every Gospel give a conflicting account of this, they're all totally unsupported by outside corroboration. One of the gospels actually claims that as Jesus rose from the dead, so too did every corpse in the area, and the dead walked the streets. You don't think anyone else would have made a note of such a zombie invasion? Apparently not...

    The apocalypse. - The final book of the new testament is absolutely insane. Seriously, those guys were smoking the good stuff.

    That's leaving aside blatantly evil ideas such as hell and damnation, the subjugation of women and the "dark skinned" people, and a host of massochistic rituals.

    Again - you can certainly choose to take it all metaphorically. But don't ask me to respect that.
  • edited November 2007
    Some of these points you argue are 'lies and bullshit' because they have not been proved. Lack of proof does not mean it is a lie.
  • edited November 2007
    JayDub;16992 said:
    Some of these points you argue are 'lies and bullshit' because they have not been proved. Lack of proof does not mean it is a lie.
    They're searching in a desert that is overflowing with evidence of all the other things that were going on at that point in history, and not one shred of evidence of what is reported to have been the largest political movement of people in the history of that area up to that time. After sixty years of searching, I think that's fairly definitive.
  • edited November 2007
    It still doesn't prove that is a lie :p
  • edited November 2007
    True enough. But, as I said before, while you can certainly look at that and come to that conclusion, I think you also have to admit that I'm well within my rights to look at it and come to the opposite one - that it's simply a lie. Or, as I suspect, was never intended to be taken as anything more than a fable, and thus is not strictly a "lie" but simply a fabrication.

    Either way, it's not fair to say that it's "not... appropriate" for me to point out that the Bible is almost certainly complete fiction, even if I choose to use the terms "lies and bullshit" to do so. Again, you can believe whatever you want, but unless you have some sort of reasonable way of backing up your belief, I claim the right to call those beliefs false.
  • edited November 2007
    It's all about the terms that you use to describe something which makes it appropriate or not in a public forum. To say, such as in the case of the bible, that is it fiction, is not the problem. When describing it as 'lies and bullshit', that is where the problem is.
  • IVTIVT
    edited November 2007
    Morro;16990 said:
    Genesis - This account of the creation of the universe is directly contradicted by absolutely everything we know about the world
    How do you know that carbon dating is accurate? Also, saying that the Earth came to be over a period of time (without a creator) is silly. Think about it. Everything MUST have had a creator. Would you say that the Mona Lisa just came to be over time (without Davinci)? No. Why? Because it just sounds stupid.
    Morro;16990 said:

    Adam and Eve. - Nonsense, written by people who thought the heart was where our thinking went on. Can't say I'm surprised they were so wrong about biological history, though I am surprised that so many people will defend it.

    see above
    Morro;16990 said:


    Exodus and splitting the Red Sea. - There was no mass enslavement of Jews in Egypt, and thus obviously no exodus of Jews from Egypt. Israeli archaeologists have spent the past 60 years specifically searching for confirming evidence of this myth, but none exists. Ironically, the failures of their attempts to find evidence confirming their faith have highlighted yet another brazen Biblical fabrication.

    The genocide of the Canaanites. - Ordered directly by God himself - kill every man, woman and child; the old, the infirm, everyone. Moses tells his soldiers to kill all the prisoners of war, except for the young men who were to be made slaves, and the young virginal women who they were allowed to rape, then either enslave or kill.

    I'm pretty sure there are records of the pleagues in Egyptian history. Secondly, suggesting that the Exodus never happened is suggesting that Judaism is "lies and bullshit."
    Morro;16990 said:


    Sodom and Gamorrah. - The incitation to homophobia, not to mention a hideous display of Biblical "morality" in which a man offers up his daughter to be gang raped by an angry mob, in order to save the honor of a man.

    Homophobia? The Bible never commanded anyone to hate homosexuals.
    Morro;16990 said:


    The apocalypse. - The final book of the new testament is absolutely insane. Seriously, those guys were smoking the good stuff.

    "And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand or on their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." (Revelation Chapter 13: 16-17)

    Sounds crazy, huh?

    http://www.news.com/2100-1041_3-5111637.html

    how about now?
  • edited November 2007
    K, I think we're off the topic of the course, now. I'm moving this to debates. Hum 130 is the name of the course. A link to the course page: Link.
    How do you know that carbon dating is accurate? Also, saying that the Earth came to be over a period of time (without a creator) is silly. Think about it. Everything MUST have had a creator. Would you say that the Mona Lisa just came to be over time (without Davinci)? No. Why? Because it just sounds stupid.
    I'm having a flashback.
    suggesting that the Exodus never happened is suggesting that Judaism is "lies and bullshit."
    Yup.
    Homophobia? The Bible never commanded anyone to hate homosexuals.
    Oddly enough, I agree. But that is the passage that the Christian churches hold up as the proof that god hates homosexuality.

    Beyond that, it's not worth going through the Bible point by point. I'm sure you could find a prophecy fortelling the rise and fall of Vanilla Ice's career, if you wanted to look hard enough. The overarching point, here, is that the argument that the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true is simply not compelling. Especially when the majority of claims the Bible has made have been directly contradicted by the progression of our understanding of the universe. Remember: the Bible was written by people who thought that the Earth was a disc. It makes perfect sense that it would be filled with errors.
  • edited November 2007
    The bible is an amazing piece of literature that has survived hundreds of years of revision and translation. I'll give credit to the bible for that. It's quite interesting to read the bible in Chinese even though the grammar and definitiong might be a bit off. Empirical science didn't exist when this book was put together and most likely the authors thought the world was flat instead of round.

    I'll give you guys a piece of Chinese creationism. There is a supreme being that came down to the areas of Xian city in Shannxi province during some thousands of years ago. There lies the pyramids of China and where the first emperor Qin Shi Huang set-up his army of terracotta warriors. All the people of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese decent originated from this one place. There is no manuscripts of other ethnicities or other religions but just the creation of what I'd call the Han people. This is my view on creationism and I hope you all respect that. I respect the bible too and those who uphold it's "metaphors".
  • edited November 2007
    Everything MUST have had a creator.
    I assume you're not applying this statement to God as well.
  • edited November 2007
    In regards to homosexuality, it actually does say in the bible: "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads" (Leviticus 20:13).
  • edited November 2007
    A course on religion and the bible??

    Ugh, no thank you.
  • edited November 2007
    i remember watching something about if the whole world was one big sea, humans would die from drowning because of the high amounts of humidity in the air or something along the lines of that.
    Therefore, debunking the idea that noah would survive the big flood. His name was Noah right? lol

    and the everything has a creator question, who created god then?!?! There's some super god? and then a super super god?! and a super super super super super omega god?!!? lol

    anyways, Morro knows a lot more than me, haha. I just like to stir things up!
  • edited November 2007
    Oh, and
    Ether;17003 said:
    I assume you're not applying this statement to God as well.
    owned9wz.jpg

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