Do you actually believe 2k year persevation?

[Ewwerrin]

Do you actually believe that what someone lived and said 2+ thousand years ago, is accurately perserved, at all?

How?

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

Do you actually believe that what someone lived and said 2+ thousand years ago, is accurately perserved, at all?

How?

i think god can do anything he wants, including impart meanings that many men will have an attitude towards...

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

i think god can do anything he wants, including impart meanings that many men will have an attitude towards...

I can read one book, that is very popular, and recent, and I will be able to read it one thousand times, and I will have 1 thousand different interpretations of that one book alone.

I can watch a painting and experience a new painting every single time I look at it.

I can watch a movie, a thousand times, and experience thousand different movies.

If I were responsible for translating them. I could translate it 1 million times, and I still woulden't be able to say which one is the most accurate one, FOR MY SELF. Let alone for 8 billion people who all have 5 billion unique perspectives per second, every single and each one of them.

And then consider a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation, to infinity and beyond.

It's not just many men with unique attitudes toward meanings. It's even one single person who can have endless many attitudes towards one meaning.

Not to mention everything changes. Including language.

And what about the intention of every single translator, or the intention of those they are translating it for.


Even in very new books and well known, there are always many flaws in the book. But even without those flaws. What about the meaning of words and what they mean as translated over different languages and 2 thousand years of translations upon translations. How could even the original book be accurately understood. Let alone endless translations of translations of it?

When listening to nonduality speakers, I experience all of them, in english, to use english words, with IMMENSE unique meanings, on one word alone. I could listen to 20 years of content from one person, and not only do their usage of words chsnge, same words mean different things over 20 years. But one single word, can have meaning to the speaker that will requires 40 lifetimes of immense explanation to really get close and near to the accurate understanding of one single word used by one single speaker in one single moment in time.

[FallingLeaves]

your choice: believe in the limitations men place on themselves and each other, all the meanness that happens and the freedoms that are abrogated, or believe in a God who can and will overcome all those limitations in the best possible way. Even if that means I have to wait a while for it to happen.

Personally I think it foolish to believe in men, over believing in God, but that is just me.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

Personally I think it foolish to believe in men, over believing in God, but that is just me.

I agree with that.

Do you believe the bible/torah/quran are from God, and if so, how did it get from God on to paper?

Is there some kind of angel that does updates on the book? Or is it all human made?

And what about the idea that these books are the final message?

I personally do love Abraham's story, so I am interested in all three books. ofcourse.

[WhiteWarrior]

Ewwerin, you raise some good questions. I can generally not answer most of them but I happened to check out the gospel of John recently. Researchers consider it written by one of the 12 disciples, which makes it a reasonably plausible eyewitness report, and the dating of the language used etc indicates it is written some decades after Jesus' death. Realistically it could all have been written down from memory many years after the relevant events, or have been dictated to someone else who memorized it, then someone else, then someone finally showed up who could read and write and had time and inclination to do the job. I doubt even a single quote in the gospel is word by word correct but I am willing to buy that the end result contains some factual descriptions.

And then, of course, fast forward to the great meeting in Massa in year 600 (iirc) where all the leaders and scholars of the christian movements showed up and brought every religious paper they could find with them. Everything was pored through, everything was discussed, and then they voted and made a selection of texts that fit reasonably well together and called it a holy book. Everything else, all the gospels and stories and letters that didn't fit in with the project goals, was burned. So noone should be able to read them and ask questions. To me that's one of the worst things christianity did to itself. Did we really need more book burnings of priceless invaluable antique documents?

Since then we have had translation after translation, update after update. I can accept that since the older versions have for the most part survived, if only in a few samples of each.

As far as I see it, every word in every holy book that ever existed was written down by a human, and every word was vetted by a series of powerful people before they made it into the book. Can't have anything that rocks the boat, can we? But that does not mean that the original writer didn't witness things, see things, hear things, that he didn't believe one hundred percent as he wrote them down.

[sky]

Written by Man for Man as a 'Guide'.

King James Bible - Philippians 4:8 ►
" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Think on these virtues and put them into practice..... Imo only.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by WhiteWarrior

Ewwerin, you...
... them down.

Wow, thanks. That's a very comprehensive perspective.
Thank you for sharing that.

Those burning of books, yeah it does sound like a big waste, if only they knew how much worth it would become in the future, haha. Or maybe some did know and hidd books.

I remember a funny story about a religious minority who hidd their holy books inside their home walls, when they were constructing the house and laying the cement, they placed a holy book literally inside the cement wall. Not even a safe or box. Literally inside of the cement.

And during the demolishing it was found.

[WhiteWarrior]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

I remember a funny story about a religious minority who hidd their holy books inside their home walls, when they were constructing the house and laying the cement, they placed a holy book literally inside the cement wall. Not even a safe or box. Literally inside of the cement.

And during the demolishing it was found.

Makes sense to me. "The holy book of ... is the foundation stone of our faith and home." Pretty powerful symbolism.

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

i think god can do anything he wants,

God seems to let humans do and say whatever they want. If I was God I would stop all violence in the world. I'd change so much! I'd make every weapon disappear. Make all pollution disappear. Get rid of hunger in the world and so on. I would not let one person ever harm another. I would end illness and suffering.

I think we have a lot of writings from 2000 years ago that are accurate and some that are not.