Question About Christianity?

I thought Cain had sex with beasts. :O

Buddhism, look into it and you will forget about every religion out there, except for porn. Yes, that's a religion.

It just seems strange to me when people, either atheist or religious, expect the bible (or quran, or torah, or what-have-you) to be perfectly consistent in every detail. It seems even stranger to me when they search through it to find these little 'problems' as if they're some kind of "gotcha!" that no one's considered before. It's a several-hundred page book written by dozens of different authors over a period of hundreds of years, of course there are going to be inconsistencies; and most of it's almost 2,000 years old, of course people will have asked these questions before.

If you want to have a debate with a minister -- and it's an honest one that isn't just designed to poke fun at something you've already decided is stupid -- I can think of much, much more substantial questions: why should I believe a God exists, what would that mean for my life, etc., etc. Whether or not Cain bumped uglies with his mama isn't really at the top of my list of theological questions. But then I've been told I'm strange for an atheist, so idk.

People say that this is not to be taken completely literally. In some instances even, Cain and Abel represent the two groups of people at the time. Cain is the new agricultural society, since he toiled the fields. However, Abel was the society of hunter-gathering people. Cain kills Abel in his or its conquest for land to create farms, as we have moved from the hunter-gathering type of society that God wished us to be.

This theory tends to coincide with the Adam and Eve story, even. Adam and Eve, before the fall of man, were one with the animals. We were essentially animals. But as society developed and we learned(ate of the fruit) agriculture, we fell from God's(nature's) plan, and we have created our own path. Now, instead of letting God(nature) decide our survival, we are faced with overpopulation issues and are forced to deal with each other.

I find this take on the Genesis stories interesting, and if anyone else had heard about it, would love to go into more detail. Me, personally, am not much of a believer anymore, but that doesn't mean I wasn't raised with it as a child.

Because, for Christians, the bible hinges on the infallibility of God, his word, and his history. If there is one modicum of fault in the teachings and events of God, then the entire thing is libel. It's a giant house of cards.

The short answer is that this series of birth rites are glossed over. Through "miracles" and "divine power" (How most of the inconsistencies are dealt with) Cain is given a mate and the genetic differentiation is taken care of by God.

Also some scholars will argue that the bible does not explicitly say that Adam and Eve ONLY had two children, just that they had two children and one killed the other. Also at this point in time, incest isn't considered a sin. Whether or not the biological problems that we know of today existed in God's near perfect state are on speculated.

It's an interesting thought experiment to contemplate God injected genetic markers and diversification after Abraham's descendants made they're way about the world.

This also pops up again with Noah's family being the only surviving human's after the flood. Again its glossed over by simply saying, God provided. (He also had only three sons at the time of the flood.)

It just depends on if you look at the first few books a literal historical account, or an allegory to the beginning of the modern world.

Interpretation is 9/10's of religion

According to most conservatives:
"The Law" (Torah) was given to Moses sometime (debatably) between 1400-1250 b.c.e. A few thousand years after the flood and (again, depending who you ask) about 5000 years after Adam and Eve.

The point of the Adam and Eve story (including the story of Cain and Abel) is to show the nature, origin, and consequences of sin.

"Problems" like those in the OP occur all over the Bible and are almost always viewed as a detriment because our post-modern, post-enlightenment culture struggles to relate to the way an ancient culture wrote their literature. The Bible contains several genres of literature and was written over the course of roughly 1600 years (1500 b.c.e - 95 c.e.). That in itself spans many societal and cultural shifts among the Jewish and Greek people who actually wrote the words.

To say that everything in the Bible is meant to be taken entirely literally is not necessarily always a good way to understand it best. If issues like what the OP suggests are really what is standing between you and being a Christian, you need to seek out a more liberal or moderate church.

also this

This is only true for rabid fundamentalists and Evangelicals. The vast majority of Christians don't take this approach to the Bible. If you want to challenge religion, it seems silly to challenge only the most radical fringe part that the rest of that religion's community views as nutcases anyways.

Doesn't matter, its in the Bible...whether certain sects choose to believe this fact or not is irrelevant. The Bible states it is the absolute truth, therefore to be a true Christian, you must believe it. That's all I'm saying, and that's why these little inconsistencies are debated over time and again.

No, actually, the Bible states the exact opposite: that it was written by people who were trying to come to grips with their religious beliefs and experiences. You're basically in agreement with Evangelicals here that the only correct interpretation of the bible is a literal one: something that pretty much every Christian scholar of any repute agrees is nonsense.

Basically, what you're saying is that we atheists should debate these little inconsistencies because crazy fundamentalists have the correct understanding of religion, it's just that religion itself is bunk.

Well no, the whole thing is irrelevant to the atheists. We don't give two shits either way. I'm just say "this is my word, and my word is law" means "this is my word and my word is law"

You can choose to interpret it ANY way you want. But the bible says to interpret it in a certain manner, and that is the correct one.

I have a better question. We have proof that humans lived on this planet for at least 10,000 years before the alleged birth of jesus. Why would this "god" wait 10,000 years after creation to send us his champion that has an important announcement for mankind? Also, of the 50+ historical scholars living at the time, most of them in the immediate area, why did 0 document something as important as the resurrection?


Sorry folks, but the belief in a personal god is delusional.

First of all, Jesus isn't the proclaimed birth of the human race, even by Christians so his birth date is irrelevant to this argument to begin with, second of all, we have proof that humans have lived on Earth for quite a bit longer then "at least 10,000 years before Jesus".. Try 100,000's of years.

What? You just argued that it IS relevant to atheists and that it SHOULD be: that these are exactly the questions we should be debating. And for the following reason:


Again, this is exactly the position of radical Evangelicals. And, again, the vast majority of Christians disagree. The whole reason there are centuries of biblical commentary and debate is because the Bible explicitly does not come with a "This is the only way to interpret me" clause.

If you want to go on agreeing with Evangelicals about how the bible should be interpreted, and then debating the minutiae with them, go right ahead. But no one outside of that community will care -- and you probably aren't going to make any headway with those nutcases anyways. The rest of Christianity -- the reasonable part -- will ignore you completely, because you aren't saying anything relevant to them. I'm not sure that's a very effective debating tactic. It's AWESOME if you just want to mock people, though.

Religious people are stupid

Atheists are also stupid

What now?

Anyone who claims to 'know' something they can't possibly know is stupid.. I'm technically agnostic, because I admit that I don't know whether there is a higher power or not.. But I claim Atheism because I strongly believe there's not.

The resurrection wasn't important at the time. He wasn't a widely known figure at the time. He's birth is recorded several times by the census and travel logs of several scholars.

You have to get your time line on the same platform. Are you say "10,000" based on scientific evidence or based on what the bible says?

If you are going with the former, then the debate of Jesus stops there. As the time line of the Bible put against science is plain wrong.

But debating within the Bible, God gave humans several chances to get it right, then finally said (in laymen terms) that he was going to send us someone to show us how its done. The Messiah.

Well for Christians, that Messiah was Jesus. He was sent to show us the way, and to be final blood sacrifice for our sins. A twofer if you well. The rest of the monotheistic "desert" religions are still waiting on this Messiah.

OP got his answer on page 1, 19 pages of flame to go. :3

No i was talking out the OP, its important for Christians to debate, not atheists. I assume the OP was a Christian asking a question.

Again its irrelevant that the whole community disagrees. The righteous path is small and narrow and most all are unfit to walk it. And i quoted the scripture that says the bible is law. I just don't know where it is specifically. back when i was a Jesus kid we use to have this same debate every few months. A loose interpretation may be the best to understand and follow, but that doesn't make it truth. And that's what's being questioned here. Truth.

Aside from Flion i don't see flaming. You can debate on the internet with out it being called flaming.

I'm not even flaming :(

Sorry, didn't know debate involved name calling, carry on. :)

i missed the name calling....

How am I flaming you stupid son of a cow?

half flame? i onno, its most flame worthy thing i've seen ITT....

This again?!

.....

<insert edward norton pic>

It sounds like you were raised in a pretty fundamentalist household and, while you're no longer religious, you still subscribe to some very fundamentalist ideas about religion. I'm sorry.

You quoted scripture of Jesus basically saying: "I'm all up in yo state, destabilizing your figures of authority. Don't listen to those Romans, yo. Listen to me." Not sure how that says anything about interpreting the bible.

Besides, how does a 'literal' interpretation even work? Is there some specific interpretation that comes with every piece of text that has the sticker "LITERAL" on it? I thought understanding was dependent on context. These "literal" interpretations of the bible are really just a way of saying what you apparently believe: "Again its irrelevant that the whole community disagrees. The righteous path is small and narrow and most all are unfit to walk it."

Anyways, you're clearly not going to budge on this. Just be aware that most Christians are going to ignore these silly games completely.

Well this is actually a logical fallacy. The Flying Spaghetti monster answers this one for us.

You take nothing.
Person A says that the nothing is actually something, but can't show or prove it
Person's B-ZZ agree with person A
You say that's HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE...
Person G says oh yeah, prove it
You say not uh, you
Person F says NO U

The cycle repeats ad infinitum. The most logical thing to do is accept those thoeries things which are observable and quantifiable, and reject or be distrustful of theories that have no platform. Even string theory has some sort of platform of observational evidence.

So to say "you can't possibly know that" it to undermine what it is to know.