Do you believe in God?

[OrphanPip]

I don't believe in God.

However, earlier today I stopped to speak with some people on campus handing out Bibles. And they were annotated! Being the lit nerd that I am, I never pass off the opportunity to get a well research edited text with useful secondary material. But when I started to read it, well I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in my life. The guy handing it to me asks me to turn to John 6:18, the walking on water episode. So, I go ahead and read the verse and its corresponding note. It was like the Bible was annotated by a high school English teacher.

John 6: 18 appears as thus in the KJV:

And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.

The Bible they were handing out rendered it as thus:

And the sea was turning beneath them from the wind.

And then the note read, "the turning of the sea represents the turmoil of people's lives." Completely useless, and the guy has the gall of saying that it's to make the Bible come alive for readers of today. So, basically they dumbed down the Bible, and then filled it with trite pointless readings of the verses.

Now, I guess a passage across a rough sea can be read as an allegory of the human condition. But, this verse by verse notation attempts to suggest the Bible is imminently profound in every line. The old high school method of creating any possible meaning out of any combination of words. First of all, symbolism when the Bible was written was intensely different from what we think of as symbolism, and this implies a highly anachronistic reading of the text. If someone said, "this passage makes me think of the journey through life as the people move across the water to Christ." That would be a reasonable personal response to the verse, but to suggest that its meaning is some boring book club platitude is just poor editing.

I told the guy that I felt the note was trite, and that the point of the passage was simply to mythologize Christ. Or in Christian friendly terms, the gospel of John is attempting to emphasize the divinity of Christ through the telling of his miracles.

I realize that I'm incredibly anal and that the fact that I'm bothered by bad Bible commentary is probably an indication of my impending mental breakdown. It saddens me how the people who most venerate the meaning of the Bible have such a lazy attitude towards one of the seminal text of Western literature .

[dfiant]

As an agnost I don't believe God exist beyond the text books that she/he/it is written about. To me it is all theory, and I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Everyones belief's are based on personal experiences and deserve to be respected, no one should feel inferior or superior based on the organisation where their beliefs lay.

When I was a teenager I heard someone say 'If all religions say that you must believe and follow their deity or you won't go to heaven or find nirvana, then we are all going to end up in the same place unless your beliefs lay with all deities'

[AlephNull]

That is based on the assumption that a "god" must by nature be a personal god that must also function to interfere/intervene in the lives of rather insignificant and short-lived beings.

I believe in "the devine" . . . that Being, all of it, is inherently divine.

What makes you think that all of Being is divine? When you say Being with a capital "B" I assume you mean Being itself (as a transcendental via "form" and what not) and not individual beings.

Are you a monist?

How is it that we are even productively talking about being in itself? Are we just babbling here? When you strip Being of its predicates doesn't it just become in-accessible?

[BYoNexus]

I don't believe in a single entity that created the universe. That said, it's not impossible that something created the universe. Otherwise why does anything at all exist?

This arguement might be overturned by the statement; In an existance of absolute chaos, there would be a pocket (or pockets) of order. Those Pockets are the universe as we know it.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I don't believe in God.

However, earlier today I stopped to speak with some people on campus handing out Bibles. And they were annotated! Being the lit nerd that I am, I never pass off the opportunity to get a well research edited text with useful secondary material. But when I started to read it, well I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in my life. The guy handing it to me asks me to turn to John 6:18, the walking on water episode. So, I go ahead and read the verse and its corresponding note. It was like the Bible was annotated by a high school English teacher.
(snip)

In order to fully grasp the Bible one must read it in its original languages. Hebrew, Greek and a smattering of Aramaic.

A good deal is lost in translation. The Latin Vulgate (by which most of the English Translations are translated from) lost a good deal of the meaning as the Roman Church all but totally wiped out the humor and other 'human' emotional expression.

--> Yes God cracked more than one joke, So too Jesus.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read...-the-bible

Dirty humor: http://www.angelfire.com/biz5/piso/djoke1.html

I didn't read through that whole site on dirty humor, I did scan it and did find that it is pretty accurate.

A decent chunk of the bible was written in the form of prose/poetry. While it was prosaic and poetic in say Hebrew, once you translate it literally to Latin then literally to English that prose and poetic nature is totally lost.

In the case you cited - literal translation has killed the deeper emotional meaning, the symbolic meaning - changing colorful metaphor into literalism.

The Bible was 'cleaned up' and 'polished' to present a serious, literal take on God. The Ancient cultures that wrote had a far greater sense of humor and a poetic take on God, the World and everything.

[Kiid]

God isn't real to me. But I like to hear people talk about the bible. Especially my friends that are into it. It is good to have faith I guess.

[HollandofFrance]

im part native american-we all believe in the great spirit i guess

The Great Spirit, also called Wakan Tanka among the Sioux, the Creator or the Great Maker in English, and Gitchi Manitou in Algonquian, is a conception of a ..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Spirit

im Christan too or so i say

[monk]

No, but I wish I did.

[7Chakras]

Wow Bowyn Aerrow,
and I thought I have been through some shit.
You must be SO strong now from what has happened thus far in your lifetime.
Bigup mate.

[blokeinsussex]

No.

Absolutely nothing I have seen, read, experienced or felt has indicated to me that an all powerful being exists.

No being powerful enough to create the universe could be so insecure as to need to be worshipped.

No being powerful enough to create the universe could be so petty as to dole out infinite punishment for finite transgression.

No being powerful enough to create the universe would command parents to mutilate their children to prove their bond with him.

No being powerful enough to create the universe would work to create a plethora of wondrous earlthly experiences only to command people not to enjoy them. It's like an artist creating the most wonderful painting, sculpture or whatever then saying NO YOU CANT LOOK AT THIS AND YOU'LL GO TO HELL IF YOU DO!!!

Now, all that said, do I believe that what we see is all that exists? No.

Do I believe that we have no soul? No.

If I die and find there is a god, fine, great. I firmly believe all it would want is for people to live good lives, be good to each other and the world around us and ENJOY the world it created for us.

As a great prophet once said "Be excellent to each other".