Why Literal?

I have a question for those who believe the bible to be a literal account of events. (If it's in the wrong forum, or has been asked before, I apologize. I'm new.)I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, that belief in the bible being literal comes from the idea that the bible is a direct account, straight from God's own mouth.However, on a regular basis in the bible, God is killing people, smiting them, even turning one person into salt... in life we're told on a regular basis that if an innocent child dies, it's part of God's great ineffable plan, and not for us to understand. It's for the greater good somehow, even if we don't get it.So is lying all that beneath him? Or using metaphor? Especially if a non-literal bible somehow serves the greater good, in ways we don't understand?Why does the bible being the direct word of God necessarily mean that it is a truthful word of God?I don't mean this to say "Nyah nyah, your religion's full of crap!" I'm honestly curious as to how people arrive at their conclusions where faith is involved.------------------
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Dan Carroll

Dan:
First, I would appreciate it if you capitalized 'Bible' (it's a Holy doctrine that has been used, since the time of Christ, and unfortunately perverted by atheists).
In answer to your question:
There are 2 translations to the Bible: the King James version (which is the closest to the original ancient Hebrew scrolls, and therefore I recommend it) was officially produced in 1611. It is written in Rennassiance English, but still understandable to the modern person. It was followed by a direct line of copies, from several languages around the world, leading back to the original Hebrew authors (just after the Christ's death). That is why the King James' version is most trustable.
The other versions are more modern (the New International Version, the New American Standard, the Revised Substandard Version, etc.) are from a scripture similar to the King James version, but many things were altered and twisted to take on seperate meanings. The differences between the King James version and the rest is what's largely responsible for people claiming that the Bible can have 'seperate meanings.'
In Matthew Chapter 4:4 it says: "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." In John chapter 1:1 it says: "In the beginning was the Word..."
Read the book of John some time today or tomorrow (it takes less than a couple hours).
You see, the King James version says that God KNEW what He wanted to be the word, and it says that man lives on EVERY WORD. So, according to God, you'd better take EVERY WORD from God's original Holy scripture (King James version) and apply it to your life. I'm afraid that many modern Christians are neglecting to do that. Jesus said, in John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth, and the Life. No one enters the kingdom of God [heaven] except through me."
You see, IF the Bible (the trustable, original version) is not to be taken literally, then how do we know whether we go to heaven or hell. The Bible says that all we have to do is KNOW Jesus in belief, prayer, and loving worship and we will have our name written in Heaven's Book of Life (Revelation 20:12).
So, all in all, there IS NO empirical reason (or evidence) that the Bible cannot be taken literally... Besides, we are seriously out of luck if we choose to reject the Bible just because 'some people' claim it is not to be taken seriously.
Also, "God" is referred to 831 times in the Bible, so we'd better believe it if we are to believe in God.
If you have more questions regarding the Bible, let me know (I am not a professional on evolution or biology or geology... but I AM a Bible-believer and I am more than willing to help). Jesus said in his famous "sermon on the mount": "Love thine enemies." So I am obligated by God to love even those who hate me back (so don't be afraid of offending me or choosing to rebuke me).
In Christ,
Booboo

booboo wrote: "The differences between the King James version and the rest is what's largely responsible for people claiming that the Bible can have 'seperate meanings.'"No, it's not. People believing what they want to believe no matter what the Bible says is why people claim it has different meanings. Most strict independendent Baptist churches believe in King James only, and so do most United Pentecostal Churches, but neither would accept the other as even Christian. The old-order Mennonites I've met are all King James only, too (if they're English-speaking), and they would reject both the former churches and be rejected by them.There are also some extremely difficult to reconcile passages. For example, Romans 3:28 says that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law, yet James 2:24 says that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. Martin Luther himself offered his doctorate cap to anyone who could legitimately reconcile those two passages. His reconciliation was to say that the epistle of James "had nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it."Now, do you still want to recommend Martin Luther's translation as the "Authorized Version" for German-speakers, like most other KJV only believers? It's Martin Luther's intro to the New Testament that says that James is an "epistle of straw" (or "a right strawy epistle" for those offended that he said that) and that one really need only read John, Romans, and Galatians, because these have the heart of the Gospel.

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There are 2 translations to the Bible: the King James version ... was officially produced in 1611. It is written in Rennassiance English, but still understandable to the modern person.

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Actually there are many translations of the Bible. Do you mean just English translations?Before the Authorized version (As you seem picky about these things, you perhaps should not call it the "King James" version as I know many Christians who are offended by having the Word of God associatied with a flagrant homosexual) we have the following at least:Wyclif's Bible of 1382;
Tyndale's New Testament of 1526;
The Great Bible of 1539, drawing on Tyndale's NT and OT work and the basis of much of the Book of the Common Prayer;
Coverdale's Bible of 1537;
The Matthew Bible of 1537;
The annotated Genevan Bible of 1560, the preparation of which was much influenced by Knox and Calvin;
The Douai Bible of 1582-1609;

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Also, "God" is referred to 831 times in the Bible, so we'd better believe it if we are to believe in God.

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You cannot be serious! Have you ever read Nietzche? It would be amusing to count how many times "God" is referred to in his works. Perhaps if it is >831 you might convert to his view that "God is dead" ?As for the trustworthiness of the Authorized Version, we should get into that. Why do you say it is "closest to the original ancient Hebrew scrolls" ? Which scrolls? Why those scrolls and not others? How do we decide which of the many versions on ancient scrolls are best? How do we decide which translation is closest to the original intent? So much fallible human judgement required to reach an "infallible" conclusion!

Conclusions where faith is involved?
Trust me, faith is needed by EVERYBODY.
Want to see if you can avoid FAITH an entire day? Okay, here we go.
Don't sleep at all tonight (you cannot trust 100% that your alarm clock is going to wake you up in time for work). Then, before eating your cerial, examine EVERY kernel or flake to make sure it is truly healthy for you (don't trust the box that says it's healthy).
If you're single, then when you meet a girl you like, ask her what her name is. When she replies, say "I don't believe you." See where your relationship'll go without ANY faith.
Then, examine your car (this can take a long time, afterall, who knows whether or not those manufacturers are trustworthy). After that, walk to work (you have to have faith in the other drivers on the road if you are to drive anywhere). Then, when you get your paycheck today, tell them "I want cash" (you need faith that your check can truly be chashed for real bills).
Don't touch your TV tonight (you need faith that it will not explode when you push the 'power' button).
See how impossible it is to live without faith?Also, don't blame the world's problems on God (notice that things were perfect in the Garden of Eden UNTIL ADAM disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit).
God is like the pilot of your life. So don't throw out your pilot and them complain when the plane crashes (similarly, we can't blame God on our problems if we've thrown him out of our lives). Think about it: if EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH was a truly-informed, Bible-believing Christian that obeyed the 10 commandments, then there would BE NO murder, rape, lying, cheating, stealing, racism, discrimination, abuse, idol-worship, laziness, swearing, wars, incest, pedophilia, evolution, drunkenness, drug abuse, suicide, or CANCER!
Yes, the cure for cancer has already been known about for years but has been suppressed by secular organizations like the FDA because it's so cheap! Seriously, hospitals and health insurers are suppressing the cure for cancer because they are making too much MORE money off of chemotherapy and radiation. The cure for cancer is called amygdalin (better known as the rare vitamin B17) Cancer is a vitamin B17-defficiency disease, and getting it from eating enough apricot pits (the most concentrated source of B17) will prevent cancer with almost 100% assurance. If you want more info on the cure for cancer, go here:
Alternative Cancer Treatments : B17 & Apricot Seeds - Cure for CancerIf you want to order B17-enriched apricot seeds, Here is the website:
Page not found | BluegrassNet

Pamboli:First, I was referring to King James and "the interpreted modern versions" as the "2 basic" translations.
Second, you need to brush up on Israeli history... You see, the gospel was written in by St. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, spanning (the original documents) from 50-70 AD, and was written in Palastine and Syrian Antioch (modern Lebanon).
Every several hundred years, the scrolls would be copied as the originals wore out. By 1611 King James' version was out there.
On the other hand, Alexandria (northern Egypt) was using THEIR OWN interpretations and alterations to the scripture of the original Gospel.
Alexandria formed a cult (a perversion of the original) out of what they wrote and 'deleted' from scripture. Nevertheless, the Alexandrian scrolls were from the original time of the Gospel (and that is why modern scholars ASSUMED they were trustworthy, because they were that ancient). Thus the Alexandrian versions were translated to the modern NIV, RSV, NRSV, NAS, etc. while the old English version was translated originally from the notable Hebrew scholars. Today, it is known that the King James version is most original and most authentic, because it matches much more closely to translations from Greek and Hebrew that were around just a few decades following Christ.
Also, who told you King James was homosexual? Besides, he is not Jesus, therefore it would not destroy the Christian faith to find out that a scholar may be sexually impure.
In Christ,
Booboo

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First, I was referring to King James and "the interpreted modern versions" as the "2 basic" translations.

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How was I supposed to know from your post that you took this particularaly position of thought? Call me an arithmetical dunce, but "one version" plus "versions" adds up to more than 2 "versions." Of course, I'm sure you can resolve this contradiction without word games or twisting the meaning of simple words to suit your meaning.

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Second, you need to brush up on Israeli history... You see, the gospel was written in by St. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, spanning (the original documents) from 50-70 AD, and was written in Palastine and Syrian Antioch (modern Lebanon).

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Oh I'm sorry. For some silly reason I thought you were referring to ancient Hebrew scrolls. Why? Because you mentioned "ancient Hebrew scrolls", didn't you? How foolish of me to take you at your word. So now we're talking about Greek manuscripts? Or speculated Aramaic versions?

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Every several hundred years, the scrolls would be copied as the originals wore out. By 1611 King James' version was out there. On the other hand, Alexandria (northern Egypt) was using THEIR OWN interpretations and alterations to the scripture of the original Gospel.

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Sources for unsupported assertions please.

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Alexandria formed a cult (a perversion of the original) out of what they wrote and 'deleted' from scripture.

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Source for this unsupported assertion please.

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Also, who told you King James was homosexual?

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Nobody told me. I read it in documents from his time.

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Besides, he is not Jesus, therefore it would not destroy the Christian faith to find out that a scholar may be sexually impure.

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I don't think it would. Rather like you worrying about people writing bible, I think it might be more a question of showing some tolerance and consideration for the sensibilities of others. You know - the way you ask others to go along with your foibles.

Throughout these examples you've confused "faith" with "trust". One clue may have been that you use the word "trust" over and over again. "Faith" is belief in something without evidence. Trust is when I trust my TV not to blow up because I've turned it on a bazillion times without that happening, and deductive logic implies that I can probably do so again without injury. Science is based on that kind of trust - that things we see occuring over and over again probably will continue to occur. Also we can generally extend this the other way - things that occur over and over again probably also occured in the past. Much of evolutionary theory is built on these kinds of assumptions, because they're better assumptions than the alternative (there's no natural order to the universe, which is contrary to most people's experience).I have trust in things that I have evidence for, but I don't have faith. I don't trust things that there's no reason to believe exist. But bible-believing Christians commit these acts on a regular basis. (You may be interested to know that atheists comprise less than 1 percent of prison inmates - the majority are religious.) Of course, I anticipate your response: "Those people aren't TRUE christians." This is the "True Scotsman" fallacy. When members of a group you hope to defend fail to meet a high standard you can always say that they aren't "truly" members of that group. It's a pretty useless argument.The truth is, Christians aren't really any better than anybody else. At least, not any better than honest, contientious person of any other creed, even atheism. (I don't recall laziness, racism, or even drug abuse being prohibited by the ten commandments. In fact the commandments say that you SHOULD be lazy on the Sabbath, because God was.)Out of curiosity, what do you mean there would be no evolution? Do you mean no one would believe that the diversity of life is due to evolution? Or do you honestly believe that plants and animals would stop evolving simply because all humans had agreed that they couldn't? We certainly observe them evolving now. What would change?

Do you skip over certain areas?
I said: (emphasis added), "If everybody on earth was a truly-informed, Bible-believing Christian, who OBEYED THE 10 COMMANDMENTS..."
You need to be more open-minded and contientious of EVERYTHING I write.
I have noticed that many people on this forum are taking ONLY A FRACTION of what I write and then picking it apart, while ignoring the big picture of what I was trying to say (again, focusing on the wrong, or irrelevant, part of the argument).Also, there is no scientific evidence for evolution, so DON'T make that assumption!!! Charles Darwin (although a theologian) was not a Christian. Charles Lyell HATED creationism. Enrst Mayr (a modern evolutionist at Harvard) is very close-minded about creation (I have his book sitting next to me.) You see, since the Bible goes against evolution, there is no scientific evidence FOR evolution, and any literal Bible-believing Christian is not an evolutionist, and since "are we still evolving" is a question with a built-in assumption, therefore there WOULD BE NO EVOLUTION (there would be no books published about it, there would be no scientists believing in it, and there would be no evidence for it, as there already is none)!

booboocruise:
Also, there is no scientific evidence for evolution, so DON'T make that assumption!!!I wonder what Mr. booboocruise would consider acceptable evidence. Going back in time in a time machine?Charles Darwin (although a theologian) was not a Christian.How could one have been a non-Christian theologian in 19th-cy. England? He certainly wasn't Jewish.And his work was sober science. Before he published Origin of Species, he published some huge tomes on (I'm dead serious) barnacles. What sort of theologian publishes huge tomes on barnacles? And later in his career, he wrote a big tome on orchids and how they fertilize themselves -- same comment there also.Charles Lyell HATED creationism.Actually, he was an old-earth creationist, something like Hugh Ross.Enrst Mayr (a modern evolutionist at Harvard) is very close-minded about creation (I have his book sitting next to me.)How is he supposed to be so close-minded?You see, since the Bible goes against evolution, ...The way it goes against the approximate sphericity of the Earth? And states that the sky is a bowl overhead with water above it?

The bible doesn't go against evolution ... your interpretation
of the Bible as literal truth is contrary to evolutionary
theory.I had a religous studies teacher who pointed out that,
on the whole, the order of creation in Genesis Ch1. is consistent
with that accepted by mainstream science (some minor diffs.
perhaps). Only if it is taken literally is it contradictive.

If you can't get the details of your agruments right, how are we supposed to accept your larger conclusions?Anyway, how am I picking apart your arguments? You said "true bible-believing Christians who followed the 10 commandments wouldn't do anything bad or get cancer." I pointed out that plenty of Christians who say they do these things commit bad acts or get cancer. (BTW I'm not aware that the 10 commandments say "Thou Shall Not Get Cancer." It's also not a "B17 Deficiency", it's a genetic failure of pre-programmed cell death - instead of dying, they divide unchecked.) I also pointed out that the 10 commandments are an incomplete moral code as they do not prohibit racism or sexism, for instance. Let me put the question to you - is it reasonable to expect you to be open-minded about a theory you consider wrong? I don't really think so. so why do you demand that of us? This isn't logical. I could just as easily say "the bible goes against evolution, so there's no evidence for the bible." It's not a logical implication. You're repeating this like a mantra. Trying to convince yourself? I'll pose another question with a different built-in assumption - are new species being created by god? Because new species are arising all the time. Where are they coming from?Creationism can't explain the data (genetic similarities/lineages, the order of the fossil record, the effacacy of natural selection) as well as evolution can. All those things are evidence for evolution because evolution explains that data concisely. You can say there's no evidence, but saying doesn't make it so. It's therefore incumbent on you to explain how the weight of evidence we have for ToE has been incorrectly interpreted. Is there one bit of evidence that gives rise to the theory without any assumptions about evolution? No, that's not how science works. Evidence must be taken as a whole to develop a theory, and that's just what scientists did. You can't extrapolate a trend with only one point of data.

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You need to be more open-minded and contientious of EVERYTHING I write.I have noticed that many people on this forum are taking ONLY A FRACTION of what I write and then picking it apart, while ignoring the big picture of what I was trying to say (again, focusing on the wrong, or irrelevant, part of the argument).

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The problem is, booboo, that you are often so hopelessly - often laughably - wrong on the details that you draw attention to them. Your "big picture" is purpotedly supported by these details: there is no reason to even consider your big picture if it is build on such lamentably weak foundations.Look at your last paragraph in message 9 - a string of largely unconnected assertions, totally unsupported by any apparent reasoning. What your opinion about Darwin's faith - somewhat mistaken, anyway - has to do with "scientific evidence" for evolution you do not make clear. It's just two sentences thrown together apparently at random, with no connecting argument clearly called out.I think you need to take more care to construct arguments that follow from their premisses, and you need to do a bit more research to ensure that your assertions of fact are supported by evidence. Until then, your personal version of the big picture is not going to get much attention.

Trust me, evolution is built on weaker foundations
Where is the evidence of evolution? I want to see it! I read professor Mayr's (of harvard) on evolution and his arguments against evolution I could take apart in a few minutes--they were either outdated, inconclusive, or flat lies like Haeckel's drawings.You evolutionists like to spend your time dissecting a creationist's comment to make you feel good. You say I'm wrong in certain areas, but if evidence goes against evolution, GET A NEW THEORY!!! I could go for days on the scientific, legitimate, perfectly-sound evidence that seems to conflict with your theory. I've also noticed that evolutionists are good at bending or manipulating the research and evidence to make it fit with their theory.
C-14 is based on many assumptions, and doesn't work. K-ar dating is based on similar assumptions, and we don't even know if it works well (the KBS tuff was a perfect example of the unreliability of K-ar). Even the scientists who say "we know why the KBS tuff was dated inaccurately now" that would still leave them up to speculating whether or not all their OTHER dates were accurate. Take the freshly killed seal--it was dated as having died 1300 y.a. Or the dinosaur bone that was carbon-dated as being 20,000 y.o.
You see, when scientists date an object of already-known age, it is doesn't work, but when they date an object of unknown age it is ASSUMED to work. (I can only pray that you get the picture).
Also, if you think the Bible says the earth was a flat circle, look again!!! Read revelation: the Hebrew word used for 'circle' simply means "round object" While it also says that "the angels traveled to the four corners..." How could a circle have four corners? Simple: North, South, East, And West. If a "round object" has those four dimensions, then it is OBVIOUSLY not a flat circle. (yet again you ignorrance to the Bible scairs me).

You're ranting now.You say you could go on for days about the evidence that contradicts evolution, but every snippet you have so far brought to the debate has been eviscerated.Studies of C14 dating and sea creatures have been done to demonstrate that C14 doesn't work with creatures that get their carbon directly or indirectly from sea water! This was what the studies were designed to demonstrate. It may surprise you to hear that scientists are very interested in the limitations of their methods.Your tone has really changed over the last few days. Methinks your back is against the wall and you know it.