The Bible, good content?

Open Forum
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@Friedemann: “…How can one settle the question whether same sex marriage is moral or immoral if one argues only on a religious basis? On the other hand the question whether water is made up of either oxygen and hydrogen or nitrogen and helium can be settled using the scientific approach.”

Okay, but then how can one settle the question of whether anything is “moral or immoral” if one argues only on a scientific basis?

BTW I didn’t want to give the impression that I am anti-science! For sure science can settle practical issues (like the chemical structure of water.) But any philosopher will tell you that these are little questions. Morality has to do with ‘big questions’ - those for which there is no simple back and white answer, no empirical solution.

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Morality and ethics are important questions but I don’t think one needs to have faith to be a moral person. I personally believe that morality is something we are born with, the love of a mother for her child and so forth. It has been an evolutionary advantage to care for others. I am not sure whether I kie the concept that people only do good because they are afraid to be roasted in hell.

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I would argue that the big questions are where to find food, where to find shelter and how to treat illnesses. To solve these issues science is indispensable.

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This is off topic, Friedemann, but I’ve just noticed that Benny is on the warpath against you!

(I’m going to steer clear of the thread - things would quickly overheat otherwise! :-D)

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Ich hätte nichts dagegen, wenn Steve doch noch mal das Interview mit Benny machen würde. Es ist immer interessanter wenn unterschiedliche Meinungen aufeinandertreffen als wenn man sich immer über alles einig ist. Vielleicht wäre es gerade im Hinblick auf Benny’s Erfahrung mit Chinesisch interessant.

Da Dein Deutsch ja so ausgezeichnet bist habe ich mal ein deutsches Sprichwort für Dich mit dem Du auf Parties andere Deutsche beeindrucken kannst. Es sagt dass ein erfahrener Mensch sich nicht mehr über jede Kleinigkeit aufregt. Es lautet: “Was stört es die Eiche wenn sich die Sau dran reibt.”

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@Friedemann: “…I would argue that the big questions are where to find food, where to find shelter and how to treat illnesses. To solve these issues science is indispensable.”

Important questions yes - but I would say they are still ‘little questions’ (because they have concrete answers).

übrigens: ich würde nicht sagen, dass mein Deutsch ausgezeichnet ist - aber danke trotzdem! :wink:

@Imyirtseshem: “…when people are defending religion, they always ask people to look at the good which religion fosters. Namely: providing food, shelter and medicinal care.”

“Always”…?

(Even on this thread??)

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ad Friedemann: This might be very subjective, but every time you join a thread I feel the quality of the content goes up very quickly not just because of your own posts (with which I need not necessarily agree but I like your clear line of arguments and your unpretentious way of presenting your ideas) but also because you seem to spark some equally interesting responses (I’m not referring to myself now ;-).

As for your actual contribution to this thread, I completely agree with you.

ad JayB: I was about to give myself a rest before I board the plane but somehow I got hooked onto this thread :wink:

(…) Would it really be such a terrible person who behaved this way? (…)

No, of course not. You can love and spread peace as much as you want and I hope you do :slight_smile: :slight_smile: I just don’t think you need the Bible to do so. There are many people out there who have never come into contact with the Bible and I have no doubt whatsoever that they are just as capable of loving others and caring for them as any Christian.

The NT has some really good passages in it and I guess it is also true that the texts were written at a time where many issues raised in the various scriptures were quite revolutionary and progressive. I’m not saying the Bible is bad in itself. I just don’t believe that it is a “holy scripture” and I don’t believe in the existence of God. Nor do I believe it is particularly suited for language learners but ALL this is just my personal point of view. You (and everybody else of course) are free to disagree. You have your own reasons that make you a believer and that is fine. I don’t even need to know these reasons because you have managed to keep an open mind and that is all that counts for me.

I don’t like people who present themselves as some “know-it-all” guru. Apart from that I very much enjoy discussions that allow for an exchange of opinion.

When LMY wrote that when people are defending religion they always ask people to look at the good which religion fosters I think he kind of suggested (but I may be wrong) that they sort of shut their gates when other people remind them of all the bad things religions have caused. I had similar experiences in all the religious groups I was a member of. The tiniest positive event in their life was attributed to God while anything negative was always attributed to Satan or the fact that people having lost their connection with God (as they put it) supposedly caused all the grief and pain, it never ever was God’s responsibility. Why then not credit some plain human beings for at least some good that happens in this world? I just don’t find their reasoning very logical, that’s all.

Believe me, I’m not trying to convince people that they ought to stop believing in a God. I simply question most of their arguments. If they want to believe in those scriptures it is their choice and they should be free to do so but there are limits to what one can do whether you are a believer or not.

Friedemann’s example as to same sex marriage raises a valid point in my opinion. We just had a case touching upon this issue in a more general way here in Austria. A young man living together with another man was elected as a member of the parish council (Pfarrgemeinderat) with an overwhelming 95 % of the votes. The priest refused to accept his election since he said it was against the law of God and that the Bible condemns such “unions”. The Bishop had to intervene, first agreed with the priest and then graciously confirmed the election because - as he put it - he was personally convinced that even though being a sinner the young man was committed to the cause of the catholic church and that other members should pray for him to find the right path and stop living in sin. He also said that next time gay people should be banned from the list of eligible candidates beforehand to avoid any similar problems.

In a way this is all still acceptable to me because the catholic church to me is like a private club. If I don’t like its rules, I don’t join it or leave it (that’s what I did). It is problematic though when they try to interfere with the rest of the society as they did about 10 years ago when they urged our government to ban gay people from teaching and coaching positions (coaches as in coaches for sports teams at school etc.). And they actually based their claim on the Bible. This is where I draw the line. We live in a free and democratic but secular state that is not governed based on religious dogmas and I want it to stay like this.

As for the German saying Friedemann mentioned I must admit I have never heard it before and I’m afraid I would not have understood it if I had not been given lots of context :wink: But I like the idea behind that saying.

Man lernt eben nie aus, auch nicht in seiner Muttersprache. Und das war’s wirklich für heute. Ab jetzt bin ich auch geistig im Urlaub :slight_smile: Übrigens bist du einer der wenigen Konservativen (ich meine das nicht abwertend), mit denen ich mich gerne unterhalte, weil du nicht nur austeilst, sondern auch einstecken kannst, ohne gleich ausfallend oder arrogant zu werden.

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Robert said:

“ad Friedemann: This might be very subjective, but every time you join a thread I feel the quality of the content goes up very quickly not just because of your own posts (with which I need not necessarily agree but I like your clear line of arguments and your unpretentious way of presenting your ideas) but also because you seem to spark some equally interesting responses (I’m not referring to myself now ;-).”

Haha, Thanks, but I can tell you someone on the other thread here doesn’t think so…

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Friedemann: “Morality and ethics are important questions but I don’t think one needs to have faith to be a moral person.”

Obviously not. Faith and morality are NOT interdependent. If anything is a fact, that is. Just as religions are created and are abandoned, what we consider moral changes over time: slavery, marrying off a minor to a stranger, homosexuality, etc. We are not moral because of books or because of what we are told to do: we are moral because we choose to be, and because we benefit from it. It’s perfectly possible to debate questions of morality and ethics without invoking scripture or religions.

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You have perfected hair-splitting to an art. If that’s the way you want to argue, ok.

And you have perfected generalization and pretending I have written something when I have written no such thing to an art. What you call hair-splitting I call looking at a collection of books as a collection of books, not one. Let’s look at two parts of the OT that are good content for learning a language vs. very bad content.

Good: Ecclesiastes. It’s basically a person writing about the meaningless of life. Example:

  1. There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven–
  2. A time to give birth and a time to die;
    A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
  3. A time to kill and a time to heal;
    A time to tear down and a time to build up.
  4. A time to weep and a time to laugh;
    A time to mourn and a time to dance.
  5. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
    A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
  6. A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
    A time to keep and a time to throw away.
  7. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
    A time to be silent and a time to speak.
  8. A time to love and a time to hate;
    A time for war and a time for peace.

Very bad: Exodus 29. Imagine learning the basics of a language and trying to get something useful out of five chapters of this (and then five more chapters later when the same thing happens again):

  1. and one cake of bread and one cake of bread mixed with oil and one wafer from the basket of unleavened bread which is set before the LORD;

  2. and you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and shall wave them as a wave offering before the LORD.

  3. "You shall take them from their hands, and offer them up in smoke on the altar on the burnt offering for a soothing aroma before the LORD; it is an offering by fire to the LORD.

  4. "Then you shall take the breast of Aaron's ram of ordination, and wave it as a wave offering before the LORD; and it shall be your portion.

  5. "You shall consecrate the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the heave offering which was waved and which was offered from the ram of ordination, from the one which was for Aaron and from the one which was for his sons.

  6. "It shall be for Aaron and his sons as their portion forever from the sons of Israel, for it is a heave offering; and it shall be a heave offering from the sons of Israel from the sacrifices of their peace offerings, even their heave offering to the LORD.

So if you are unlucky enough that you have chosen to learn a language like Kyrgyz outside of the country, if you want to use some parts of the Bible for matching text and audio it’s best to know which parts are helpful and which aren’t. There is enough readable content in there that you can pick and choose and don’t need to read through it in the order in which it was compiled.

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@Mithridates – and you think looking at the readibility of the English translation will be a good indication of the usefulness of the language found in the Kyrgyz translation?

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and you think looking at the readibility of the English translation will be a good indication of the usefulness of the language found in the Kyrgyz translation?

Of course. The Ecclesiastes example has a lot of repetition of frequently used verbs, while the Exodus example you will end up learning the Kyrgyz equivalents of ram of ordination, wave offering, unleavened bread, and a ton of other things a native speaker won’t even understand. Just in the same way that if you like a translation of the Little Prince and want to use it to learn a language you can be sure that the other translation will be more or less the same content.

A good rule of thumb for books in the Bible is to avoid books with too many names of people and countries, and special objects or units. Genesis 10 is a good example of a particularly bad chapter:

13 Egypt was the father of

the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, 14 Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came) and Caphtorites.

15 Canaan was the father of

Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, 16 Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, 17 Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, 18 Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.

Later the Canaanite clans scattered 19 and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha.

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To call it : The new testament was a great idea at the time but now, 2000 years later - this title sounds quite ridiculous.

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To call it : The new testament was a great idea at the time but now, 2000 years later - this title sounds quite ridiculous.

As do New York, New Zealand and all the rest, I assume?

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“New” does not mean modern, contemporary, or current, it just means “new” as opposed to a previous version. What is the problem?

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This was not my idea when I posted my first comment but since you ask : What is the problem ?

The big problem is with the possible next versions.
If version number 2 is the new one - how will you call version 3, 4 and so on ?

There is also another problem with the old testament. Obviously this was not its original title - nobody serious would call his book old something in the anticipation of a next version.

So the authors of the so called new testament - renamed the book of the Hebrews - in the hope of giving more credits to their own work.

As for the cities - I prefer to have New something than some Odessa in Texas.

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@alexandrec

The Bible likely contains all of the best moral advice there is, provided you already have the moral sense …

Regardless of a huge range of opinions possible on the cut last notion (left after the dots in the quote), I don’t see how it contradicts to what I’ve said.

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@eugrus – it would contradict the claim that the “Bible is probably one of the greatest sources of moral guidance out there” [order altered].

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@alexandrec Ok. Since in the original post it was in the context of mental work, not incontrovertibility, I may rephrase that part as “one of the worthiest to think over”.

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@Peter - “I might try the “Samuel” and “Kings” sections. One question, though. Would reading these “books” make sense if I haven’t read the preceding ones?”

Well, the stories in these books start at the beginning of Samuel’s, then David’s, and then Solomon’s lives and tell the stories of each of their lives - which intertwine. And the stories for the other Kings usually start from the beginning of their reigns until the end (for the most part I think), so I don’t think you’d be too lost.