The Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the various books written surrounding Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, etc, were all written a very very long time ago. People back then did not understand very much at all of the world around them. Ask yourself this: If people back then knew what we know today, all that science has discovered, do you think they would've believed in their religion? If the author(s) of Genesis had known about evolution, do you think he/they still would have wrote it?

But why do people believe what was written thousands of years ago so strongly? They say it is the word of God, but why do they say that? Because people told them it was. How do they know? God spoke to them, they say. "Why didn't he speak to me too then? He doesn't need to, it's all written in these books he told me to write, read them and follow them or else. Why? Because God said to, and he is the Creator. But didn't you write this? God wrote it through me. Ok.."

If someone tried to write a book to be added to the Bible today, that they claimed was inspired by God, people would laugh at him. And I'm sure some whacko out there has done just that. Or maybe he was a prophet trying to deliver an important message, but you ignored him. But you take what was written long before you were born as the truth.

The point of all of this is in long arguments in this forum, I see the (usually Christian) side cite scripture to defend their point of view, as if it was scientific fact. These are merely words written by people like you and me, a very long time ago. Some of it makes sense, yes, common lessons about living life that anyone who isn't an idiot figures out has he goes along. But there's not only life lessons in there, there's people's opinions. People's opinions. The author's opinion.

Why do you believe it so strongly? How do you know that it is the truth? If there is a God, I pray to him that you have not put your soul in the hands of men who lived thousands of years ago, listening to what they think is right, and not what God thinks.

I wouldn't say they didn't know much about the world around them. It does seem kind of strange with the whole 'revelation' type deal, but I'd deffinitely trust the kind of grooves based on mental queries into the nature of physical/mental-metaphysical existance.

A lot of religious theories actually do make some kind of basic sense when you look at them from a physical but objective view.

Cos people have been force fed this shit since they were two.

But if they weren't they might have come upon a realisation, a "enlightenment" that makes perfect sence in there mind but no-one else can understand, they simply know there is a god.

Has anybody really found out what these Bibles refer to when they are exclaiming certain passeges?, the bible refers I dont know how many times to ORMUs, ORMEs, Philosophers Stones, The Food of the gods, The holy grail, pot of Manna, which is something physical that effects the human mind to a certain extent of its exsistance in the human brain and body. Does anybody really know what Orbitally Reagranged Monotomic Gold, silver and the other ORM elements really do for the human mind and body. From what Ive read in alchemical text it is possible to posses perfect health and perfection from using these elements. But the downfall of humanity, not everybody can use them, It just so happens that it falls into exsistance that so many alchemist, Gods, Egytion Pharos, Mayans, and even Doctors today prescribe ORMUs elements for arthritis for the pain, drug addicts. Read about the Gold Treatment.

ORMUs was rediscoverd in our civilization in the late 70s and can be bought over the counter today. And our metal supply is effected from these elements, maybe that is why gold is so much, People buy them everyday.

And the combination of the humand mind and ORMUS is very powerful and this is what the gods know and you do not. That is why the bible is worshipped so much.





[This message has been edited by godofjacob (edited 08-06-2005).]

Holy books are just a collection of ideas, morals, and allegories from the time period they were written in. That's not a bad thing, it's just people shouldn't hold them so close to heart and use their words as law.

quote:Originally posted by whocares123:

If someone tried to write a book to be added to the Bible today, that they claimed was inspired by God, people would laugh at him.

Joseph Smith.

www.exmormon.com (http://www.exmormon.com)

I want a really religious Christian to respond to this.

quote:Originally posted by whocares123:

I want a really religious Christian to respond to this.

quote:The point of all of this is in long arguments in this forum, I see the (usually Christian) side cite scripture to defend their point of view, as if it was scientific fact. These are merely words written by people like you and me, a very long time ago.

I've posted this before. It is from the Evidence Bible, page 101 (the site is back up, so you can also view it at: http://www.evidencebible.com/witnessingtool/Biblestandsalone.shtml

) :

The Bible Stands Alone

Compiled by Jordan and Justin Drake

In 1889 a schoolteacher told a ten-year-old boy, "You will never amount to very much." That boy was Albert Einstein. In 1954 a music manager told a young singer, "You ought to go back to driving a truck." That singer was Elvis Presley. In 1962 a record company told a group of singers, "We don’t like your sound. Groups with guitars are definitely on their way out." They said that to the Beatles. Man is prone to make mistakes. Those who reject the Bible should take the time to look at the evidence before they come to a verdict.

1. It is unique in its continuity.

If just 10 people today were picked who were from the same place, born around the same time, spoke the same language, and made about the same amount of money, and were asked to write on just one controversial subject, they would have trouble agreeing with each other. But the Bible stands alone. It was written over a period of 1,600 years by more than 40 writers from all walks of life. Some were fishermen; some were politicians. Others were generals or kings, shepherds or historians. They were from three different continents, and wrote in three different languages. They wrote on hundreds of controversial subjects yet they wrote with agreement and harmony. They wrote in dungeons, in temples, on beaches, and on hillsides, during peacetime and during war. Yet their words sound like they came from the same source. So even though 10 people today couldn’t write on one controversial subject and agree, God picked 40 different people to write the Bible—and it stands the test of time.

2. It is unique in its circulation.

The invention of the printing press in 1450 made it possible to print books in large quantities. The first book printed was the Bible. Since then, the Bible has been read by more people and printed more times than any other book in history. By 1930, over one billion Bibles had been distributed by Bible societies around the world. By 1977, Bible societies alone were printing over 200 million Bibles each year, and this doesn’t include the rest of the Bible publishing companies. No one who is interested in knowing the truth can ignore such an important book.

3. It is unique in its translation.

The Bible has been translated into over 1,400 languages. No other book even comes close.

4. It is unique in its survival.

In ancient times, books were copied by hand onto manuscripts which were made from parchment and would decay over time. Ancient books are available today only because someone made copies of the originals to preserve them. For example, the original writings of Julius Caesar are no longer around. We know what he wrote only by the copies we have. Only 10 copies still exist, and they were made 1,000 years after he died. Only 600 copies of Homer’s The Iliad exist, made 1,300 years after the originals were written. No other book has as many copies of the ancient manuscripts as the Bible. In fact, there are over 24,000 copies of New Testament manuscripts, some written within 35 years of the writer’s death.

5. It is unique in withstanding attack.

No other book has been so attacked throughout history as the Bible. In A.D. 300 the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered every Bible burned because he thought that by destroying the Scriptures he could destroy Christianity. Anyone caught with a Bible would be executed. But just 25 years later, the Roman emperor Constantine ordered that 50 perfect copies of the Bible be made at government expense. The French philosopher Voltaire, a skeptic who destroyed the faith of many people, boasted that within 100 years of his death, the Bible would disappear from the face of the earth. Voltaire died in 1728, but the Bible lives on. The irony of history is that 50 years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society moved into his former house and used his printing presses to print thousands of Bibles.

The Bible has also survived criticism. No book has been more attacked for its accuracy. And yet archeologists are proving every year that the Bible’s detailed descriptions of historic events are correct.

also from the same book, pages 163-164:

rchaeology and History Attest to the Reliability of the Bible

By Richard M. Fales, Ph.D.

No other ancient book is questioned or maligned like the Bible. Critics looking for the flyspeck in the masterpiece allege that there was a long span between the time the events in the New Testament occurred and when they were recorded. They claim another gap exists archaeologically between the earliest copies made and the autographs of the New Testament. In reality, the alleged spaces and socalled gaps exist only in the minds of the critics. Manuscript Evidence.

Aristotle’s Ode to Poetics was written between 384 and 322 B.C. The earliest copy of this work dates A.D. 1100, and there are only forty-nine extant manuscripts. The gap between the original writing and the earliest copy is 1,400 years. There are only seven extant manuscripts of Plato’s Tetralogies, written 427–347 B.C. The earliest copy is A.D. 900—a gap of over 1,200 years. What about the New Testament? Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30. The New Testament was written between A.D. 48 and 95. The oldest manuscripts date to the last quarter of the first century, and the second oldest A.D. 125. This gives us a narrow gap of thirty-five to forty years from the originals written by the apostles. From the early centuries, we have some 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Altogether, including Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic, we have a whopping 24,633 texts of the ancient New Testament to confirm the wording of the Scriptures. So the bottom line is, there was no great period between the events of the New Testament and the New Testament writings. Nor is there a great time lapse between the original writings and the oldest copies.

With the great body of manuscript evidence, it can be proved, beyond a doubt, that the New Testament says exactly the same things today as it originally did nearly 2,000 years ago. Corroborating Writings. Critics also charge that there are no ancient writings about Jesus outside the New Testament. This is another ridiculous claim. Writings confirming His birth, ministry, death, and resurrection include Flavius Josephus (A.D. 93), the Babylonian Talmud (A.D. 70–200), Pliny the Younger’s letter to the Emperor Trajan (approx. A.D. 100), the Annals of Tacitus (A.D. 115–117), Mara Bar Serapion (sometime after A.D. 73), and Suetonius’ Life of Claudius and Life of Nero (A.D. 120).

Another point of contention arises when Bible critics have knowingly or unknowingly misled people by implying that Old and New Testament books were either excluded from or added into the canon of Scripture at the great ecumenical councils of A.D. 336, 382, 397, and 419. In fact, one result of these gatherings was to confirm the Church’s belief that the books already in the Bible were divinely inspired. Therefore, the Church, at these meetings, neither added to nor took away from the books of the Bible. At that time, the thirty-nine Old Testament books had already been accepted, and the New Testament, as it was written, simply grew up with the ancient Church. Each document, being accepted as it was penned in the first century, was then passed on to Christians of the next century. So, this foolishness about the Roman Emperor Constantine dropping books from the Bible is simply uneducated rumor.

Fulfilled Prophecies

Prophecies from the Old and New Testaments that have been fulfilled also add credibility to the Bible. The Scriptures predicted the rise and fall of great empires like Greece and Rome (Daniel 2:39, 40), and foretold the destruction of cities like Tyre and Sidon (Isaiah 23). Tyre’s demise is recorded by ancient historians, who tell how Alexander the Great lay siege to the city for seven months. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had failed in a 13-year attempt to capture the seacoast city and completely destroy its inhabitants. During the siege of 573 B.C., much of the population of Tyre moved to its new island home approximately half a mile from the land city. Here it remained surrounded by walls as high as 150 feet until judgment fell in 332 B.C. with the arrival of Alexander the Great. In the seven-month siege, he fulfilled the remainder of the prophecies (Zechariah 9:4; Ezekiel 26:12) concerning the city at sea by completely destroying Tyre, killing 8,000 of its inhabitants and selling 30,000 of its population into slavery. To reach the island, he scraped up the dust and rubble of the old land city of Tyre, just like the Bible predicted, and cast them into the sea, building a 200-footwide causeway out to the island. Alexander’s death and the murder of his two sons was also foretold in the Scripture. Another startling prophecy was Jesus’ detailed prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction, and the further spreading of the Jewish diaspora throughout the world, which is recorded in Luke 21. In A.D. 70, not only was Jerusalem destroyed by Titus, the future emperor of Rome, but another prediction of Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:1,2 came to pass—the complete destruction of the temple of God.

Messianic Prophecies

In the Book of Daniel, the Bible prophesied the coming of the one and only Jewish Messiah prior to the temple’s demise. The Old Testament prophets declared He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) to a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12,13), die by crucifixion (Psalm 22), and be buried in a rich man’s tomb (Isaiah 53:9). There was only one person who fits all of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament who lived before A.D. 70: Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary. Yes, the Bible is an amazing book.

And again.. page 605:

The Dead Sea Scrolls

"The greatest manuscript discovery of all times."

By William F. Albright

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) at Qumran in 1949 had significant effects in corroborating evidence for the Scriptures. The ancient texts, found hidden in pots in cliff-top caves by a monastic religious community, confirm the reliability of the Old Testament text. These texts, which were copied and studied by the Essenes, include one complete Old Testament book (Isaiah) and thousands of fragments, representing every Old Testament book except Esther. The manuscripts date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. and give the earliest window found so far into the texts of the Old Testament books and their predictive prophecies. The Qumran texts have become an important witness for the divine origin of the Bible, providing further evidence against the criticism of such crucial books as Daniel and Isaiah.

Dating the Manuscripts

Carbon-14 dating is a reliable form of scientific dating when applied to uncontaminated material several thousand years old. Results indicated an age of 1917 years with a 200-year (10 percent) variant. Paleography (ancient writing forms) and orthography (spelling) indicated that some manuscripts were inscribed before 100 B.C. Albright set the date of the complete Isaiah scroll to around 100 B.C.—"there can happily not be the slightest doubt in the world about the genuineness of the manuscript."

Archaeological Dating

Collaborative evidence for an early date came from archaeology. Pottery accompanying the manuscripts was late Hellenistic (c. 150– 3 B.C.) and Early Roman (c. 63 B.C. to A.D. 100). Coins found in the monastery ruins proved by their inscriptions to have been minted between 135 B.C. and A.D. 135. The weave and pattern of the cloth supported an early date. There is no reasonable doubt that the Qumran manuscripts came from the century before Christ and the first century A.D. Significance of the Dating.

Previous to the DSS, the earliest known manuscript of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Text (A.D. 900) and two others (dating about A.D. 1000) from which, for example, the King James version of the Old Testament derived its translation. Perhaps most would have considered the Masoretic text as a very late text and therefore questioned the reliability of the Old Testament wholesale. The Dead Sea Scrolls eclipse these texts by 1,000 years and provide little reason to question their reliability, and further, present only confidence for the text. The beauty of the Dead Sea Scrolls lies in the close match they have with the Masoretic text—demonstrable evidence of reliability and preservation of the authentic text through the centuries. So the discovery of the DSS provides evidence for the following:

1) Confirmation of the Hebrew Text

2) Support for the Masoretic Text

3) Support for the Greek translation of the Hebrew Text (the Septuagint).

Since the New Testament often quotes from the Greek Old Testament, the DSS furnish the reader with further confidence for the Masoretic texts in this area where it can be tested.

(Generated from Norman Geisler, "Dead Sea Scrolls," Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics)

(Please dont say, "sure, Christians dont believe C-14 dating, unless it verifies what they proport"... I have no idea, the mindset of whoever dated the manuscripts... i am taking it only as data, and not as proof. Just supporting evidence, not confirmation.)

And one last one, page 102:

"The Bible has changed down through the ages."

No, it hasn’t. God has preserved His Word. In the spring of 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These manuscripts were copies of large portions of the Old Testament, a thousand years older than any other existing copies. Study of the scrolls has revealed that the Bible hasn’t changed in content down through the ages as many skeptics had surmised. (See 1 Peter 1:25 footnote.)

Anyone can now obtain access to computer programs that give the original Hebrew and Greek words, and the only "changes" have been made for clarity. For example, the old English translation of 2 Corinthians 12:8 is "For this thing I besought the Lord thrice ...," while a contemporary translation is "Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times..."

I know that i did not answer your question, as to why i believe (the truthfullness of the "Book"). I'm going to hold off on that one for now.

quote:No, it hasn’t. God has preserved His Word. In the spring of 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These manuscripts were copies of large portions of the Old Testament, a thousand years older than any other existing copies. Study of the scrolls has revealed that the Bible hasn’t changed in content down through the ages as many skeptics had surmised.

xtreem,don't think i'd agree with that statement or with some of the 'rhetoric' you just quoted.

however

as readers of my posts will know i do believe the bible to be an exceedingly accurate historical document. and i am ever ready to champion it's authority on that basis.

quote:Originally posted by jackketch:

xtreem,don't think i'd agree with that statement or with some of the 'rhetoric' you just quoted.

however

as readers of my posts will know i do believe the bible to be an exceedingly accurate historical document. and i am ever ready to champion it's authority on that basis.

That's cool, Jack. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

I've shown my source for these quotes (all though it seems as though the "Evidence Bible" only showed it's sources on one of those quotes). Like i pointed out before, since i have not seen the manuscripts (nor could i make sense of the languages, if i did see them), I have to trust that the scholars are honest.

From most (well, about half actually) of my reading on this subject, these quotes were basically close; comparable to a "Reader's Digest condensed version". Alittle more than half of the other half, seems to be written with the intention of disproving (not disagreeing, but disproving) God's Word.

I DONT!

I trust the Tao Te Ching because its truths have been repeatedly verified by the sciences throughout history. Also, it's not a religous text, but a philosophical text.

Jesus rocks the world!

quote:Originally posted by xtreem5150ahm:



With the great body of manuscript evidence, it can be proved, beyond a doubt, that the New Testament says exactly the same things today as it originally did nearly 2,000 years ago. Corroborating Writings. Critics also charge that there are no ancient writings about Jesus outside the New Testament. This is another ridiculous claim. Writings confirming His birth, ministry, death, and resurrection include Flavius Josephus (A.D. 93), the Babylonian Talmud (A.D. 70–200), Pliny the Younger’s letter to the Emperor Trajan (approx. A.D. 100), the Annals of Tacitus (A.D. 115–117), Mara Bar Serapion (sometime after A.D. 73), and Suetonius’ Life of Claudius and Life of Nero (A.D. 120).



This claim is quite an exaggeration. The following link explains why those historical sources aren't credible : http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/camel2.html

quote:Originally posted by elfstone:

This claim is quite an exaggeration. The following link explains why those historical sources aren't credible : http://w ww.ebonmus ings.org/a theism/camel2.html (http: //www.ebon musings.or g/atheism/ camel2.htm l)

good link. well argued and concise. can't fault the author although i feel he is a little hard on the talmud.

How do we know that the Torah we have today is the same text given on Mount Sinai?

The Torah was originally dictated from God to Moses, letter for letter. From there, the Midrash (Devarim Rabba 9:4) tells us:

Before his death, Moses wrote 13 Torah Scrolls. Twelve of these were distributed to each of the 12 Tribes. The 13th was placed in the Ark of the Covenant (with the Tablets). If anyone would come and attempt to rewrite or falsify the Torah, the one in the Ark would "testify" against him. (Likewise, if he had access to the scroll in the Ark and tried to falsify it, the distributed copies would "testify" against him.)

How were the new scrolls verified? An authentic "proof text" was always kept in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, against which all other scrolls would be checked. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Sages would periodically perform global checks to weed out any scribal errors.

WRITING A TORAH SCROLL

To eliminate any chance of human error, the Talmud enumerates more than 20 factors mandatory for a Torah scroll to be considered "kosher." This is the Torah's built-in security system. Should any one of these factors be lacking, it does not possess the sanctity of a Torah scroll, and is not to be used for a public Torah reading.

The meticulous process of hand-copying a scroll takes about 2,000 hours (a full-time job for one year). Throughout the centuries, Jewish scribes have adhered to the following guidelines:

A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is added.



A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is deleted.



The scribe must be a learned, pious Jew, who has undergone special training and certification.



All materials (parchment, ink, quill) must conform to strict specifications, and be prepared specifically for the purpose of writing a Torah Scroll.



The scribe may not write even one letter into a Torah Scroll by heart. Rather, he must have a second, kosher scroll opened before him at all times.



The scribe must pronounce every word out loud before copying it from the correct text.



Every letter must have sufficient white space surrounding it. If one letter touched another in any spot, it invalidates the entire scroll.



If a single letter was so marred that it cannot be read at all, or resembles another letter (whether the defect is in the writing, or is due to a hole, tear or smudge), this invalidates the entire scroll. Each letter must be sufficiently legible so that even an ordinary schoolchild could distinguish it from other, similar letters.



The scribe must put precise space between words, so that one word will not look like two words, or two words look like one word.



The scribe must not alter the design of the sections, and must conform to particular line-lengths and paragraph configurations.



A Torah Scroll in which any mistake has been found, cannot be used, and must be fixed within 30 days, or buried.



SUCCESS OF THE SYSTEM

Maintaining the accuracy of any document as ancient and as large as the Torah is very challenging even under the best of circumstances.

But consider that throughout history, Jewish communities were subject to widespread persecutions and exile. Over the last 2,000 years, Jews have been spread to the four corners of the world, from Yemen to Poland, from Australia to Alaska.

Other historical factors make the accurate transmission of the Torah all the more difficult. For example, the destruction of the Temple 1,900 years ago saw the dissolution of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish central authority which traditionally would unify the Jewish people in case of any disagreements.

Let’s investigate the facts as we have them today. If we collect the oldest Torah scrolls and compare them, we can see if any garbling exists, and if so, how much.

How many letters are there in the Torah? 304,805 letters (or approximately 79,000 words).

If you were to guess, how many letters of these 304,805 do you think are in question? (Most people guess anywhere from 25 to 1,000 letters.)

The fact is, that after all the trials and tribulations, communal dislocations and persecutions, only the Yemenite Torah scrolls contain any difference from the rest of world Jewry. For hundreds of years, the Yemenite community was not part of the global checking system, and a total of nine letter-differences are found in their scrolls.

These are all spelling differences. In no case do they change the meaning of the word. For example, how would you spell the word "color?" In America, it's spelled C-O-L-O-R. But in England, it's spelled with a "u," C-O-L-O-U-R.

Such is the nature of the few spelling differences between Torah scrolls today. The results over thousands of years are remarkable!

TORAH COMPARED TO OTHER TEXTS

But how impressive is this compared to other similar documents, such as the Christian Bible? (Both books contain approximately the same number of words.)

First of all, which would you expect to be more successful in preserving the accuracy of a text?

The Christian Bible. For several reasons.

First, the Christian Bible is about 1,700 years younger than the Torah. Second, the Christians haven't gone through nearly as much exile and dislocation as the Jews. Third, Christianity has always had a central authority (the Vatican) to ensure the accuracy of their text.

What are the results? The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, a book written to prove the validity of the New Testament, says: " A study of 150 Greek [manuscripts] of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings... It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the [manuscript] is wholly uniform."

Other scholars report there are some 200,000 variants in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, representing about 400 variant readings which cause doubt about textual meaning; 50 of these are of great significance.

The Torah has nine spelling variants -- with absolutely no effect on the meaning of the words. The Christian Bible has over 200,000 variants and in 400 instances the variants change the meaning of the text.

The point of course is not to denigrate Christianity. Rather, this comparison demonstrates the remarkable accuracy of the Jewish transmission of Torah.

THE TORAH AND THE UNIVERSE

There is a famous story in the Talmud (Eruvin 13a):

When Rabbi Meir came to Rabbi Yishmael to learn Torah, he was asked:

"What is your profession, my son?"

"I am a scribe," was the reply.

He said to me: "My son, be careful with your work, for it is the work of Heaven. Should you perhaps omit one letter or add one letter -- it could result that you destroy the entire world

Rebbe Meir remarked: "Needless to say, I do not err by omitting or adding (letters)... but I am even concerned for a fly -- lest it come and alight upon the right-hand corner of a dalet and erase it, thereby rendering it a reish

The famed commentator Rashi (11th century France) offers examples of how the addition or deletion of a single letter can lead to a blasphemous or heretical reading of the Torah -- i.e. a mistake that could destroy the entire world.

Maharsha (16th century Poland) explains there is a danger even if the error does not affect the meaning of the word. This is because of a Kabbalistic tradition that the letters of the Torah form the sacred Names of God written as "black fire upon white fire." These letters were employed by God in creating the world, and it is through them that He sustains it. The deletion of even one letter of this sustaining force therefore threatens the existence of the world.

Carefully guarding the words of the Torah has been a Jewish priority throughout the centuries.

xteem -> not only did it foretell the rise and fall of nations (babylon -> medo-persia -> greece -> rome) but then in 1763, britian claimed independance. 3 years later, 13 colonies claimed there independance during the american revolution. several years later, they teamed up creating the now in power anglo-american world power. But, oh oh, there are only 7 kings foretold in this dream. Egypt, assyria, babylon, medo-persia, greece and rome are all former world-powers. Anglo-american world power is last. ANd as im sure you know, clay doesn't mix with iron that well. Then the kingdom told in daniel 2:44,45 "will come and put an end to all these kingdoms....and it itself will stand to time indefinate" thats god kingdom! But the awesome part of all this is that it describes EVERYTHING in such detail, for example, anyone could say one nation in the future will take out another nation. but ti says for example with the medo-perdes took over babylon, it says how, i think the guards got drunk, and they open the gates of the strongest city.

As for Xtreme Ahm... The bible could have been nothing but a historical document with moralistic values integrated into it. The bible was collaberated after it was written. We had to find the peices to the book, then we put it together and wrote it up... because we're gay.

I beleive the things in the bible happened, but I'm still athiest, why? Because It's not credible enough, there's not enough proof out there of some sort of 'god'. The stuff told and foretold in the bible are no big thing, many things back then were 'foretold'... need I mention nostrodamus? or the famous 'psychic' who said the world was going to end? Many people can 'foretell'. The only reason I do beleive in what I've read in the bible is its multi-cultural sphere of influence (And the fact that the exact same events are recorded in many other historical documentries).

But I remain athiest, come judgement day. Don't worry about my soul, it should come soon.

quote:It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the [manuscript] is wholly uniform."

beleive it or not , that's what makes the study of it so exciting. dcotrine can hang by a single comma .