Do chistians see Atheist as bad people?

First: Well, th OT is basically a rule book -- do this, don't do that, REALLY don't do that, etc. The NT is more of an (I'm having trouble articulating this so forgive me if it turns out sounding really weird) insight into God and into how we should BE (not ACT), etc. etc.

Second: what does [sic] mean? Someone used it twice a few posts above?

 

I think you are right about the OT, which is what turns many people off from it. They don't like to be told what to do.


As for "[sic]", I really have no clue. *shrugs*

 

[sic] is inserted in directly quoted written materials, and it's used to indicate that even potential inaccuracies in spelling/truth/meaning/whatever have been copied verbatum.

 

I have fewer issues with the NT than I do the OT, mainly due to its less questionable portrayal of God (though I still question Paul, Revelations, and the accuracy of the Gospels). It definitely has its moments, but so do many other holy books--I highly recommend the Tao, if you get a chance to read it--and as you say, so much of it comes down to opinion.

Whatever God may be, His form and voice are beyond human perception (though His handiwork remains). None of us have seen Him face to face or heard His voice come booming from the heavens. Cultures and individuals around the world each interpret His work in different ways, and create different images of what they believe His nature to be.

A famous cartoon once depicted three fish (big, medium and small). The big fish, about to eat the medium fish, thinks "All is just in the world." The medium-sized fish, about to eat the small fish while being eaten himself, thinks "The world is sometimes just." The small fish, down at the bottom of the food chain, thinks "The world is unjust."

Likewise, cultures build their religious beliefs around their environments. A South American creation myth, stemming from a culture which once lived on peas, describes how the first man was born from a pea pod. The Vikings, raiders and warriors by trade, created a pantheon of war gods, and an afterlife which rewarded not necessarily righteousness, but valor. The Hawaiians, inhabitants of a beautiful but highly unstable land, deduced that the gods were fickle and capricious. (Their equivalent to Noah's flood has one of the gods flood the world by accident.)

It's never been about rebelling against a harsh God to create a kinder one; harsher gods than Yahweh have come and gone, and in some parts of the world still exist today. It's about finding what makes sense to you, and that kind of soul-searching is one of life's very few constants.

 

The Koran, well, I haven't really had a chance to read from it yet

an interesting thing about the koran: in any language other than arabic, it's not considered the koran, rather a translation of the book, but no longer the book itself. i find that rather interesting, seeing as when it was origially inspired by God, it was written it in arabic, so it has stayed pure from its original inspiration. on the other hand, what is considered to be the "original" bible was written in greek, which isn't even the language that Jesus spoke, so even the original was a translation.

 

God speaks to people in a language that they can understand. I don't think he expects people to learn a new language so that they can read his book.

And if he did, you wouldn't learn a new language unless you were absolutely sure the book was true. But then how can you be sure it's true in the first place if you can't understand what's written?

 

first off, i'm catholic, so i'm not saying that the koran is the true book. i just applaud their efforts to keep it as accurate as possible.

and second, in my opinion, they're right. multiple translations take away from a book, they don't add to it. when you read don quixote in english, you're not reading don quixote. you're reading the english version of don quixote. do you think that shakespeare comes across the same way in french? with translations you still get the same gist, but you can't get the original intent. you can read the english translation of the koran, but you can't read the koran unless you read arabic.


and just for loose a christian parallel, there are christians that believe that the King James Version is the only true version of the bible, and that English has become the language of christian evangelism... if you want the true version of the bible, you've got to read the english king james version. but comparing this to the koran is bull, seeing as Jesus didn't speak eenglish, and the original bible wasn't written in english.

 

From my own "certain point of view," I don't see anyone as a bad person until they DO something to deserve that title. While I have been raised Catholic, I sometimes have trouble with the way my religion views things. My best way to describe it is to say "I believe in God, it's the middle-man" I have problems with." By that I mean that I believe in an "all-powerful Force" in the universe; and that it's probably man's interpretations of belief that are dividing us.

So it doesn't matter what (if any) religion you believe in, as long as your heart and actions are in the right place. If atheists believe that there is no "being" running the universe, and just a scientific reasoning behind existance...fine. As long as they can accept my belief in religion without trying to change or discredit it; I'll do the same.

 

Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, which was translated into Latin, which was translated into English for the King James Bible. When you read the Bible, you are reading a translation of a translation.

A crude example of a translation of a translation:
Jesus spoke probably Aramaic, that he was translated to the Latin, that was translated to the English for King James Bible.
-The first sentence of this post, which was translated to Spanish and then back to English by BabelFish.

 

Although this doesn't alter your point about translations, it's a common misconception that the King James was translated from the Latin. The translators actually went back to the earliest Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) manuscripts that were then available.

But your point is a good one. Just went to Babelfish for a laugh and translated "star wars is far superior to star trek" into Spanish and back again. It reads:

the star guerrea is far away over the arduous journey of the star

Into Italian and back again:
star is distant superior to star

I did German and back again and it came out exactly as I typed it in English. Thus proving that the Germans are indeed the most efficient nation on earth.

 

Most people in Jesus' time actually spoke multiple languages, given the way of life most spoke and the different political aspects that were going on. You can't really say that Jesus spoke aramaic any more than you can say he spoke greek. It is a very realistic possibility that he spoke both languages, as well as others.

 

regardless of the fact that Jesus may have known Greek, he most probably spoke for everyday use Aramaic, and possibly Hebrew. The layperson in Palestine at that time spoke Aramaic, and for this reason that would have been what he preached in. Therefore, all of his preachings would have been translated from Aramaic to Greek for the original version of the bible.

edit: post-pentacost, the disciples would have spoken greek, but that still leaves the gospels to have been translated.

 

Most people in Jesus' time actually spoke multiple languages, given the way of life most spoke and the different political aspects that were going on.

Not true in the slightest.

Here, in the year 2002, the world is more interconnected than it?s been at any point in history. Information flows around the globe in dozens of different languages. And even in this day and age, most people can only fluently speak one language, and know a small smattering of other languages. This is with public education systems that push multilingualism and day to day contact with people from all corners of the earth.

Well educated persons would be multilingual. The common people were not; most could not even read.

Now, if Jesus was truly the Son of God (or even a Prophet, as Moslems assert), he would probably be given the ability to speak any language, and for his words to be heard in the native tongues of his listeners. However, the common language of Israel at the time (that is, the language that everyone but the Romans used) was Aramaic, and so that would have been the language that most of his disciples heard.

 

I believe that Greek, Hebrew/Aramaic, and Latin were all in common use at the time. Probably not everyone could read or write in them, they would be more likely to speak it. Thus you see at Jesus' death, his sign was in those languages.

 

I think the important question is:

do the original words of the bible, (whatever language they were written in),
mean the exact same thing in English? Is there the slightest possiblity that over the years of translations of translations of oral traditions one or two words were mistranslated, or were slightly misleading when translated to english? Is it possible that english has certain words that the bible languages didn't and vice versa? Is it possible that the natural barrier of perfect translation between two separate languages could make the bible read in english quite different than it did thousands of years ago? Is it possible i forgot what i was talking about?

 

It's possible.


But I seriously doubt it did. I mean, I'm sure a few words might have been lost or whatever, but the core message is still the same, and it wasn't translated that many times anyway. Just from Hebrew to Greek to Latin, and then to English.


Well, that might be a lot, but I still think the translating was carefully done. This is a Book that a whole religion was based on. It must be important, otherwise people wouldn't have taken the time to translate It so much. Why go to all the trouble if It wasn't important? And why translate it sloppily if you would take the trouble to translate it at all?

 

I think that's a circular argument.

I wasn't commenting on its importance to the writers.

I was saying that it's possible that even well intentioned translations following the sequence you described by their very nature can't be translated properly.

 

It is possible. But the original Hebrew and Greek is there if one wishes to read it. So there are checks and balances. I don't see a problem.

 

But the original Hebrew and Greek is there if one wishes to read it

but even the greek is probably a translation. Jesus most probably preached in Aramaic, seeing as that was what the uneducated layperson in palestine spoke. so it's a translation of that.

an example of the validity of the bible:

catholics believe that mary is without original sin, and they get this from the translation that the angel called her "full of grace." protestants argue that the angel didn't say "full of grace" but instead said "thou art highly favored." BUT... the only people there were mary and the angel. and they didn't say either full of grace or highly favored, whatever was said was said in aramaic. and then, someone who wasn't there to hear what actually happened translated it to greek, which was then translated to english. to be honest, on the surface there's not a big difference between the two phrases, but it's big enough to cause discussion as to whether or not mary had original sin. and we have no idea whether translated it from aramaic to greek was thinking about us, 2000 years in the future, trying to determine whether or not mary was without original sin, so he might not have made sure that much accuracy was passed down from what was originally said (which, by the way, he didn't hear in the first place, since he wasn't there).

the point? while gospels are the story of the life of Jesus, the writers probably didn't have us and our theological questions in mind when they were translating it from the spoken aramaic to written greek. most of them thought that Jesus would return durring their lifetime. they (edit: they = the original writers, translating from the spoken aramaic to the written greek) were writing it to preserve the story, not to educate people 2000 years in the future.


okay, and DON'T turn this into a catholic discussion thread... this is just minute an example used to prove a point. whether or not mary is without sin isn't the issue.

 

Wow, I open the last page of a thread titled 'do christians see atheists as bad people' and we're discussing bible translations, heh heh.

Personally, I think any yay or nay answer to the title question would be a gross generalisation. I don't know where people get the idea that Christians are somehow inhuman programmed borg drones who all share exactly the same opinions about everything. I'm just waiting for threads with subject titles like these: "Do Christians like ice cream? Do Christians like the Beatles? Are Christians left or right-handed?"

re bible translations: I think anyone who speaks more than one language knows how easy it is for the very subtle meanings to be lost. That's why I think it's so important not to base core beliefs on such things. It always sounds pretty ridiculous when you hear two bible scholars debating whether Paul meant this, or Paul meant that, or Jesus was near the top of the Mount of Olives, or nearer the bottom, ya di yah, etc etc instead of concentrating on the real important message, IMO, which comes through loud and clear. There's no mistaking the word 'love'.

 

Disclaimer: All opinion.


Oooh goody, religion. Okay well Im not Christian, and Im not exactly Athiest. Atheism is religion's fashion statement. It was to my knowledge to deny the existance of god. Kinda rebelling against it. To my knowledge. I always thought an Athiest didn't have a religion, you were a nothing, a neutral party as it were, but as I got older I realized that it is in fact a religion. This belief was supposed to be the anti-religion, I was thrilled I thought I'd found people who despised religion as much as I do. I was wrong.


It's built up to be this big bad group of people who believe in nothing, but in actuality they believe in their own view of religion(to my knowledge). I was disappointed. So Im basically on my own as far as religion is concerned. I believe what I want. Unlike these so-called non-religions.


Now to the question, do they see Athiests as bad, I'd have to say the ones in the mainstream media do, and probably want that view to filter down to the rest of their religion. But to a great extent I don't believe anyone really hates anyone, they're just trying to find themselves like we're all doing. Anyways....Im babbling so I'll see ya laterz.

 

Like I've said if atheism is a religion then being bald is a hair colour. Not believing in ghosts would be a religion as well. Obviously not believing in ghosts would affect how you view the world.

Not believing there is life elsewhere in the universe = religion!

Not all atheists deny the existence of god. Some like me "doubt" the existence of them. There's a difference.

Not sure what you mean about believing in nothing?

I've been having this "fashion" statement since I was born it would seem.

 

Ender, doesn't that mean you're an agnostic?

 

No. Here's a definition of a weak atheist:


"What is atheism?"

Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of gods. This absence of belief generally comes about either through deliberate choice, or from an inherent inability to believe religious teachings which seem literally incredible. It is not a lack of belief born out of simple ignorance of religious teachings.

Some atheists go beyond a mere absence of belief in gods: they actively believe that particular gods, or all gods, do not exist. Just lacking belief in Gods is often referred to as the "weak atheist" position; whereas believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist is known as "strong atheism".

Regarding people who have never been exposed to the concept of 'god': Whether they are 'atheists' or not is a matter of debate. Since you're unlikely to meet anyone who has never encountered religion, it's not a very important debate...

It is important, however, to note the difference between the strong and weak atheist positions. "Weak atheism" is simple scepticism; disbelief in the existence of God. "Strong atheism" is an explicitly held belief that God does not exist. Please do not fall into the trap of assuming that all atheists are "strong atheists". There is a qualitative difference in the "strong" and "weak" positions; it's not just a matter of degree.

Some atheists believe in the non-existence of all Gods; others limit their atheism to specific Gods, such as the Christian God, rather than making flat-out denials.

"But isn't disbelieving in God the same thing as believing he doesn't exist?"

Definitely not. Disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe it to be true. Not believing that something is true is not equivalent to believing that it is false; one may simply have no idea whether it is true or not. Which brings us to agnosticism.

"What is agnosticism then?"

The term 'agnosticism' was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876. He defined an agnostic as someone who disclaimed both ("strong") atheism and theism, and who believed that the question of whether a higher power existed was unsolved and insoluble. Another way of putting it is that an agnostic is someone who believes that we do not and cannot know for sure whether God exists.

Since that time, however, the term agnostic has also been used to describe those that do not believe that the question is intrinsically unknowable, but instead believe that the evidence for or against God is inconclusive, and therefore are undecided about the issue.

To reduce the amount of confusion over the use of term agnosticism, it is recommended that usage based on the original definition be qualified as "strict agnosticism" and usage based on the second definition be qualified as "empirical agnosticism".

Words are slippery things, and language is inexact. Beware of assuming that you can work out someone's philosophical point of view simply from the fact that she calls herself an atheist or an agnostic. For example, many people use agnosticism to mean what is referred to here as "weak atheism", and use the word "atheism" only when referring to "strong atheism".

Beware also that because the word "atheist" has so many shades of meaning, it is very difficult to generalize about atheists. About all you can say for sure is that atheists don't believe in God. For example, it certainly isn't the case that all atheists believe that science is the best way to find out about the universe.

 

I don't exactly undertand the last part of your quote, Ender. ?


"For example, it certainly isn't the case that all atheists believe that science is the best way to find out about the universe."


If they don't look to religion for understanding about the universe, and they don't look to science, then where DO they look?