Anyone know of documentaries about the history of the bible

[andydes]

Funny that, I feel the opposite. I think if there's anything that even remotely fits our idea of God, it would have to be utterly beyond our comprehension.

But wouldn't that preclude the possibility of having an "idea" of it in the first place?

I think our thinking isn't as opposite as you say.

Er yes. I think so. But it hasn't stopped people telling us what God's all about.

If God really has tried to speak to people, given our relatively tiny minds, the message must have been lost in translation. But God would have known that, given his godlike super powers.

Anyway, religion has given us traditions, art, the best architecture, the omen, raiders of the lost ark, etc. So it's not all bad.

I also think that early civilisation could not have started without it, as it was both an attempt to make sense of the world and formed the basis of laws. So as I say, I don't shit on it too much.

[scott nathaniel]

You are all making something so simple, so complex: God was invented for the sole purpose of coercing change in the dietary habits of booger-eaters. Look at the underside of your desk; if it's clean under there then god was made for you.

[andydes]

You are all making something so simple, so complex: God was invented for the sole purpose of coercing change in the dietary habits of booger-eaters. Look at the underside of your desk; if it's clean under there then god was made for you.

Well yes, all the things about not eating shellfish and pork is a clear example of primitive health and safety.

Even now, shellfish has a good chance of giving you the shits

[Forge.]

You are all making something so simple, so complex: God was invented for the sole purpose of coercing change in the dietary habits of booger-eaters. Look at the underside of your desk; if it's clean under there then god was made for you.

Well yes, all the things about not eating shellfish and pork is a clear example of primitive health and safety.

Even now, shellfish has a good chance of giving you the shits

Yeah that's how I see it.

But when I was a teenager I went with a friend to his church and they had a different way of interpreting the bible, basically saying that Jesus didn't actually get rid of all the Jewish traditions, so they didn't eat pork etc and even kept the sabbath on saturday... they also interpreted Easter where when in the bible it said he was taken down over the sabbath they actually meant the passover sabbath which was thursday - because sabbath just meant 'holy day' and they pointed out that for him to have been crucified for 3 days and 3 nights like "jonah was in teh belly of a whale" then he couldn't have gone up on Friday and come down sunday - that's only 2 nights.... they have a point there. So they saw easter as weds to saturday.

Anyway, I thought they actually made a bit of sense because they seemed to actually read the bible in detail and thought about it logically, so I went for a couple of months then had an epiphany: "wait a minute, who says the Jews are right?"

This has been my view more or less ever since - for one religion to be right then you really have to come up with a good answer for why the others are all wrong.

[Forge.]

that was a truly excremental run.

back on topic... nathannn, check out The Power of Myth. It's an interview between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. It takes place on Skywalker Ranch in the 80's. I first read the book which reads like a screen play as it is quotes back and forth... the documentary is kind of dry, but the content is really good if you're interested in this sort of thing.

I was looking for something that I could show people in my family and be like "look see its all shit, now what!! huh? what are you going to do about it? its all shit and there's nothing so .. ha ha!"
But I dont really want to traumatise them.

a member of my family has become a hare krishna and it feels like an utter tragedy to me. They are like extreme born again christians x 10 - they have an insane amount of rules and some really weird ideas about things. She talks about "God" all the time in the same way as the most hardcore evangelicals do. We were watching a comedian recently who started talking about creationism and evolution and she wanted me to turn it off because it 'doesn't allow for the fact that God created the world'. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. I immediately had to explain to my son about how "some people believe the world was created 5000 years ago" and he laughed (good lad) then "but some more modern religions believe god kick started evolution" diplomatically, but he knew what I was getting at.

She actually graduated Law from UCL with a first, highly intelligent, and now It feels like about a third of her personality is missing - she won't laugh at the same things any more because she's only interested in things that are 'pure' which means she's become pretty fucking dull really. I just don't know what to talk to her about any more. It's deeply upsetting.

Ironically, Hare Krishnas are kind of like a sect of Hinduism, and the hindus or any other polytheistic religions at least deal with the idea of religions by saying that they are all paths to the same god, but clearly it can be just as extremist as any other religion.

So I am kind of anti-"religion" but pro spirituality if that makes sense. I tend to believe that we probably re-incarnate, for a number of reasons. I kind of reason that at the bare minimum then if we have just happened to be born into this consciousness that we are experiencing totally by chance, then there's every chance it would happen again. Whether that qualifies as reincarnation or not I don't know, but that's my 'bare minimum' reasoning and doesn't allow for the survival of "spirit" from one life into the next, and I personally do believe thats quite possible. I just read a book recently from a psychiatrist about his hypnosis sessions where people have gone back and it was pretty convincing. They weren't all cleopatra or mozart, just normal people and their deaths explained phobias and hang-ups in this life in the patients.

[andydes]

You are all making something so simple, so complex: God was invented for the sole purpose of coercing change in the dietary habits of booger-eaters. Look at the underside of your desk; if it's clean under there then god was made for you.

Well yes, all the things about not eating shellfish and pork is a clear example of primitive health and safety.

Even now, shellfish has a good chance of giving you the shits

Yeah that's how I see it.

But when I was a teenager I went with a friend to his church and they had a different way of interpreting the bible, basically saying that Jesus didn't actually get rid of all the Jewish traditions, so they didn't eat pork etc and even kept the sabbath on saturday... they also interpreted Easter where when in the bible it said he was taken down over the sabbath they actually meant the passover sabbath which was thursday - because sabbath just meant 'holy day' and they pointed out that for him to have been crucified for 3 days and 3 nights like "jonah was in teh belly of a whale" then he couldn't have gone up on Friday and come down sunday - that's only 2 nights.... they have a point there. So they saw easter as weds to saturday.

Anyway, I thought they actually made a bit of sense because they seemed to actually read the bible in detail and thought about it logically, so I went for a couple of months then had an epiphany: "wait a minute, who says the Jews are right?"

This has been my view more or less ever since - for one religion to be right then you really have to come up with a good answer for why the others are all wrong.

They are wrong, because I say they are wrong!

Sadly, that's what it usually comes to.

Good answers don't mean shit in this case.

[Forge.]

exactly - which is why it's actually easier to argue for the athiest cause for the reasons Dawkins often uses: "why not Thor or Zeus or Jupiter?" And he's dead right.

If everyone took the polytheistic view that all religions lead to the one god then it might be alright, but the problem is usually people don't. In fact they seem to frequently look for reasons to kill the other ones to get rid of this little inconvenient discrepancy.

And then there's the Hare Krishna example I just gave where they might be fine tolerating other religions, but it still might eat away half their personality making them into a kind of zombie.

The other thing that to me seals the deal is so many of these gods are total arseholes. Honestly if the Old testament "jealous" god (and those edited out stories about Jesus I posted earlier) are true then I don't want to go to heaven with that nasty piece of work.

What the stories sound a lot more like is stone age people trying to explain why the earth suddenly opened up and swallowed one of their children or a river burst its banks and drowned a village. If you thought there was a god behind all that stuff then I guess he would seem pretty angry and temperamental.

I did a religious studies class in year 12 and when we went over Aboriginal dreamtime stories, it was hard to see much difference to the old testament, just in a different location.

Now Buddha on the other hand, he was cool. But he's more like a philosopher to my mind.

Krishna on the other hand - I would actually find it easier to believe he was just from another planet and had blue skin. There's certainly enough about flying saucers in the Mahabarata.

[nathannn]

I was looking for something that I could show people in my family and be like "look see its all shit, now what!! huh? what are you going to do about it? its all shit and there's nothing so .. ha ha!"
But I dont really want to traumatise them.

a member of my family has become a hare krishna and it feels like an utter tragedy to me. They are like extreme born again christians x 10 - they have an insane amount of rules and some really weird ideas about things. She talks about "God" all the time in the same way as the most hardcore evangelicals do. We were watching a comedian recently who started talking about creationism and evolution and she wanted me to turn it off because it 'doesn't allow for the fact that God created the world'. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. I immediately had to explain to my son about how "some people believe the world was created 5000 years ago" and he laughed (good lad) then "but some more modern religions believe god kick started evolution" diplomatically, but he knew what I was getting at.

She actually graduated Law from UCL with a first, highly intelligent, and now It feels like about a third of her personality is missing - she won't laugh at the same things any more because she's only interested in things that are 'pure' which means she's become pretty fucking dull really. I just don't know what to talk to her about any more. It's deeply upsetting.

Ironically, Hare Krishnas are kind of like a sect of Hinduism, and the hindus or any other polytheistic religions at least deal with the idea of religions by saying that they are all paths to the same god, but clearly it can be just as extremist as any other religion.

So I am kind of anti-"religion" but pro spirituality if that makes sense. I tend to believe that we probably re-incarnate, for a number of reasons. I kind of reason that at the bare minimum then if we have just happened to be born into this consciousness that we are experiencing totally by chance, then there's every chance it would happen again. Whether that qualifies as reincarnation or not I don't know, but that's my 'bare minimum' reasoning and doesn't allow for the survival of "spirit" from one life into the next, and I personally do believe thats quite possible. I just read a book recently from a psychiatrist about his hypnosis sessions where people have gone back and it was pretty convincing. They weren't all cleopatra or mozart, just normal people and their deaths explained phobias and hang-ups in this life in the patients.

This last February I got a wonderful present of gastritis (damaged lining of the stomach) from taking an Ibuprofen 1000mg with Guinness (I forgot I was drinking) and have had it every since with a very very slow recovery. To get the point it has really thrown me into some depressing thoughts and has made me question every single belief I have had. I have woken up in a panic a couple of times thinking " OMG!!! IM REAL>>> IM GOING TO DIE SOME TIME OMG!!!!! The problem is I now dont know what I believe anymore. I have no fucking clue what is real.
Maybe if I could have a beer,coffee and a fucking cigarette again I could figure this shit out (you have to give all that shit up with gastritis..feel sorry for me).
Now Im just ranting.... Dont ever drink and take aspirin or ibuprofen.

[Forge.]

[.... Dont ever drink and take aspirin or ibuprofen.

wow. I think I've just been lucky. Although usually I'd take the ibuprofen the next morning... but sometimes that's after like a couple of hours sleep after the last drink...

sounds shit!

[Forge.]

[ To get the point it has really thrown me into some depressing thoughts and has made me question every single belief I have had. I have woken up in a panic a couple of times thinking " OMG!!! IM REAL>>> IM GOING TO DIE SOME TIME OMG!!!!! The problem is I now dont know what I believe anymore. I have no fucking clue what is real.
.

I tell you what —seeing as you're in that kind of space, do a search on youtube for NDEs or 'near death experiences'. I got on that loop a little while ago and I then ended up getting interested and buying the book "Many lives many masters" by Dr. Brian Weiss about past lives on Kindle. (he is also on youtube giving talks and past life regression hypnosis) I found that little foray very interesting and inspiring and it gave me a real feeling that there is more to everything.

Of course you come across some christian ones that see it as confirmation of heaven and hell, and maybe avoid the hell ones, but I would say the majority of them are positive experiences and the general reincarnation supporting ones seem to see this "heaven" type place that people see as a kind of spirit world in between lives. My view is the people who see heaven or hell are just seeing an in-between state and none of it is "eternal" other than in the sense that it is always there but we only see it in between lives.

[Angstrom]

To get the point it has really thrown me into some depressing thoughts and has made me question every single belief I have had. I have woken up in a panic a couple of times thinking " OMG!!! IM REAL>>> IM GOING TO DIE SOME TIME OMG!!!!! The problem is I now dont know what I believe anymore. I have no fucking clue what is real.

This is a common situation. What might be called an "Existential Crisis".

As much as neophyte Atheists love to say "Hey I don't need a big invisible wizard to tell me not to kill people", the reality is that life without a manual is a fucking minefield of second guessing and feeling overwhelmed. Some people take refuge in 'alternative' religions or conspiracy culture to re-ascribe meaning to the meaningless. Some people immerse themselves in academic philosophy, but are doomed drown in peer pedantry. Some choose to hide in a fog of drugs.

Whatever : Beware the dark spectre of nihilism. That shit will fuck you up.

[Forge.]

To get the point it has really thrown me into some depressing thoughts and has made me question every single belief I have had. I have woken up in a panic a couple of times thinking " OMG!!! IM REAL>>> IM GOING TO DIE SOME TIME OMG!!!!! The problem is I now dont know what I believe anymore. I have no fucking clue what is real.

This is a common situation. What might be called an "Existential Crisis".

As much as neophyte Atheists love to say "Hey I don't need a big invisible wizard to tell me not to kill people", the reality is that life without a manual is a fucking minefield of second guessing and feeling overwhelmed. Some people take refuge in 'alternative' religions or conspiracy culture to re-ascribe meaning to the meaningless. Some people immerse themselves in academic philosophy, but are doomed drown in peer pedantry. Some choose to hide in a fog of drugs.

Or some try all of them during various stages of life.

Whatever : Beware the dark spectre of nihilism. That shit will fuck you up.

sig worthy

[regretfullySaid]

the reality is that life without a manual is a fucking minefield of second guessing and feeling overwhelmed. Some people take refuge in 'alternative' religions or conspiracy culture to re-ascribe meaning to the meaningless. Some people immerse themselves in academic philosophy, but are doomed drown in peer pedantry. Some choose to hide in a fog of drugs.

This might be an example where people tend to think others think the same way they do.
By this I mean that not everyone needs to find or have something that can give them the grand answers to find a certain kind of solace. Some are just content in being here and now regardless of if they have a soul that will transcend or not and their bodies just end up as compost (or both )

I don't think God is such an exotic idea that there must be one if that idea came up, especially because we are born into the concept of mother and father.

While it's completely understandable to have these questions because they come up from the earliest age and go unanswered until until death; maybe it's just part of our build, but it will be nicer when more people can cope with the fact that they might not be more special or divine than anyone else, or that their fate or destiny is up to them. It seems kind of backwards to me that most people come to a mental/spiritual dead-end if they think life might be without god or answers but imo it's freeing and a big weight off the back. The fact that life is what you make it; you can be who you want, when you want, it's up to you. Yet that scares the shit out of people. But hey, it makes good business I guess

Anyway, point being is that not everyone needs a manual to cope with life. It's pretty simple imo.
As if life wasn't special enough for the fact that you're alive and conscious, you need more than that?
How ungrateful Know what I mean?

Now what I really want to know is, are you gonna go my way? No wait, that's not it...what I really want to know is...does anyone know about any documentaries about the history of le bib?

[Forge.]

well, I think the biggest fly in the ointment is really death. Obviously for a while we can get away with not thinking about our own because when you're young there's no real need to think about it just yet, but that goes to shit when someone close to you pops.

I suppose that plays a part in the need for life after death - more for the ones left living really.

[stringtapper]

.