Honestly I couldn't really tell you why a lot of people do these things. Perhaps they feel as if they are being a better person by trying to "save" people from hell. Or perhaps they have misunderstood their religion.
It's funny because I went on this website the other day called thegoodpersontest.net. It was a christian website and was basically telling me that everyone is a bad person and deserves to go to hell. It told me you go to hell if: you lie, cheat, have sex before marriage, beleive in anything but god, theorize, have impure thoughts, notice someone else is attractive, thus lusting after them. So basically I learned that I have committed every sin in the book besides murder.
It makes me think, no wonder christians are crazy. It says you have to basically love god so much that the love you have for everything else is like hatred, which then contradicts itself because it says having impure thoughts is a sin and hatred is an impure thought.
It sounds like brainwashing to me. How are you supposed to accomplish anything in your life if it is completely devoted to something that may or may not even exist! OOPS! I've just sinned. I have an opinion, I have my own thoughts OMG! I'm gonna burn alive for all eternity. I'm sorry but SCREW that.

@Lady_Megami- Exactly! How WOULD they go to heaven if you have to ask god for your forgiveness first? They don't even know a word! I guess that means they really went to hell LOL!
If god was all forgiving, would we have to ASK for fogiveness? Would he have destroyed the city of Sodom, like it says in the bible? I don't think so. I don't think I want to be in heaven with THIS guy:P

I think it started off reeeeeeally idealistic and in practice, it suddenly blew up in everyone's faces?

Hence they resorted to brainwashing and eventually brute force just so it could be perpetuated?

HEE. WE'RE GOING TO HELL FOR THIS. /shot

Bad joke sorry. =_=

Originally Posted by whitebeast

@_@ Really, how did Satan = Lucifer anyway?

Milton and Dante, but particularly the former. Milton wrote (or, rather, forced his daughters to write) Paradise Lost at a time when many people could read very little, so if they did own a Bible, they couldn't read it. His poem was relatively easy to read, so many simply assumed that it was as good as a Bible, and never entertained the thought that he had simply made a bunch of stuff up. For those who haven't read it (bless your souls), Lucifer is the angel in Heaven, Satan is his name when he is cast into Hell. Of course, that doesn't really make sense as Satan is an angel, a very important one in fact.

But then, Milton gets everything else about angels in Judaic mythology messed up too, so it's not really surprising he fails at reading comprehension. This is also the main source of the idea that Satan was the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Up until that point, it was far more often depicted as Lilith or, gods forbid, an actual freaking serpent. You know, like is most strongly suggested by Genesis.

Poor Lilith.. Heaven forbid (apparently literally) that a woman want to be equal to a man. o_O I've heard that there are actually two different creation stories in the Old Testament, perhaps even both in Genesis... the first is Lilith's story, and the second has the 2.0 version, Eve. I've never actually read the Bible in whole... just the bits and pieces that my church (as a child) thought were important, so I'm not sure if both of them are in the Christian version of the Bible, but I do know that Lilith still holds a somewhat important part in Rabbinical literature. *sighs* As the mother of demons, or some such like that.

@Skye: It's nice to hear that you have a somewhat open minded pastor. A lot of clergy and Christians want to take everything in the Bible as literal fact, even though the Old Testament is pretty much fables and myths with spatterings of family histories (from what I've gathered, anyway), and the New Testament is telling Christ's story and quite a few parables. Stories meant to teach or to explain things the people of the time didn't understand, like that huge flood (which may have been the Tigris and the Euphrates) that actually did happen, but it was neither as large in scale as the myth dictates, but I also doubt it was sent by God to murder all the less-than-innocents.

Originally Posted by Sen Lee

Poor Lilith.. Heaven forbid (apparently literally) that a woman want to be equal to a man. o_O I've heard that there are actually two different creation stories in the Old Testament, perhaps even both in Genesis... the first is Lilith's story, and the second has the 2.0 version, Eve. I've never actually read the Bible in whole... just the bits and pieces that my church (as a child) thought were important, so I'm not sure if both of them are in the Christian version of the Bible, but I do know that Lilith still holds a somewhat important part in Rabbinical literature. *sighs* As the mother of demons, or some such like that.

Yea, I heard of Lilith. She wanted to be domineering of Adam and God exiled out of the garden. Some stories she became a succubus or a vampire.

Although a great story, I do not agree that it was part of the original bible. That is my opinion. Others disagree, it was even shown on the History channel as "books taken from the bible". Along with a book about Mary of Maginline. (or however you spell it).

There's a lot that has been excluded from the Bible... purposely, in fact, by "the Church" (which means that whatever it is is in the hands of the Vatican right now).

Yeah, Lilith was cast out because she didn't want to lie beneath Adam as they had sex. She was made from the same stuff as Adam (the earth, that is), so why should she have to be subserviant? She had a rather valid point, and was punished for it.

Cast out of Eden, became a succubus, mothered demons (though, with whom I'd love to know, considering that Adam was apparently the only man on the planet at the time), etc. Her story works well for my vampire novel, but not much else. I've always seen her as a sympathetic character in Biblical mythology.

Lilith isn't Biblical, however. She comes from...phew, a lot of different sources, though it seems she started out in Babylonian mythology. Her role as first wife of Adam, however, comes only from the Alphabet of Ben-Sari, not the Bible. Indeed, the only mention of Lilith in the Bible is in, I believe, Revelation (surprise surprise), and does not say Lilith specifically, but rather something usually translated as "screech owl" or "night hag" (two nicknames for Lilith) and referred to as female.

There are two creation stories in Genesis, but this is usually attributed to there having possibly been two authors, or a misinterpretation of the original writing. The difference is fairly minor -- one says Adam and Eve were created at the same time, both from dust, and the other, more popular one, says Adam was created first, then Eve from Adam. Neither mention Lilith, or really even leave much room for her.

Ah, sou. Well, ya learn something new every day, yah? It's been a while since I looked her up, and my brain is absolutely refusing to work today, so I guess I was just recalling incorrectly.

Originally Posted by Sen Lee

@Skye: It's nice to hear that you have a somewhat open minded pastor. A lot of clergy and Christians want to take everything in the Bible as literal fact, even though the Old Testament is pretty much fables and myths with spatterings of family histories (from what I've gathered, anyway), and the New Testament is telling Christ's story and quite a few parables. Stories meant to teach or to explain things the people of the time didn't understand, like that huge flood (which may have been the Tigris and the Euphrates) that actually did happen, but it was neither as large in scale as the myth dictates, but I also doubt it was sent by God to murder all the less-than-innocents.

Yeah, I do so miss Pastor Bill. He had to retire.

But yeah, I do agree that more Christians need to know that the Bible isn't 100% fact, and that there are texts that didn't make it in there. The Gnostic Texts is what they're called, I think. Some of them are actually pretty interesting. Reason number 107 why I don't always take what any priest/pastor/reverand tells me as being completely true. ^^

*coughs* I went and looked up in Genesis the two creation stories, and the first one doesn't mention the name of either human being that God created, so I'm not quite sure how that doesn't leave room for Lilith.

Anywho, I was having a talk with my mum earlier and she said something that I thought should make it into this thread. I was talking to her about how things in the Bible shouldn't be taken literally, and about people searching for things and places, such as Eden or Noah's boat. The story of Noah isn't the first myth concerning the great flood, and there's no real reason to believe it is anything more than that: a myth. She counters with, "I figure if God doesn't want it to be found, it won't be found." o_O

Originally Posted by Sen Lee

*coughs* I went and looked up in Genesis the two creation stories, and the first one doesn't mention the name of either human being that God created, so I'm not quite sure how that doesn't leave room for Lilith.

Anywho, I was having a talk with my mum earlier and she said something that I thought should make it into this thread. I was talking to her about how things in the Bible shouldn't be taken literally, and about people searching for things and places, such as Eden or Noah's boat. The story of Noah isn't the first myth concerning the great flood, and there's no real reason to believe it is anything more than that: a myth. She counters with, "I figure if God doesn't want it to be found, it won't be found." o_O

My question is how something that's been buried underneath water and possible earth quakes can possible BE found still in tact, especially after modern civilization came trampling around everywhere.

"....the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."

(Genesis 7:11)

^^ So really, why look for something probably dead and gone? Therefore: TADA! You don't need to worry about God wanting you to find it or not! =D Isn't that lovely?

I remember hearing a few years back how the "red sea" might have been a mistranslation and it could very well have been "reed sea". Which would have suggested a bog of some sort, which was extremely common in the area that Moses was "supposedly" have to gone through. For those of you who don't know how a bog works: It's like a lake, with the top completely covered with reeds and plants and whatnot, completely safe if you know where to and not to walk. There are "sink holes" that look completely stable, but are in fact, not. They look like the rest of the bog, but it's not as thick and you will fall into the water. If this happens, there is a great chance you will drown. There are bogs everywhere here where I live. There was park (or something like it) with a bog and a guy that worked there knew the bog so well that he knew where he could jump into a sink hole and surface at another one. Anyways, the idea was that if it really said "reed sea" that maybe this Moses merely knew the correct path to take. Long ago things such as bogs and swamps were terrifying places that people thought were haunted and dangerous. Getting through one completely unharmed and alive may have seemed a miracle to people then.

I don't know if this possible mistranslation was ever made official or not, but I still find it interesting.

@Shalandriel: According to a program I have on my computer with original hebrew words, the "Red Sea" is: סוּף (For the "Red") and ים (for sea).

The red part is the word

סוּף {soof}: "Probably of Egyptian origin; a reed, especially the papyrus: - flag. Red {sea}, weed. "

according to this site: http://dictionary.die.net/egyptian%20reed and this http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ec...ommon_reed.htm
Egyptian reeds flourished in shallow water. There is no mention of the Red Sea being a marsh and it is a little hard to believe because its depth is 2211 meters, and its width in some places is 355 km, which would make it very hard to reeds to grow anywhere but near the edges or a few shallow places within the Red Sea. Thus, even with reeds floating about, to walk through the Red Sea would be...tough, if not impossible. Also, how would Moses know which path to take? He spent most of his life in a palace, and when he wasn't there he was off sheep herding until God kicked his butt back to Egypt. ^^