I have no problem with the historical accuracy of the texts or their sacred
nature.
I DO see prophecy as a natural occurance...something like "I prophecy that
the sun will rise tomorrow"--they are based on scholarship and understanding
of natural cycles (or perhaps more mysterious thought processses, intuition,
revelation...these words I can't define too well so I won't use them but I
think they are natural too...that a baby intuits, has revelations). If I
said that the son of a king will grow up to be king...that is prophecy. If
I say that five generations from now a descendent of David will rise up to
be king...same thing. If I understand that every third generation or so
there is a "black sheep" king who leaves the throne for humanitarian
concerns and I assume that the multiple of 5 generations of descendents
times 3 generations of "black sheep" will produce a black-sheep king (or
something like [5 X 3]X5 or 75 generations) there will be a King of the
Jews...no miracle.
The accuracy of an old book has nothing to do with this for me. I can
observe fruit flies or my own family and understand the reasoning behind the
prophecy. Prophecy to me is like sociology...it says that we will need to
build more prisons to take care of the criminals over the next 10 years (low
and behold the prisons were built don't you believe the prophecy...yes, I
believe the prophecy but what does that have to do with "end times" or "died
for your sins" or "believe in me or you will go to hell" or "God"?).
What I'm questioning is how you jump from the bible is a historical text, to
the prophecy predicted the rise of a king, to "God is a bearded man on a
cloud who will judge you for mistakes you make and give your spirit to an
evil man if you don't go to church". Do you just say that if this part of
the bible is true then EVERYTHING is (that's like saying that if Hitler ever
did one good thing then everything he did was good). I have to have some
sort of reason to accept the remaining 1% of a text even if the other 99% is
correct (besides the arguement that because that is right then this must be
too).
You must define messiah for me and show me how one so defined would help
someone by dieing and then I can compare that to logic and decide if
worshipping this person will improve my life in any way. And even then,
this will not illustrate to me that there is a heaven and a god (because the
one doesn't follow from the other, understand).
Brett
Returning,
rBERTS%n
Rabble Sonnet Retort
Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within.