Hell & Eternal Damnation - Page 2

I don't have the text with me, but the Bible (the NT) has 2 words for hell in it:

1.- Hades

2.- and I forgot the second, it's in the book of Revalation.

Hades, if I'm not mistaken, refers to where you go when you do die: six to ten feet under. There is not fire or torment.

And the "second" term or word refers to a firery hell, that shall be hot, but not eternal.

The Bible uses various words that we interpret as refering to Hell. Sheol (aramaic) which is literally the grave. Gehenna (aramaic) which was a field where rubbish was burned (where we get part of the burning in Hell idea from). Hades (greek) the greek word and concept of Hell.

1) What is Hell?
Daytime TV.
2) Do you believe in Eternal Damnation?
100 channels, all of 'em LIFETIME.

Amen! Throw a couplea "Real World" marathons in there and no one would ever sin again.

Reading over this thread has only mad me burst with laughter. Now, y'all can believe in whatever you want and it's none of my business to what it is, but listening to some of you ramble about Hell and God.... well, it sounds so much like a fairy tale. God existing... I don't know. I have seen no proof either way, to be honest.

Hell? Nope, doesn't exist. No matter how you view God (or don't view God, if you don't believe in It... note how I don't say "Him" or "He"), Hell is illogical. God loves us, why is there hell? God hates us, why is there heaven?

That's very simple, but it's the truth. The real truth can only be one thing: that if there is a heaven or hell, it's NOTHING what anyone could expect it to be. If they do exist, they're probably not two separate places, but one place where you are punished for your sins AS WELL AS rewarded for your love.

And I agree with Jacob. If we are here to only amuse God, fuck God. I'm not God's toy. But, I don't believe (if God exists, and I'm not saying I think he does) God put us here to watch us and poke us to its pleasure. If that were the case, I'm sure it would retain much more control and do far worse things to our planet and to our people than it's doing. If that thing exists, it put us here because we are serving a purpose. What is that purpose? Who knows. I'll tell you who does NOT know... us. We don't know.

And if you think that just because you have "felt God" that gives you some kind of knowledge that the rest of us who "haven't felt God" don't have, you're nuts. If you feel God, that does not mean it gives you full knowledge over how this universe works.

And ask yourself this: What's more important to you, your people or some being that watches you squirm like ants under a microscope? Do you value human life more than that of some thing that is not like you, that is something your human mind can't even possibly comprehend? God is not human, if it exists. It does not look like us or act like us or rationalize like us. To think so is insane. If God was like us, he would be plagued by the same sins and hatreds and fuck-ups that plague us, but of course to think so would upset the idea that God is some PERFECT ALL POWERFUL being that loves us all. Where does the sense fit into this? It doesn't.

Of course, that's all IF God exists. If it doesn't, well, there is no Hell, and I'm a happy man, because if some of y'all's definitions of Hell exists, I'd be going straight there.

If there truly is a heaven and hell, I can bet my life that it is run off not what you believe in, but how good of a person you are. If you do something that YOU KNOW is wrong, that you realize at the time is evil and can prevent or not take part in, chalk up one point for Hell. If you do something that betters others and you know is good (I'm sure evil people have done good things on accident, as the other way around). Believing in Jesus has shit to do with anything.

I just realized I didn't finish my sentence back there... you will ignore that.

Cheese, I wish you would quit pussyfooting around the subject & tell us what you REALLY think!

God is there and he doesn't believe in you either wink

What is hell?

Could be many things. May be worse than any can imagine. May not be so bad at all.

Do I belive in eternal damnation?

Not right now.

I'm an agnostic. Some people call it a cop out, but it is the only way I can see believing. I see no convincing evidence either way of God existing or not. I cannot choose a specific religion because there are so many differing viewpoints that if God would send me to hell for worshipping in the wrong religion, I would rather not worship him at all.

Nearly every religion that I have had knowledge of and their concepts of eternal damnation push me away from worship (as well as being an agnostic). Many believe that I owe God my worship and refusing to worship him sentences me to eternal damnation. I believe that if God does truly exist, he needs to convince me that he is truly worthy of my worship. I hope that there is a God and that he is everything I think he should be, and more, but many of the things in religions make me think that the God of their religion is unworthy of my love. This doesn't mean that I would hate this God, I may actually love him(may be unable to help myself, it is God after all), but possessing free will, I would choose to walk my own path for all eternity... or until God comes around to my way of thinking which would mean that he is not infallable.

Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised after I die.

And for what Purgatory is, I did go to a Catholic school as a child and my thoughts combined with what I remember being told is that Purgatory is isolation. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to touch, and only your own thoughts to keep you company. I guess it is a chance for you to reflect back on your life and the mistakes you made, although this kind of sensory deprivation has driven people mad it sounds pretty close to any kind of hell I can imagine.

Agnostics are just atheists with a fear of commitment and poor debating skills. wink

There's nothing an agnostic can't do if he really doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not.

Well, that's kind of the whole shebang right there, isn't it? God, if He existed, could clear the whole matter up instantly, and have an entire planet worshipping Him for all time. It's not like we atheists (or agnostics) are staring at proof of His existence and just denying it for the fun of it.

Why should non-believers "look" for God? Because other people say we should?

Neither heaven nor hell want me anyway...I'm such a suspicious character.

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093166" target="_blank">http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093166</a>

Watch this, take mushrooms, and squeegee your third fuckin' eye.

ERR ERR, ERR ERR, ERR ERR, ERR ERR, ERR ERR.

Should I even bother to reply to a person who uses the verb "pussyfooting"?

Well, I'D like ya to...

Sorry, my Thesaurus' copyright date is 1958.

What's wrong with pussyfooting? You got feet, you got pussy...

Tread lightly, my friend...and use Epsom salts...

Well, after sifting through this entire thread this seems to be the place to start. Don't you think that you should know a little something about the subject of your debate?

1. Did Jesus Exist? Yes, he was written about in other places besides the Bible.

2. Was He who He said he was? Well, there are possibilities here, a. He was a madman: not likely, would a crazy person have taught something that hasn't been improved on in 2000 years? Would a crazy person have done all the great things that Jesus did? b. He was a fraud: again not likely, why would he have put himself through all the things that he went through if he wasn't who he said he was? Why devote your life to something you don't believe? Those versed in the Bible will know, Jesus never said he was God, but he never denied it. When asked who do you say I am, Peter replied "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." All these things combined tell me that there is a God and he walked among us. The men that walked with him saw it, why shouldn't we be able to, and they were big burly fishermen and the like. Why would these men just give up there lives for something that wasn't real?

3. As for all the God hates Fags stuff, those people are not christians, as they may claim. Jesus command was to Love your neighbor.
Hate the sin not the sinner, because we are all sinners.
Ultimately, we were put here as "servants" to each other, which in turn makes us servants to God.

4. When you die you go back to the dust you are made of, period, end of discussion. Nothing material matters.

5. Hell, most definately exists. God doesn't want us to go there. It's our free will that could ultimately send us there. The one sin that you cannot repent from is denial of the Holy Spirit. Oh, and if you read the Bible you will see that our God is indeed a vengeful, jealous God. 1st commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before thee. If you read the Bible you will see what happens to those that did. However He is also a very loving God. He has told us the wages of sin is death. You have to repent in order to live, which is to make a concious effort to turn away from what you are doing wrong.
This brings up an interesting point, what is wrong? Thing is that anything could be wrong. Say that I believe that drinking is a sin, if you are drinking in front of me, you are sinning against me, which is in turn sinning against God. Even if God doesn't concider it a sin, because we were put here to serve each other.

I could go on, but I have things to do...so I digress.

peace

Ha you stole my quote!

But well stated in a concise manner my friend.

What about it? "Bible" this and "Bible" that. Why is the Bible such a great document? What makes it the end all, be all of all religious arguments?

The Bible was a bunch of stories written by MEN to help explain existence. Most of the stories contained within are just that... stories. Yes, I bet there is plenty in the Bible that is historical fact (Jesus and Moses did exist), however, that doesn't mean that some of those "facts" weren't changed between the time they happened and the time the MEN wrote it down on paper. Not to mention how MEN had to carry the Bible for thousands of years, altering it and forgetting parts and doing God-knows-what to it.

The Bible is less of a religious document than it is a collection of stories to keep people well behaved. I think that many of the stories have great morals and are great lessons, but that does not make them historical fact.

I hate it when people think that just because they’ve read the Bible they think they instantly know something that most people don't (not that anyone in this thread has... I'm going of on a tangent). They think that reading the Bible gets them "closer" to God. Guess what? You can’t get "closer" to God unless it comes down here and has a civil conversation with you. Reading the Bible will only get people closer to the stories the Bible tells... not God. Never confuse the Bible for God (not that anyone has... once again, tangent), because they are not the same thing.

[quote]Cheese Biscuits:
Sorry. That should read "less of a historical document". Of course the Bible is a religious document. There's a religion based around it... duh...

This would of course strictly speaking be your opinions. Some of us believe that the Bible is given to man by God and is as accurate and valid as He desired it to be.

Because it is a record of God's revelation to mankind, and once again it hasn't been improved upon for thousands of years.

Sure, the Bible is 100% written by Men, but it is 100% inspired by God. That said, there are many manuscripts of the new testament out there in many languages 5,000+ Greek, 10,000 Latin and 9,300 others. The earliest copies of the material date to 130 AD there are full manuscripts dating to 350AD it was written between 40 and 100 AD with a time span of only about 300 years. Other historic documents (ie Herodotus, Livy's Roman History, Caesar's Galic War, etc.) taken for fact by scholars from before this have time spans of 900-1300 years before the earliest written copies were found. Making it a very viable historical account. Actually, God does know what they did to it.

See Above.

Reading the Bible may not "Get you closer to God", but going out into the world and living what you've read will. For example if you read the owners manual of your new car and you know in your mind all the cool features and all the in's and out's of the car, does that make you closer to your car? Of course not, you have to go out and get in the car and drive it. Like the Bible you have to live it to get closer to God.
Oh, and God did come down here and have a conversation with us. Jesus Christ walked among us and the New Testament is record of that conversation.
Point made on "The Bible is not God". Very true, God is God, there is only one.

I digress.

peace.

But also Beavis you do realize the Bible is called the Living Word.

In fact if I had a NT right now I could point out where it says Jesus is the Word.

Another verse says the Bible is the breathe of God. So I think we can say, for those who believe, that the Bible is not only divinely inspired but it is also apart of God Himself.

And indeed reading the Bible is like having a conversation with God because if you ask for Him to show you what you need to learn He will show you through His Word.

A point well made and well taken.
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word WAS God.
My point simply was that you have to live the word not just read it and worship the book.
Thanks for pointing that out.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CTDeLude:
<strong>But also Beavis you do realize the Bible is called the Living Word.</strong>

No. Jesus is the Word made flesh.

<strong>In fact if I had a NT right now I could point out where it says Jesus is the Word.</strong>

It is implied in John 1:1-3.

<strong>Another verse says the Bible is the breathe of God. So I think we can say, for those who believe, that the Bible is not only divinely inspired but it is also apart of God Himself.</strong>

2 Timothy 3
16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

<a href="http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV" target="_blank">http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV</a>

A great resource!!

Here's another great resource, very exhaustive, from the other side of the coin.

<a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com" target="_blank">The Skeptic's Annotated Bible</a>

But expect it to get your blood pressure up, Scott.

I have a bit of a cross-religion question here...

Jews don't believe in Hell, correct?

Jesus was a Jew, and would that not therefore mean that the son of God does not beleive in Hell?

I'm not trying to be a smart-ass with this. I really don't know much about Judaism, but this question has been bothering me for a bit.

At the same time, I know someone call pull a quote from Jesus about Hell from the Gospels, but that doesn't mean that's what was said.

I was raised Catholic, but I find it harder to trust the Bible as I grow older. It was written over the course of thousands of years, by many different unconnected people. Do we have the orignial copies, or are we taking the word of someone who is just writing down stories from thousands of years. Although messages can survive through such a period, it would make it impossible to directly quote anything that was said. Not to mention that there can be different translations of the same passages. The King James Bible is different from previous editions, and other translations that have come after. In all, we are just trusting that this is the devine word of God without any proof.

That being said, my agnostosim shows. But, don't corralate that with atheism. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote how there are two types of agnostics, those who don't believe in God but see no hard evidence that s(he) isn't there & those who do believe in God but see no evidence that s(he) is there. I am the latter. I find it interesting that you can have a belief system that can have people with such differing views on a fundimental religious principal.

The books of the Bible are the most heavily researched documents in the world, with literally thousands of scholars searching for evidence regarding the authenticity of the translations and copies we have now. Let me sum up: Both Chrisitnas and Jews have been absolutely fanatical in their zeal to preserve the words of the Bible as they were originally written. Jewish Rabbis would painstakingly copy a particular book of the Old Testament (or the complete Torah!) by hand and if they made even one mistake the scroll would be burned. Chrisitians have behaved similarly over the years. Very few copies of the Old Testament had been found until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Along with sundry other Gnostic writings, the caves also held several books of the Old Testament. These scrolls were written in pre-Christian times and many scholars assumed they would be very different from the Old Tstament we read today. What they found was that the words were virtually identical! Obviously, the attention to detail, the painstakingly monotonous copying and re-copying paid off.

The New Testament has also been proven to be authentic, due to the numerous copies, pieces of books, etc. that have been found over the years. You are absolutely free to disagree with what was written, but rest assured that the words you read are exactly what was written almost 2000 years ago.

The King James Bible is not a good translation, as the translators were more interested in beauty then authentic reproductions of the text. The current NIV Bible is a much more accurate translation. Of course, you could always read the Bible in ancient Greek and Hebrew if that's not good enough.

As to your Jesus/hell question... it seems like Jesus believed alot of things that were heretical to the Jewish leaders of his day, including claiming that he was the son of/equal to God. Whether Jews of his day believed in hell doesn't really matter since it's fairly obvious that Jesus was not your typical Jew! Analogy: Are there any Catholics living today that support abortion rights? wink

I'll check it out. I don't expect it will bother me. I know that there are people that don't believe in God and that will try and pick the Bible apart. More power to them. I don't have all the answers and don't trust anyone that says they do, Christians or Skeptics.

FOrgot to add tone of voice modifier.

The New Living Translation is excellent also. Very easy to read plain english.

Oh, and for those curious or searching or in doubt, etc. find an ALPHA course near you. Many of the questions I have seen here are covered in this course. It is a basic introduction to the Christian faith for non-believers and believers alike. Check it out at...
<a href="http://alphacourse.org" target="_blank">http://alphacourse.org</a>

I knew you would. However, if we're talking about whether the bible is the infallible word of God, 100% inspired by God, then you've got to wonder about it when one writer contradicts another, or even himself. You'd think if God were dictating, there would be no such contradictions.

Unless the devil did the translating... wink

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Guttenberg Fan Club:
<strong>I have a bit of a cross-religion question here...

Jews don't believe in Hell, correct?
</strong>

Yes and no. Strictly speaking Orthodox Jewish may believe in Sheol, the aftelife. Sheol is often translated as the grave. But some of the Jewish faith believe in life after death.

The Pharisees believed in life after death the Sadducees did not. More info here. <a href="http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm" target="_blank">http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm</a>

<strong>Jesus was a Jew, and would that not therefore mean that the son of God does not beleive in Hell?

I'm not trying to be a smart-ass with this. I really don't know much about Judaism, but this question has been bothering me for a bit. </strong>

Cruise that site if you want to learn more.

<strong>At the same time, I know someone call pull a quote from Jesus about Hell from the Gospels, but that doesn't mean that's what was said.</strong>

Why not?

<strong>I was raised Catholic, but I find it harder to trust the Bible as I grow older. It was written over the course of thousands of years, by many different unconnected people.</strong>

Yet its message is not contradictory.

<strong>Do we have the orignial copies, or are we taking the word of someone who is just writing down stories from thousands of years. Although messages can survive through such a period, it would make it impossible to directly quote anything that was said. Not to mention that there can be different translations of the same passages. The King James Bible is different from previous editions, and other translations that have come after. In all, we are just trusting that this is the devine word of God without any proof.</strong>

Thar's called faith my brother.

<strong>That being said, my agnostosim shows. But, don't corralate that with atheism. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote how there are two types of agnostics, those who don't believe in God but see no hard evidence that s(he) isn't there & those who do believe in God but see no evidence that s(he) is there. I am the latter. I find it interesting that you can have a belief system that can have people with such differing views on a fundimental religious principal.</strong>

What is the fundamental principal here? If you say the nature of Hell, I would say thatthat is not fundamental. What Hell is like doesn't really matter to me. I just know that I'm not going.

Giving it a quick glance, I checked Romans. I know a lot of people don't much care for Paul. And I see things that are marked not so much because they are contradictory but just stuff they don't like. Like his comments on homosexuality being called "intolerant". Sure they're intolerant. What does that have to do with anything?

As far as translations and inerrancy are concerned, if you want to know what I believe in regards to that go here. <a href="http://www.carm.org/creeds/chicago.htm" target="_blank">http://www.carm.org/creeds/chicago.htm</a> It's a tad long but very thorough.

"Although some of the apparent contradictions can be explained by differing contexts, others are harder to resolve. This does not mean that we should abandon our belief in the inspiration of the Scripture. Every great doctrine of the Christian faith has its difficulties. For example, it is hard to reconcile the love of God and the suffering in the world. Yet every Christian believes in the love of God and seeks an understanding fo the problem of suffering within that framework. In a similar way we need to hold on to the belief in the inspiration of the Bible and try to understand the difficult passages within that context. It is important not to run away from the difficulties but to seek, so far as we can, to resolve them to our own satisfaction. It is very important to hold on to the fact that all Scripture is inspired by God, even if we cannot immediately resolve all the difficulties." Nicky Gumbel from Questions of Life, a book from the Alpha Course.

All things will be revealed in time. God's time not ours. If you have a question, ask God and you will recieve an answer maybe not in the way you thought, but God doesn't think like we do.

[quote]capteucalyptus (Scott Roche):
Yeah, he marks a lot of stuff just for how intolerant or misogynistic or violent or sexy it is, but the relevant bit here are the "contradictions"--bits where one writer contradicts another or where one of God's chose (David, for example) gets off the hook for thinks that others get burned for. I'll check out the inerrancy link, when I get the time.

I'm not talking about contradictions in God, beavis...although those are ample, such as the ones in your quote...I'm talking about contradictions in the Biblae, which is claimed to be the 100% divinely inspired word of God. If the bible is 100% divinely dictated, then it stands to reason that there should be no contradictions. For the kind of thing I'm talking about, check this link:

<a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contradictions.html" target="_blank">Apparent Biblical Contradictions, With References</a>

You can say some of these are taken out of context, but it appears that the filters through which the bible came down were fallible, and the text we have as the bible does not even agree with itself on many points.

The question here is, is the text of the bible infallibly 100% the word of God, or is it the writings of a bunch of religious men who may or may not have a handle on God's ideas? It was suggested further up that the former was the case, but I think at best it's the latter.

Actually, I think it's option 3, which is why I'll politley decline your invitation to ask the Big Guy himself. Thanks for the offer, though.

Wait a minute, I think I've just discovered the answer:

<a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/scripture.html" target="_blank">The Answer</a>

Whoops. Never mind.

Well one answer is that Paul in 2 Timothy was refering to the OT as the NT did not exist yet. Thus Paul did not view all of his writings as divinely inpired. Those that he deemed inspired he did not preface with IMHO. wink

Which means that the writers of the bible were NOT necessarily getting it straight from God...who would have known, you presume...

<a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/knows.html" target="_blank">OR WOULD HE?</a> eek!

With God, all questions are rhetorical. wink

If I hide from you but you know where I am, it could still be described as me hiding from you. wink

Burke speaks true. We can go over the other instance if you wish. And the writers were "getting it stright from God" nowhere did I say otherwise. I was givig you one possible answer for the question posed. I believe all scripture was "God breathed" wether the author's knew it or not.

[<strong>Do we have the orignial copies, or are we taking the word of someone who is just writing down stories from thousands of years. Although messages can survive through such a period, it would make it impossible to directly quote anything that was said. Not to mention that there can be different translations of the same passages. The King James Bible is different from previous editions, and other translations that have come after. In all, we are just trusting that this is the devine word of God without any proof.</strong>

Thar's called faith my brother.

Faith in what? Certainly not faith in God. I have faith that there is a God. I DO NOT have faith that people who came before me have spoken with God, or have had God speak through them. Why is it that for thousands of years there were additions to the Bible, but since Revelations (which is a whole other quandry) there has not been anything. Is God done? Are we not good enough to learn more lessons? Or is it mere conincidence that the actual writing and mass duplication of the Bible coincides with the end of God's trasmissions through us? And don't tell me he still contacts us, because I'm talking about the reluctance to add to the Bible. If he is still talking to us, there should be more currently going in.

Again, I'm not trying to fight anyone about this, these are just questions I have, and this seems like the best place to get answers. (arguments like this lead to bad blood out in public)

And yet there are contradictions, not just in sense but in facts. I can see feeling that "the general gist of it is from God, filtered through men he spoke through", but if you hold to "everything in it is straight from God unfiltered and thus [one would presume] infallibly true," then you're going to run into problems, that's all I'm saying.

Probably a question for another topic, but are you guys biblical literalists, or what? That is, is everything in the Bible literally true, from Eden down to Job to the Exodus to the Ark, or is there wiggle room in your view--figurative language, if you like? And if the latter, which is which?

Yeah, you took the easy one! wink Okay, but what about this?
Gen.22:12 "For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me."

Wouldn't he have known that before? If so, why the need to make Abraham nearly kill his son? And this:

Hos.8:4
"They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and [I} I knew it not[/I]."

I have a hard time making that last one a rhetorical device. Nitpicking, sure, but either it's all true or it's not. One exception disproves the theorem.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Guttenberg Fan Club:
<strong>[[qb]Faith in what? Certainly not faith in God. I have faith that there is a God. I DO NOT have faith that people who came before me have spoken with God, or have had God speak through them.</strong>

Why?

<strong>Why is it that for thousands of years there were additions to the Bible, but since Revelations (which is a whole other quandry) there has not been anything. Is God done?</strong>

I believe that we have His message in its entirety.

<strong>Are we not good enough to learn more lessons? Or is it mere conincidence that the actual writing and mass duplication of the Bible coincides with the end of God's trasmissions through us? And don't tell me he still contacts us, because I'm talking about the reluctance to add to the Bible. If he is still talking to us, there should be more currently going in.</strong>

He has given us His message and has sent His Spirit to teach us. Do you fully understand the Bible? Neither do I. What would the point of His sending more be if we don't get what we have?

<strong>Again, I'm not trying to fight anyone about this, these are just questions I have, and this seems like the best place to get answers. (arguments like this lead to bad blood out in public)</strong>

I hope I haven't been fighting or argumentative. Darn fine discussion going on here even if we have jumped the tracks.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Scott Standridge Will Eat You Alive:
<strong>And yet there are contradictions, not just in sense but in facts. I can see feeling that "the general gist of it is from God, filtered through men he spoke through", but if you hold to "everything in it is straight from God unfiltered and thus [one would presume] infallibly true," then you're going to run into problems, that's all I'm saying.</strong>

I have yet to see any contradictions that are really meaningful. (i.e. that impact the overall message) And I relish running into problems. They are opportunities for the Holy Spirit to teach me.

<strong>Probably a question for another topic, but are you guys biblical literalists, or what? That is, is everything in the Bible literally true, from Eden down to Job to the Exodus to the Ark, or is there wiggle room in your view--figurative language, if you like? And if the latter, which is which?</strong>

I'll open a new topic

It's a binary proposition. Either everything in the Bible is true, or not everything in the Bible is true. Any contradiction, however minor, proves that not everything in the Bible is necessarily true, which then leads to questions about what parts you're supposed not to worry about, and what parts you are. You can always ask God to guide you, of course, but the statement was made that the Bible, as it is, is God's message, and if not everything in it is true, that's more than a "learning" problem. At least in my view.

You could go on for hours about whether God MEANT for it to be confusing, but I think I've said all I've got to say here, and I don't wish to belabor the point. To all on this thread, whatever your beliefs:

Peace, Love, and Soul Train!

See you in the funny papers...er, other threads.