You're forgetting Christianity in that point in time was a new religion, based upon older religions. There's no way they've started from scratch again and frankly that's not what they did! This is really a fact and can easily be proven by just looking at Sumerian texts, other religions from that time and some popular ancient myths.



That's useful in a psychological sense, so of course they will. But they aren't talking about 'former religions' that in some ways have become part of Christianity. I don't think you can prove that the New Testament isn't full of Greek influences.



But that's where we disagree massively, as it clearly is open to interpretation. It doesn't matter that my exemplary interpretation was a bit of a stretch, as your interpretation is even more of a stretch! At least my interpretations stick to the literal texts.



I've read a whole lot of studies, but not just from people with a similar agnostic/atheist worldview as I have. I'm really a whole lot more neutral on the subject as you seem to think and pretty well informed for an "atheist".
I'm also really not taking their word for it, I'm looking at their evidence and as it's pretty damn solid, I just tend to agree.

You're whole idea of me evangelizing atheism is pure bs, but that's just your way of dealing with this kind of criticism I guess. And trust me, many Christians do exactly the same. It's easy to create this 'you're either with us or against us' kind of atmosphere with no room for logical explanations or different interpretations.

It's striking how fierce you believe in someone else's interpretation of the Bible, as if it's your own or even the one that makes most sense. It's easy to see many of these beliefs do not come from the Bible, but instead from your local organized religion.

It's also just pure funny to see how you do consider some parts to have a literal meaning, while in other cases you don't. It proves my point of how the popular theological content gathered out of the Bible is just an extremely relative interpretation with little to no true scriptural basis. I'm sure you will disagree, but I think you're the one who's biased here. (I'm not expecting you to agree with my interpretations at all by the way, if you believe that, you're missing the point.)

( also, this thread was about 'Google'... )

I guess you meant Egyptian not Sumerian. The Egyptians were those with Horus as the Jesus figure with the exact same story. The Sumerian stuff was about the Gods from another planet coming down and creating mankind to serve for them. You still have some loose ties to the Old Testament of the Bible which in the end is about the two brothers En'Ki and En'Lil fighting over what to do with the "slave race" mankind with all the banishment from Eden stuff and so on. At some point there was some kind of judgement making one of the brothers into god and the other one became iirc the snake and in general the sort of evil counterpart. That also explains why the God of the Old Testament doesn't really act that much "godlike" but often not different than a pissed off man with lots of power would...

Not trying to break your argument though as I tend to agree with what you're saying here...

I know. I never said they did. It comes from Judaism -- more specifically the belief that Jesus Christ was and is a fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament. Most of the letters in the New Testament were written by Jews-turned-Christian.
Actually it makes sense, since your first two posts had very little stimulus to bring up the absurdity you see in the very idea of the Christian God being God. You even went so far as to address Joozey's neutral agnosticism with "You're obviously wrong"... I understand this was said somewhat in jest, and was not intended to be aggressive, but it still shows your underlying desire to turn this thread into an anti-religion discussion (which you did a very good job of -- largely thanks to me getting way too involved ).What does that mean -- "stick to the literal texts"? One of your translations was basically "this is not literal", and another acknowledged the clear meaning but ignored the obvious implications of this.
Your continued belief that my understanding of the Bible is spoon-fed from someone else is not helping this discussion anywhere. Unless you can allow me some credit for what I say, this discussion isn't going to go anywhere. Then again, we've gone a long way already without getting anywhere.

Jibb

Yes, I wonder where it went wrong .
Always the same story.

So if Google IS God....

Who is the Devil? Yahoo or Bing ? (the Microslop Bing that is)

Well, since Yahoo is usuable sometimes, it must be Bing.

I am not a fan of microsoft - i like my iPhone and my MacBook, if you know what i mean xD

Bing sucks so so much.. it does nothing! i mean, i can't find the thing i want.. instead Goggle gives me right there the answer.

You're twisting my words again. I never said Joozey was wrong in being agnostic. I've already explained how I meant what was said. To be honest, it's pretty pathetic you're even bringing it up again.



Not in my opinion, but regardless, you're obviously blind to how you do the very same thing. Again, my point wasn't about how I think my interpretation is more accurate at all, it's how people stretch words as if it says 'a soul is ....', when it really doesn't say that at all, no matter how you interpret the texts.



I think you're in denial here. Besides, if you believe in your understanding of the Bible as being solely your own, and what people would get spoon-fed is the very same thing, I don't see why me saying something about it would really matter here anyway.

The fact that you believe in a concept of a 'soul' in the Greek sense, for which there's no real indication in the Bible, is proof for you just following modern dogma. I'm not saying it's wrong or bad to believe in this, but if you claim your motivation has been an objective biblical one, then you are very wrong in that belief.

As far as the actual content of the Bible, I think any modern day interpretation will be a stretch from the truth anyway, as it should be seen in context of that ancient time.

I've twisted nothing, and either you're over-reacting or you've misunderstood me. You were very clear that a belief that either view is possible is wrong, on the basis that "God can't exist for quite a few obvious reasons" -- none of which have occurred in this thread. And it's not pathetic. I called your atheistic evangelism what it is, and you said that was "bs". Accordingly, I brought up appropriate evidence for my claim.
That's simple. I have continued this discussion under the generous assumption that you actually are well-read and haven't just watched a youtube conspiracy video, while you do the opposite: in a patronising manner you refuse to allow the conversation to go forward on the basis that I'm wrong that I actually have an understanding of the Bible. You have a hunch that I have not been raised as I claim, and on that basis my references to the Bible are too "blind" or "biased" to be of value to the discussion.
One more time: eternal life + death of the body = we're more than just a body. We don't need "And this is a soul:". A "soul" is what gets preserved eternally by God's grace, even after our body is gone. It's how our post-death existence is different to an equally complex machine that ceases to function (obviously theoretical).

Anyway I'm done with this discussion. I know we've been off-topic for a while anyway, but this discussion hasn't been productive at any point.

Besides, I don't have anything left to say to the actual topic besides: Search results from other engines are never as relevant as Google's And Google Apps is awesome.

Sorry everyone.

Jibb