Holes SO big that they were impossible to miss, unless you don't care that they are there.

If you are happy to believe that everything in the Bible is 100% accurate, despite learning to the contrary (opposite).

You don't have to go looking for them when they are so obvious.

Take a Bowling Ball, for example. How many holes does it have?

Three, right? No more, no less.

I pass this bowling ball around the table, and everyone has to have their eyes closed and tell me how many holes there are.

Some will only find one, others might find two, and some will find all three.

We publish our findings.

Each person was correct, right? That's all they knew about it. They only could report what they felt.

But there were three holes in the Bowling Ball when everyone took their blindfolds off and actually looked at it with their own eyes.

Only the person who said that there were three holes in the Bowling Ball was correct. The others were well meaning, but WRONG.

right but none the less the bowling ball was passed to them and there was one hole, they described it as they seen it (or felt) but it was all in all a bowling ball. with at least one hole right?

I didn't say "at least" one hole.

I said the Bowling Ball had three holes.

So, when the blinders came off, two of the people were WRONG.

Just like the Gospels. 4 writers, different stories of the same events. Which one is the correct one?

well - here too India scores.

see this story/poem :

http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/1/?letter=B&spage=3

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

......


So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,

Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,

And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

missed this post !

so - you find that i am turning a blind eye to your links ? dude - i read them and also explained why i suspect that those are not true.
the Evangelical Christians often misrepresent facts and spread a lot of misinformation about India.

besides - i did expose your misconception that the local (Indian) media ignore these stories - they don't.

get some authentic info from neutral/secular sites . . . .

I did.

quote:
Originally posted by somsuj:
You are very wrong - in your quotes - i shall show in a minute that they are actually reported in Indian Newspapers - when they actually happen.
Ok so why not believe them? If you've found them in the local indian papers why insist they were biased by Christians?

Either way here's an article from the BBC on Sri Lanka and it's issues with Buddhist monks attacking Christians. It's a small blurb at the bottom but none the less here it is.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3489302.stm
"But attacks on Christians increased throughout the year to several a week.

The US government says mobs were often led by extremist Buddhist monks, and no-one was arrested."

Here's another one about Hindu militants raping nuns. Again from the BBC lest I be accused of impartiality.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/179541.stm

So now you've got what you wanted, the writings from a BBC news source, that confirm that people everywhere do bad things but claim religion.

Mbas, Somsuj, et al: Mbas, you continually ask if the Bible is 100 percent true or not. I’ve heard you ask this over and over again since I joined this forum on May 31 and I wonder what really drives your questioning. When I first came on this board, I thought you really were looking for an explanation or an answer. But now I am not so sure. The current conversation reminds me of a story in the book of Matthew 21: 23-27. Here it is (NIV): [b]23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you this authority?" 24 Jesus replied, "I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John's baptism--where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?" They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' 26 But if we say, 'From men'--we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet." 27 So they answered Jesus, "We don't know." Then he said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. [/b] Forgive me for using a Bible story to illustrate something I am experiencing on this board, but it seemed so pertinent. From the tone of your questioning, I can imagine if someone says, “Well, no, it’s not 100 percent true. Some of it is allegory, some of it is history, some of it is eyewitness account; some of it is a story passed along, some of it is parable,” you might say, well, then, how or why should we believe it, since it was fabricated by man and is fallible? However, if it’s argued to be 100 percent true, then you might come at it from another angle – God is a killer of babies and civilizations and is cruel so why should we pay any attention to God anyway? You consistently set up a no-win situation – no answer is the right one, similar to the story above. I am coming to believe your question is not to actually learn or move towards closer to an understanding of people’s faith, but to pick it apart to find places to find fault so as to ridicule it and so be relieved of the responsibility to recognize that there are both value and truths present in the Bible regardless of whether it is 100 percent literally true or not. I think this because I know I personally have offered perspectives on this question and different ways to look at it several times in the past. Now, it is possible that you consider what I say to be hogwash, and why shouldn’t you? You don’t know me except from what I write on this forum. But there have been alternative understandings to your either-or question posed many times, and yet you return to it, not seeming to take in the alternative views that have been posed. Why is that? Have you ever read a novel and found truth there? (I am not saying the Bible is a novel, so please don’t twist my words. I am simply using this as an extreme example). Have you ever felt something in a made-up story to ring true with something you felt in your heart or your spirit, or found an author was able to put into words something you have experienced in your life that heretofore you could never quite describe? Somsuj has – he quoted the story about the blind men and the elephant earlier in the post– a made up poem that expresses a truth. I know that I have, so I am speaking from my experience. If I can find a sense of truth in a totally fabricated story (books by John Irving, Ursula LeGuin, Sue Monk Kidd, Robert Pirsig come to mind just off the top of my head), is it such a stretch to find truth in a book that is partly allegorical, partly historic, partly parable? You are looking for absolute proof that the Bible is literally true or not. I don’t think you are going to find that answer in the legalistic way you are going about it. There are some on this board who will affirm that that the Bible is indeed the inerrant and totally infallible Word of God. My belief is that God inspired the writings, but details may have changed as they were recorded or as they were translated over the years. Good heavens – two people can be talking to each other face to face and STILL misunderstand each other! Can’t that perhaps be the case from time to time in a book that is thousands of years old? And yet I see a core message that threads its way through the SPIRIT of what it written, no matter if people saw Jesus 2 times or 3 times after the resurrection or if Jesus was in the tomb for 2 days or 3 days. You are trying to apply legalistic means to a spiritual message. I think that sucks the life out of whatever spiritual truths exist, it pushes them out of one’s reach. I’m not advocating putting your brain on hold and not THINKING about what is in the Bible. But does splitting hairs actually get you closer to a sense of truth? Does it engage your heart at all in the search? In my experience, the Bible is not about legalistic understanding, but about the way the SPIRIT works and it calls most to the heart, spirit, soul – whatever you want to call it – not to the nitpicking, contentious mind (That is not meant to say you shouldn't use REASON when you read it. Notice the contradictions. Fine. How do they affect the underlying truth? Do they at all?). I know, you can come back and throw the 10 Commandments at me (laws) and God’s laws about sin, etc. and yes, I have to admit they are there. But I think they are initially there to try to communicate, describe, etc., the way of the spirit and how it works best (when people are being kind to each other and not stealing from each other or cheating each other, etc.), not to crush us under them. Some attempts at this work better than others in the Bible. I have a really hard time with Ezekiel and Revelation, but I love Proverbs and the Gospels, for instance. When God made his covenant with Abraham there WERE NO COMMANDMENTS – there was just a promise on God’s part and faith on Abraham’s part. I think all the verbiage and stories that came in between then and now are attempts to restore us to that simple relationship of promise and trust. Though I admit it doesn’t seem very simple when it’s reduced to an argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and when words are chosen from the Bible to be used as weapons against each other. I'm not sure if the purpose of this present discussion is really to seek some sort of understanding, or just have a forum for argument. I tried to give my honest -- albeit longwinded, apolgies! -- opinion about the former, but I'm not really interested into being goaded into ongoing argument just for the sake of argument. So, as my favorite phrase goes, take what you like and leave the rest.

Catlady
Amen, and wow very good!!

And again I say AMEN!!!!!!

Blessings,

LL