Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

On one hand you are claiming that evil is a consequence of free-will; then you are claiming evil as a result of delusion. If we are victims of delusion then our choices are not truly free, they are simply an inevitable symptom of the delusion.

Evil is not a result of delusion - it is the cause of delusion.  The delusion is created by the will of one who is evil.  But we are free to choose to put our trust in one who can deliver us from evil.

But we are not free if we are deluded. Delusion blinds us to truth, robbing us of our freedom. A blind choice is not a free choice.

I totally agree that delusion blinds us to truth and robs us of our freedom.

Choosing to put your trust in the word of God as revealed in the Christian bible is not exactly a blind choice.  We have been given enough to be able to see through the deception, but many choose to ignore what God has done for us.

You just said some evil thing was hiding it? Can you make up your mind?

Are you now saying I am deliberately ignoring something? Because in my opinion I am not. Why do you think you can (a) say you know about what I am doing and (b) accuse me of lying about it, which is what you are doing by the statement above?

I certainly did not intend to accuse you of lying - sorry if it came out that way.

I am just trying to encourage people to give Christianity a try because there is nothing which can prove it is not true.  You have nothing to lose and so much to gain.

[Nearly Sane]

So what are you trying to say? And why only attempt to answer one of the questions? I am trying to establish what you are attempting to say and you are not really addressing any  of the issues. Further you are making contradictory statements in different posts.

There is nothing that can prove poggreeinism untrue, my recently made up belief that saying poggree on a Tuesday at half past two while hopping makes the world more balanced. Will you try it?

[Leonard James]

I am just trying to encourage people to give Christianity a try because there is nothing which can prove it is not true. 

Really, Alan? The very fact that you claim your alleged loving god created the prey/predator system of life, is a contradiction in terms.

A loving god would shrink from creating such a cruel system.

[Alan Burns]

I am just trying to encourage people to give Christianity a try because there is nothing which can prove it is not true. 

Really, Alan? The very fact that you claim your alleged loving god created the prey/predator system of life, is a contradiction in terms.

A loving god would shrink from creating such a cruel system.

Sorry Len, but simply stating your own opinion of what God should or should not do is not proof that He does not exist.  All earthly life comes to an end one way or another, but the bible shows us that God has come into this world to save us from death.

[Alan Burns]

You just said some evil thing was hiding it? Can you make up your mind?

The power of evil will try to hide the truth from us.  It is difficult to see through the deception on our own.  We need God's help to see through the deception.  A simple prayer is a good way to start.  Prayer is a key to unlock the door and let God in - we just need to use it.

[torridon]

I am just trying to encourage people to give Christianity a try because there is nothing which can prove it is not true. 

Really, Alan? The very fact that you claim your alleged loving god created the prey/predator system of life, is a contradiction in terms.

A loving god would shrink from creating such a cruel system.

Sorry Len, but simply stating your own opinion of what God should or should not do is not proof that He does not exist.  All earthly life comes to an end one way or another, but the bible shows us that God has come into this world to save us from death.

You seem to have overlooked the fact that this god created death in the first place; he could (being god and all that) have put us all in heaven to start with, but no, for some reason he had to go and put us through an earthly life first just so he could come down like a hero and save us from the death that he created for us in the first place.  Ahem.

[torridon]

Of course I believe that God is "all good" as indicated throughout the Christian bible...

If you could jettison the OT you might stand a chance of making a plausible case for that. Unfortunately numerous passages in the OT portray God as a homicidal ultra violent monster, and ever since Marcion lost the argument Christendom has been stuck with that, unable to fully distance itself, even though it would prefer a wholesome loving God.

Marcion, though offering some interesting ideas, 'lost the argument' for very good reasons. His own version of the New Testament, though perhaps the first version we have of a NT 'canon', is also a very obvious early version of cherry-picking to suit what you want to believe about your God. In the first instance, it's all very well to decide which actual books should be represented in your collection, but when you start selecting only the 'nice' passages in the only gospel of which you really approve (in Marcion's case, Luke), then you've pretty well entered the area of making things up as you go along.
Marcion wasn't able to benefit from the methods of modern critical scholarship, which are able to provide reasonable guidelines for what Jesus may or may not have said, in a purely objective way. He was instead guided by a degree of gut-feeling and personal bias. Jesus sometimes appears as being a totally forgiving, loving chap, and suggests that we should turn the other cheek, and walk two miles with the bloke who asks us to walk just one mile with him etc. etc. There is of course another aspect to Jesus depicted in the NT, which suggest he thought God was in some ways as bad as he appears in the early part of the OT, and his own character in some places seems to reflect this violent, judgmental God. You can say "well, he can't have really said both things, because that's contradictory". And the evangelicals and the fundamentalists are keen to point out how these seeming contradictions can be reconciled. It is certainly difficult to reconcile them, and I see no reason to believe that all the sayings and deeds of Jesus in the NT are accurate reportage of the historical character.

However, Marcion's other great failing was his either/or attitude to the Old Testament. In much of the early part of the Pentateuch, God is portrayed as an absolute monster, however 'metaphorically' you read the text. But the OT, too is a huge compendium of differing ideas about God, and about what God supposedly requires of human beings. I refuse to accept that the God of Ecclesiastes is a 'monster' - in this practically 'Buddhist' text, God scarcely gets a look-in - he seems quite nebulous and conspicuous by his absence (In the book of Esther, of course, God is not mentioned at all). All three parts of Isaiah* depict God in different ways, but in general he seems much improved on the nasty war-monger who rampages through the Book of Joshua, or the vile homicidal sadist in Judges who still seems to be keen on human sacrifice.

By the time we get to the Book of Micah, God is almost altogether a reformed character, (apart from a few rumblings) and seems to me a rather superior to the God of Jesus, if you take all the gospels into consideration without 'cherry-picking'.

Marcion's work "The Antitheses" (of which we only know certain quoted passages) in which he outlines the differences between the two Testaments, seems to be a case of selective quotation of the most blatant and deceptive kind.

*Many scholars believe 'Isaiah' had a three-fold authorship.

Maybe you should take this up with Bash, he's a Marcionite fanboy, and it would be nice to see him engage with a substantive critique rather than getting drawn into endless tit for tat.

[Leonard James]

I am just trying to encourage people to give Christianity a try because there is nothing which can prove it is not true. 

Really, Alan? The very fact that you claim your alleged loving god created the prey/predator system of life, is a contradiction in terms.

A loving god would shrink from creating such a cruel system.

Sorry Len, but simply stating your own opinion of what God should or should not do is not proof that He does not exist.  All earthly life comes to an end one way or another, but the bible shows us that God has come into this world to save us from death.

I repeat :- A loving god would never create a system in which half the living creatures have to kill and eat the other half in order to survive, with all the pain and suffering that implies.

Shutting your eyes to the fact won't make it go away.

If your god exists, and created such a system, he neither loves nor cares about the suffering of his creation.

[torridon]

I totally agree that delusion blinds us to truth and robs us of our freedom.

Choosing to put your trust in the word of God as revealed in the Christian bible is not exactly a blind choice.  We have been given enough to be able to see through the deception, but many choose to ignore what God has done for us.

..

I am just trying to encourage people to give Christianity a try because there is nothing which can prove it is not true.  You have nothing to lose and so much to gain.

I'm sure you mean well but I don't see how I could profit from trying by some exertion of willpower to see sense in what seems nonesense.  I've already spent years doing just that, trying to silence inner nagging questions, trying to just accept by faith notions that just don't seem to add up. Maybe that works for you, but maybe you have a remarkable ability to overlook inconvenient things that don't fit.  And maybe there is value in caring about detail, in wanting to get things right, in being undeterred by cultural expectations or peer pressure or legacy beliefs.  If there is a god, I doubt he would grant us reason and discernment only to expect us to abandon those gifts.

[Nearly Sane]

You just said some evil thing was hiding it? Can you make up your mind?

The power of evil will try to hide the truth from us.  It is difficult to see through the deception on our own.  We need God's help to see through the deception.  A simple prayer is a good way to start.  Prayer is a key to unlock the door and let God in - we just need to use it.

is it like abracadabra? Your god, hidden by the evil thing it created, needs us to call out to make the magic work?

[SusanDoris]

Wow, Dicky, thank you! You are yet another guy who seems to know a good deal more about Christianity than most others here.

Heartily seconded!

[

[Alan Burns]

I repeat :- A loving god would never create a system in which half the living creatures have to kill and eat the other half in order to survive, with all the pain and suffering that implies.

Shutting your eyes to the fact won't make it go away.

If your god exists, and created such a system, he neither loves nor cares about the suffering of his creation.

But if you believe that God was created in human imagination, surely the obvious logic you state above would have been incorporated into this imaginary god, making him somewhat less of the loving God depicted in the bible.

[Alan Burns]

Marcion, though offering some interesting ideas, 'lost the argument' for very good reasons. His own version of the New Testament, though perhaps the first version we have of a NT 'canon', is also a very obvious early version of cherry-picking to suit what you want to believe about your God. In the first instance, it's all very well to decide which actual books should be represented in your collection, but when you start selecting only the 'nice' passages in the only gospel of which you really approve (in Marcion's case, Luke), then you've pretty well entered the area of making things up as you go along.
Marcion wasn't able to benefit from the methods of modern critical scholarship, which are able to provide reasonable guidelines for what Jesus may or may not have said, in a purely objective way. He was instead guided by a degree of gut-feeling and personal bias. Jesus sometimes appears as being a totally forgiving, loving chap, and suggests that we should turn the other cheek, and walk two miles with the bloke who asks us to walk just one mile with him etc. etc. There is of course another aspect to Jesus depicted in the NT, which suggest he thought God was in some ways as bad as he appears in the early part of the OT, and his own character in some places seems to reflect this violent, judgmental God. You can say "well, he can't have really said both things, because that's contradictory". And the evangelicals and the fundamentalists are keen to point out how these seeming contradictions can be reconciled. It is certainly difficult to reconcile them, and I see no reason to believe that all the sayings and deeds of Jesus in the NT are accurate reportage of the historical character.

However, Marcion's other great failing was his either/or attitude to the Old Testament. In much of the early part of the Pentateuch, God is portrayed as an absolute monster, however 'metaphorically' you read the text. But the OT, too is a huge compendium of differing ideas about God, and about what God supposedly requires of human beings. I refuse to accept that the God of Ecclesiastes is a 'monster' - in this practically 'Buddhist' text, God scarcely gets a look-in - he seems quite nebulous and conspicuous by his absence (In the book of Esther, of course, God is not mentioned at all). All three parts of Isaiah* depict God in different ways, but in general he seems much improved on the nasty war-monger who rampages through the Book of Joshua, or the vile homicidal sadist in Judges who still seems to be keen on human sacrifice.

By the time we get to the Book of Micah, God is almost altogether a reformed character, (apart from a few rumblings) and seems to me a rather superior to the God of Jesus, if you take all the gospels into consideration without 'cherry-picking'.

Marcion's work "The Antitheses" (of which we only know certain quoted passages) in which he outlines the differences between the two Testaments, seems to be a case of selective quotation of the most blatant and deceptive kind.

*Many scholars believe 'Isaiah' had a three-fold authorship.

Your post reminds me of a short text on a talk given by CS Lewis entitled "Fern Seed and Elephants".  He describes his experience as a writer having his work analysed by literary experts to discern the real hidden meanings in his books.  He discussed the matter with fellow authors and they found that the experts had used some very well thought out reasoning to discover the real meanings from their books, but in every case the experts were found to be 100% wrong in discerning any hidden meanings intended by the authors.  He goes on to say that if literary experts fail to do this with present day literature, what chance do they have of accurately discerning the real meanings behind texts which were written thousands of years ago?  He likens it to explorers who are so intent on discovering fern seeds in the undergrowth that the fail to see the elephant standing in front of them.

The Bible is not about male domination.  It is not about female suppression.  It is not about installing power structures.  It is not about the endorsement of slavery.  It is about the eternal salvation of the human soul.

[torridon]

I repeat :- A loving god would never create a system in which half the living creatures have to kill and eat the other half in order to survive, with all the pain and suffering that implies.

Shutting your eyes to the fact won't make it go away.

If your god exists, and created such a system, he neither loves nor cares about the suffering of his creation.

But if you believe that God was created in human imagination, surely the obvious logic you state above would have been incorporated into this imaginary god, making him somewhat less of the loving God depicted in the bible.

People always believe in a god that reflects their own personality and predispositions, surely. Bigots believe in a god that hates gays, jihadists believe in a god that desires unbelievers be put to death by the sword; kindly inclusive people manage to somehow not recognise that the bible contains more references to god's fury and revenge than to his tender loving mercies. The god you believe in is a projection of what is inside you, not something objective, 'out there', and what is inside you is a product of many influences, the conflux of your genetic inheritance with all your experiences to date.  You might currently be suggesting to people to 'try' christianity, but had you been born not in Middlesborough but in Karachi, say, you would quite likely be imploring people to 'try' Islam now.

[torridon]

The Bible is not about male domination.  It is not about female suppression.  It is not about installing power structures.  It is not about the endorsement of slavery.  It is about the eternal salvation of the human soul.

I might go along with that, broadly.

But the fact that there are elements of the above entwined into it, are pointers to the fact that the bible is a collection of works by diverse human minds; there may be an overarching theme of the trajectory of ancient jewish thinking regarding Man and his relationship with God, but the diversity in the texts attests to the diversity of its human authorship.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

A football support has no policies or dogmas that would make them misogynist. Every KKK member I've heard talk has been a racist, a difference between causation and correlation.

Which, as already established, doesn't apply to religion which is the point being talked about. Further the KKK doesn't cause people to be racist.

I thought you were talking about intrinsic, the KKK is intrinsically racist. The KKK might cause people to be racist.

I'm not sure, but I think Gabriella disagrees as her posts suggests Islam caused her to give up drinking.

Not sure if Gabriella's point related to this. But how does the KKK cause racism by it's own intrinsic qualities i.e. not those given to it by humans?

I agree with NS - it is a quality given by humans - because firstly humans have to interpret what they think the religion is requiring of them, which may involve considerable thought of running through and discarding various options or may be an instant decision - it really depends on how aware the individual is of the various possible options and their consequences out there (based on nurture/ education) and whether their personality is such that they will carefully consider options and potential consequences or they are impatient and want a quick easy answer at that particular moment in time (which would be influenced by any other thoughts, pressures, stresses, emotions they are experiencing at that moment and their reaction to whatever else is going on in their lives at that time).

And secondly the individual has to decide that they are actually going to follow their interpretation of the religious requirement, which again is a decision driven by nature/ nurture and their current circumstances, and is a decision that has to be repeated every time they have the opportunity to make a different decison, for example, to have a drink. I know Muslims who drink - I was one of them.

So giving up drinking based on my religion was a little more complicated than simply following the instruction to shun/avoid/ leave aside/ eschew intoxicants/wine/strong intoxicants (depending on whose translation you read) in Chapter 5 verse 90-91 of the Quran.

I was drinking after I became a Muslim - it was almost mandatory in the investment banking industry if you wanted to build business relationships and get ahead and I won't deny I really enjoyed that aspect of the job. When I decided to have a child, the responsibility to be a role model as a Muslim parent and to be clear-headed when responsible for a child that was totally dependent on me took precedence over my personal enjoyment or my career.

Also I saw drinking as creating an opportunity for me to behave in a different way or say something that I would not have done if the chemicals in alcohol had not been affecting my judgement and it seemed that this might create unnecessary complications in my life and be a waste of my time - I think this is covered by Quran 5:91 which says intoxicants can create enmity amongst people, which made sense to me - it can in many cases in terms of things said, decisions made, even violence that might not have happened if the people had not had their judgement altered while intoxicated. By the time I got to 27, I figured that the sober me was the real me, and this was the me I wanted to be and improve on, especially as a parent.

Also, my parents did not drink (my dad did very very rarely as he didn't enjoy it) and I had not grown up seeing my parents drink so this had subconsciously informed my understanding of parenting.

I think some people have a very simplistic understanding of the human decision-making process. 

[Alan Burns]

People always believe in a god that reflects their own personality and predispositions, surely. Bigots believe in a god that hates gays, jihadists believe in a god that desires unbelievers be put to death by the sword; kindly inclusive people manage to somehow not recognise that the bible contains more references to god's fury and revenge than to his tender loving mercies. The god you believe in is a projection of what is inside you, not something objective, 'out there', and what is inside you is a product of many influences, the conflux of your genetic inheritance with all your experiences to date.  You might currently be suggesting to people to 'try' christianity, but had you been born not in Middlesborough but in Karachi, say, you would quite likely be imploring people to 'try' Islam now.

I agree that people searching for God are capable of inventing a God that reflects their own take on life, but the Christian God of the new testament has traits which go beyond human aspirations.  For example, who would be capable of inventing a God who commands us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

People always believe in a god that reflects their own personality and predispositions, surely. Bigots believe in a god that hates gays, jihadists believe in a god that desires unbelievers be put to death by the sword; kindly inclusive people manage to somehow not recognise that the bible contains more references to god's fury and revenge than to his tender loving mercies. The god you believe in is a projection of what is inside you, not something objective, 'out there', and what is inside you is a product of many influences, the conflux of your genetic inheritance with all your experiences to date.  You might currently be suggesting to people to 'try' christianity, but had you been born not in Middlesborough but in Karachi, say, you would quite likely be imploring people to 'try' Islam now.

I agree that people searching for God are capable of inventing a God that reflects their own take on life, but the Christian God of the new testament has traits which go beyond human aspirations.  For example, who would be capable of inventing a God who commands us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us?

If you like those kind of traits - feel free to try some of these other religions:

The prescription to love your enemy and to requite evil with good is sometimes thought of as an impractical and perfectionist ethic, able to be practiced only by a few exceptional souls. But, in fact, this doctrine is widely taught in all religions as a fundamental principle for pursuing relationships with others. The person who insists upon vengeance or retribution is not necessarily committing a crime, but neither will his act of revenge be helpful to spiritual advancement. Revenge, which requites evil with evil, only multiplies evil in the world, while love, by in which one strives to overcome evil with good, spreads goodness in the world.
True love is unconditional and impartial--thus the metaphor of the sun that shines down on all life. It is tested and proven by encounters with those who are difficult to love. Where true love prevails, there no enemies are found.

The concluding passages dispute the prescription to love your enemy when it apparently contravenes the principles of justice and right. Sometimes the best way to love an evil person is to make him face justice, or to hinder him from doing wrong. Nevertheless, these corrective actions should be done with a loving heart and with the other person's welfare uppermost in mind.

http://www.unification.net/ws/theme144.htm

[Nearly Sane]

Of course that same god alao, as the ineffable TW pointed out elsewhere, brought a sword to divide families.

[torridon]

People always believe in a god that reflects their own personality and predispositions, surely. Bigots believe in a god that hates gays, jihadists believe in a god that desires unbelievers be put to death by the sword; kindly inclusive people manage to somehow not recognise that the bible contains more references to god's fury and revenge than to his tender loving mercies. The god you believe in is a projection of what is inside you, not something objective, 'out there', and what is inside you is a product of many influences, the conflux of your genetic inheritance with all your experiences to date.  You might currently be suggesting to people to 'try' christianity, but had you been born not in Middlesborough but in Karachi, say, you would quite likely be imploring people to 'try' Islam now.

I agree that people searching for God are capable of inventing a God that reflects their own take on life, but the Christian God of the new testament has traits which go beyond human aspirations.  For example, who would be capable of inventing a God who commands us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us?

I don't see that teaching as being 'beyond human aspirations'.  All ideas are human in origin; ideas of non-human origin would be incomprehensible to us. That teaching is one that might inspire us to be better people, and as Gabriella alludes, it crops up as a golden rule in many religions; in Buddhism for instance, an atheist religion, it crops up hundreds of years before we find Jesus propounding it to sceptical Jews in Iron Age Judea.

[Dicky Underpants]

Wow, Dicky, thank you! You are yet another guy who seems to know a good deal more about Christianity than most others here.

Thanks, Leonard. I first came across Marcion in Prof. Hans Jonas' classic work on Gnosticism, decades ago. I thought him an interesting character, but even then thought he was just twisting things to make up a Jesus 'closer to his heart's desire'.
As a matter of interest, there is some debate that Marcion should be considered a Gnostic, as Rhiannon seems to suggest - and I think Alan (Alien) would agree with this (he's written a monograph on Gnosticism, apparently - perhaps he should put it online, so that we can all read it I totally disagree with Alan's evangelical Christianity, but I can't deny that he seems to be well-read). However, the Gnostics in general seemed to have agreed that their evil demiurge was effectively the same ignorant entity as the god of the OT.

[Dicky Underpants]

Of course I believe that God is "all good" as indicated throughout the Christian bible...

If you could jettison the OT you might stand a chance of making a plausible case for that. Unfortunately numerous passages in the OT portray God as a homicidal ultra violent monster, and ever since Marcion lost the argument Christendom has been stuck with that, unable to fully distance itself, even though it would prefer a wholesome loving God.

Marcion, though offering some interesting ideas, 'lost the argument' for very good reasons. His own version of the New Testament, though perhaps the first version we have of a NT 'canon', is also a very obvious early version of cherry-picking to suit what you want to believe about your God. In the first instance, it's all very well to decide which actual books should be represented in your collection, but when you start selecting only the 'nice' passages in the only gospel of which you really approve (in Marcion's case, Luke), then you've pretty well entered the area of making things up as you go along.
Marcion wasn't able to benefit from the methods of modern critical scholarship, which are able to provide reasonable guidelines for what Jesus may or may not have said, in a purely objective way. He was instead guided by a degree of gut-feeling and personal bias. Jesus sometimes appears as being a totally forgiving, loving chap, and suggests that we should turn the other cheek, and walk two miles with the bloke who asks us to walk just one mile with him etc. etc. There is of course another aspect to Jesus depicted in the NT, which suggest he thought God was in some ways as bad as he appears in the early part of the OT, and his own character in some places seems to reflect this violent, judgmental God. You can say "well, he can't have really said both things, because that's contradictory". And the evangelicals and the fundamentalists are keen to point out how these seeming contradictions can be reconciled. It is certainly difficult to reconcile them, and I see no reason to believe that all the sayings and deeds of Jesus in the NT are accurate reportage of the historical character.

However, Marcion's other great failing was his either/or attitude to the Old Testament. In much of the early part of the Pentateuch, God is portrayed as an absolute monster, however 'metaphorically' you read the text. But the OT, too is a huge compendium of differing ideas about God, and about what God supposedly requires of human beings. I refuse to accept that the God of Ecclesiastes is a 'monster' - in this practically 'Buddhist' text, God scarcely gets a look-in - he seems quite nebulous and conspicuous by his absence (In the book of Esther, of course, God is not mentioned at all). All three parts of Isaiah* depict God in different ways, but in general he seems much improved on the nasty war-monger who rampages through the Book of Joshua, or the vile homicidal sadist in Judges who still seems to be keen on human sacrifice.

By the time we get to the Book of Micah, God is almost altogether a reformed character, (apart from a few rumblings) and seems to me a rather superior to the God of Jesus, if you take all the gospels into consideration without 'cherry-picking'.

Marcion's work "The Antitheses" (of which we only know certain quoted passages) in which he outlines the differences between the two Testaments, seems to be a case of selective quotation of the most blatant and deceptive kind.

*Many scholars believe 'Isaiah' had a three-fold authorship.

Maybe you should take this up with Bash, he's a Marcionite fanboy, and it would be nice to see him engage with a substantive critique rather than getting drawn into endless tit for tat.

Yes, I know that - in fact, I've a feeling that it was me who first mentioned Marcion to him  - I think it was shortly after this forum first opened - or maybe it was even before that, on the Beeb forum or somewhere. I suggested he was 'a latter-day Marcionite'. The short reply came "DU - I'm no Marcionite". Subsequently, he's obviously read up a bit about Marcion, and decided that he's pretty much on his wavelength after all!
As for discussing the matter with him - after his recent 'performances', I really have no desire to debate anything at all with such a deeply unpleasant character.
I just thought I'd put up a few thoughts, because I find this OT/NT opposition extremely simplistic - even for a non-believer like me

[Dicky Underpants]

The Bible is not about male domination.  It is not about female suppression.  It is not about installing power structures.  It is not about the endorsement of slavery.  It is about the eternal salvation of the human soul.

I might go along with that, broadly.

But the fact that there are elements of the above entwined into it, are pointers to the fact that the bible is a collection of works by diverse human minds; there may be an overarching theme of the trajectory of ancient jewish thinking regarding Man and his relationship with God, but the diversity in the texts attests to the diversity of its human authorship.

A1 for that!

[Dicky Underpants]

Your post reminds me of a short text on a talk given by CS Lewis entitled "Fern Seed and Elephants".  He describes his experience as a writer having his work analysed by literary experts to discern the real hidden meanings in his books.  He discussed the matter with fellow authors and they found that the experts had used some very well thought out reasoning to discover the real meanings from their books, but in every case the experts were found to be 100% wrong in discerning any hidden meanings intended by the authors.  He goes on to say that if literary experts fail to do this with present day literature, what chance do they have of accurately discerning the real meanings behind texts which were written thousands of years ago?  He likens it to explorers who are so intent on discovering fern seeds in the undergrowth that the fail to see the elephant standing in front of them.

The Bible is not about male domination.  It is not about female suppression.  It is not about installing power structures.  It is not about the endorsement of slavery.  It is about the eternal salvation of the human soul.

My post was more about what I consider wrong about Marcion's approach. He seemed to think he knew who and what the 'real' Jesus was - ideas which when analysed seem more to do with selective quoting and his own personal preferences than anything else.
You seem to have homed in on my words about the approach of modern scholars to the 'historical Jesus' - at least I think that's what you're alluding to. Well, we certainly can't be sure, but there are a number of established criteria which can be used to sift through the swathes of often incomprehensible and sometimes contradictory texts.
No doubt you feel that the Gospels in particular, and perhaps the whole Bible have to be regarded as divinely inspired documents, whose meaning is only manifest to the totally believing Christian. Unfortunately, the supposed 'true meanings' of the texts in question often depend on which of the vast array of different Christian varieties and individual Christians that you ask.

[ippy]

I don't really have a problem with people like Alan that spend their lives standing on their heads, they all of them including Alan, I worry about them getting their misguided hands on our children; when you read our common history enough is enough, we don't need any of these divisive, superstitious, magical and mythical based stories inflicted on our future generations, don't humans find enough to fall out about without furthering these defunct, beyond their sell by date, rather simplistic beliefs.

I would have thought that Northern Island was a good example of how really useful religion is, enough to turn anybody off of the whole idea.

ippy