Prayers

Dunroamin

VestanPance wrote: »

That's true, at least Harry Potter wasn't written by convicted criminals!

I think that the idea that adults should find a children's book "inspirational" is quite ludicrous and says a great deal about the dumbing down of society.

heartbreak_star

I should note I also find the legends of the Celts, the Round Table and the Greek myths quite inspirational at times too.

Lots of things can be inspirational without being religious.

And why shouldn't children's books be inspirational? Isn't that how we should teach children - look what you can do if you try? Adults can take a lesson from that too.

HBS x

VestanPance

Dunroamin wrote: »

I think that the idea that adults should find a children's book "inspirational" is quite ludicrous and says a great deal about the dumbing down of society.

I'd say the same about anyone in this century still "believing/having faith" in religion.

VestanPance

The_Hurricane wrote: »

Let he (or she) who is without sin.....

You called? I have no sin, as I don't believe in the concept of sinning.

marisco_2

Dunroamin wrote: »

I think that the idea that adults should find a children's book "inspirational" is quite ludicrous and says a great deal about the dumbing down of society.

How so? There are superb works of fiction and non fiction that have been inspiring children for generations. That adults can appreciate and acknowledge the benefits of these has nothing to do with a dumbing down of society at all. Children are actively encouraged to read extensively in order to broaden their horizons and stretch their minds.

The_Hurricane

VestanPance wrote: »

You called? I have no sin, as I don't believe in the concept of sinning.

You've completely tied yourself in knots, then your point about those who wrote the bible is invalid if you don't believe in sin.

How long before Heartbreak likes your quote regardless of the fact it's a contradiction?

heartbreak_star

I liked it because I find it amusing

I don't believe in the bible or the teachings of Christianity so I don't really have a concept of sin either. I simply believe in not being @rses to each other - generally be nice and help those who can't help themselves etc. The "be a good person" values some would place with religion I place with common decency and sense.

What do you have against me personally as opposed to the other outspoken atheists on this thread? I'm confused!

HBS x

Tropez

heartbreak_star wrote: »

I think that's what I was trying to get across - I'm not comparing, I just find a lot of quotes from other books far more inspirational than the bible. I don't find the bible inspirational at all, in fact.

I thought the KJ translation wasn't an accurate one? My RE teachers at school seemed conflicted on this.

HBS x

There's problems with all translations; the KJV of the Bible included.

First, there's the problem that the Bible was written across multiple time periods, by multiple people, from multiple cultural backgrounds and who spoke multiple languages. While much of the Old Testament, for example, was written in Hebrew, some of the oldest parts were written in Greek, translated into Hebrew, then retranslated again into other languages. Invariably, things got lost in translation.

We also have to consider just how words change over time. An easy example in common parlance is the word "gay" - there are people alive today who would not have originally associated that word with homosexuality and it is extremely recently that the word's primary meaning has changed to refer to a homosexual. Now think back 100, 200, 300 years and go through the various meanings of words. The foulest of the four-letter c-words used to be considered relatively harmless and is in fact used in classical literature that is not otherwise littered with profanity.

English isn't the only language affected by this. Hebrew is too, and Greek, and Latin, and many of the other "original" languages of the Bible. There then comes the further problem that when it was translated into Germanic languages certain words that were present in it, the Germanic languages had no sufficient equal. The word "hell" used in post-Lutheran translations of the Bible, including the KJV, apparently refers to three entirely different things. There are several instances of words used in KJV that have completely different meanings to us now and in some cases had completely different meanings to people back then, and thus skew people's interpretations.

The KJV also uses translations from multiple sources, some of these sources disagreed with the translations from other sources used in the KJV and what information they had available to them was quite difficult to work with and at times very scrappy.

And the KJV was compiled at a time when finding people who were actually able to make any sort of sense of this mess of translations, retranslations and re-retranslations was a challenge in itself.

System

There's problems with all translations; the KJV of the Bible not withstanding.

I use the NIV personally.

heartbreak_star

Thanks Tropez, that does make sense.

Judi - that was what caused the argument between my teachers - I think (it was a while ago ) one used KJV and one NIV. Confused the daylights out of the students...

HBS x