"bubba, they ain't there." great story. it's called the little engine that could. anyway, if what the bible says is actually true (which i doubt but whatever) and snakes actually did have legs, why would god take them away when it was lucifer who took the form of a snake? the snakes did nothing wrong yet they are to suffer for lucifer's deceit. what's up with that?

To me, the bible needs to stop being taken literally. The bible is much like a book of fairy tales and fables that have lessons to go live by as opposed to taken to heart literally. The stories in it are extremely overexaggerated to prove a point and to make the reader learn a life lesson, any more than that is just overkill. Who knows, the bible may well have once been a fictional book much like good old L Ron Hubbard, only to later be made into a relgious symbol. Just a possibility.

Lessons to live by, you say?

OK, I'm going to go start a genocide against homosexuals, feminists (actually, women in general), animals with cloven hooves (including rabbits), political dissidents, anybody who as ever called another person "fool", ... Yeah, I'm not going to go on; it's just too easy.

The Christian holy text has nothing of merit concerning morals that you cannot find on your own with a bit of introspection and thought, and most of the morals it does speak of that you won't find via introspection are convoluted and questionable, at best, and downright criminal, at worst (slavery and how to treat slaves, for example).

The primitive snakes (pythons and boa constrictors) have vistigial nub-like legs beneath their skin (small half-inch nubs that protrude from where they used to have a hip). They are no longer legs but rather a remnant of upper-leg (thigh or femur) bones that used to be there. Scientists believe the legs were lost during their transition to land.

Read a science book or a reputable and properly sourced science article.
Whether or not you believe the Bible story... you should believe scientific research and fossil histories.

There are other reasons why God may have cursed the snake:

1.) The snake would be a forever symbolic reminder of the Fall
-It would be a constant reminder that man was to have dominion over the animals and yet he was led astray by an animal.

2.) The snake would be a symbolic reminder of Satan's future destruction
-forshadowing to what God planned for Satan's demise - a prophecy

Genesis 3:15 - 'he [the woman's seed] (Christ) will crush your head (the snake/Satan) and you will strike his heel (the crucifixion of Christ).'

-the physical curse upon the snake is reflective upon the curse upon Satan - another example

Note: God has the right to curse an animal in a specific way due to the sin of another. He did that very thing in regard to Adam's sin. When Adam sinned and threw all of creation into chaos, God cursed the ground so that it produced thorns. Was the ground to blame? Was it actually guilty? No, but it was rightly punished due to the sin of another and is a symbolic reminder to us of that very sin.

Think about those answers from those sources. ^^
If you'd like, I can check my college Herpetology book. Its 2 years old, but I'm sure the information relative to this thread hasn't changed. However, I do know that not too long ago they found a snake fossil that did have legs.

Quote by IronSerpentLessons to live by, you say?

OK, I'm going to go start a genocide against homosexuals, feminists (actually, women in general), animals with cloven hooves (including rabbits), political dissidents, anybody who as ever called another person "fool", ... Yeah, I'm not going to go on; it's just too easy.

The Christian holy text has nothing of merit concerning morals that you cannot find on your own with a bit of introspection and thought, and most of the morals it does speak of that you won't find via introspection are convoluted and questionable, at best, and downright criminal, at worst (slavery and how to treat slaves, for example).

Whoa cool out there chief. I'll be honest, I really don't know all the ins and outs to the bible, I am merely referring to the most well known stories of the bible. Being swallowed by a whale, the Garden of Eden so on and so forth.

I agree that most morals can be learned through simple thought and upbringing. But some of those morals are taught via the bible to children and many of them become better people for those lessons. I mean don't those Veggie Tales stories exist as a way of retelling some of those stories to children, to help them learn good lessons? That's what I'm getting at.

Besides, we don't need to worry about homosexuals, feminists or political dissidents... it's Canadians we need to worry about. Psst... their hiding snow tanks.

ha. veggie tales. i haven't seen that in more than 15 years. and don't forget man, canadians can sharpen up their ice skatees, too. hahaha.

Shoujoboy

I had a rather lengthy response written out about various tools used for "teaching" morals, kids being raised by society and kids learning one thing in Sunday school and another during the week from their parents, but MT ate it... Considering the time it took, I've more important things to do than rewrite it, so I'll leave you with only the closing thought I had, instead:

If your neighbor is a murderer, but you don't know it, does that make your neighbor innocent?
If your neighbor is a murderer, you know he is, but you ignore it, does that make you innocent?

When you say "we can use this part, but not that part" you are simply saying, "we will listen to words, not actions."

The fact of the matter is, your god has killed more people than your ultimate evil.

You are listening to the silken words of your god instead of looking at its actions. As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

If your neighbor gives a seminar about love and peace, but then goes home and beats his child and wife, is he a man of love and peace? Absolutely not.

*sighs* Considering how often I lose responses to MT, I think I'll start copying them and pasting them into a text editor before attempting to submit. Or, perhaps, it would be better to simply make the response in a text editor to begin with.

Whoa whoa, again chill out. First let's get one thing straight, we aren't talking about MY God. I'm agnostic, so I can't believe in any kind of God that cannot be scientifically proven. Trust but verify. I don't believe in the Christian god, or at least that is to say his existance hasn't been proven enough for me to believe in it. To me it's clear that you have a staunch hatred of Christianity. I share your feelings to an extent. I have a terrible relationship with Christianity and the people who follow it. My grandparents were so called Christians and they condemned not only my father but myself to hell becasue of the lifestyles we enjoy. When I returned from Afghanistan, it wasn't "so good to see you safe grandson", I was instead preached at about how if I don't find my way with the lord, I was doomed to hell and that my next trip there might not be so safe.

But my point still stands. The bible can be a useful tool in teaching morality to children. Going into the horrors of the bible or revelations with children is irresponsible. That type of thing was used on me as a child and all it did was scare the hell out of me. But some of the stories within can be used to teach lessons that are invaluable to a childs morality. These lessons learned can be kept throughout life, much like a fairy tale or something to the likes of Aesop's fables. That is the point I've attempted to get across, and if at this point you fail to see that, then I fear your hatred of religion has blinded your simple sense of logic.

I hold an abhorrence of all religion, not just Christianity -- there is not, in my mind, a single religion worth praise or even recognition.

I understand (and have understood) what you are saying, but what I am saying is that I strongly disagree with you.

One should not use a religious text (any, be it the Christian bible, the Koran or other religious holy texts) because of what they are.

Whether they have "virtue" in them or not is irrelevant. What fool would let a pedophile teach their child about sex? What fool would let an abuser teach their child about safety?

The point I am trying to make is, if you use a religious holy text to teach morals and virtue, then the child will come to believe that the text is something to live by. Unless you teach that child that the book is ONLY a book, and contains as much (and often far more) bad than it does good, the child risks learning as much ill as they do good from it.

Even if you go out of your way to ensure the child knows that the book is something to be cautious over, what sort of example are you (a general "you", as I've been using, and not a specific "you" as in "you, shoujoboy") setting by using a book that preaches slavery and genocide alongside peace and forgiveness?

When the lesson comes from a person who is saying to do good, while the actions of that person are anything but good, the lesson is coming from one who will corrupt far more than they will help. Unless you (again, a general use of "you") can somehow prevent the child from reading the less-than-good parts (likely impossible) then saying "this person/book is good to learn from" is setting the child up to learn the evil, as well.

You (once again, this is a GENERAL use of the word) cannot separate a whole such as these. "Do what I say, not what I do" means nothing to a child.

Whether the book has good in it or not is irrelevant; the good stands alongside the bad, the same as if a philanthropic person were caught participating in a murder. The good and the bad stand side-by-side, and cannot be separated just because you (general) want it to be.

Edit :: To clarify, I understand what you are saying, that religious texts /do/ actually have stories with good morals in them. However, I feel that using those stories is no different than letting, in an earlier example, a pedophile teach your child about sex.

Religious texts have such hatred and evil in them, condoned and lead by the deities they follow, that using the "good" stories to teach a child far too risky because of how easy it would be to reach the evil in the books.

I would defintely agree with how such information in the bible is taught. Teaching outright religion to children is wrong, in my opnion of course. Religion can be taught much to the same tune as something like racism. If someone bore the thought that "black people are dirty, they will steal from you and murder you, stay away from them" into a childs head all the way until adulthood, you'd be hard pressed to change their mind. To me it's unfair to put that kind of thought into a childs head as it puts them at an intellectual disadvatage later on in life.

While the vast majority of my family tree is Southern Baptist, I was raised in a house where I was left to find my way. Sure, my father would take me to church if I asked or let me go to whatever religious establishment I chose to, but he let me discover truths for myself. If I questioned the teachings I wasn't greeted with condemnation, but instead with discussion and debate. These things have helped me in determining truths, morality and other such things on my own.

It's ultimately up to parents to guide children on the correct path to morality. But with many things with children, outright talking about something may prove difficult. Parents sometimes use tools at their disposal that can teach these lessons so that a child may more easily understand it. Whether you approve of the medium is irrelevant, they can use certain bible stories to assist. I do agree that there is a fine line between teaching morality using the bible, and outright teaching the bible as a holy text.

I sense that we are both on a similar wavelenght, but all in all it may just be that we are at an impasse. Do you think at this point we have provided enough entertainment and banter for the MT crowd to enjoy?

I do agree that we have similar feelings on teaching a holy text, just that I desire to take it further than do you.

I also agree we should drop this. It is quite obvious that we both feel similarly, but I feel the need to omit the texts entirely, whereas you feel lessons can still be learned from them. Though we disagree, we are both, in our own rights, correct.

Were I to teach in your style, it would likely fail miserably, just as, I suspect, you would were you to try and teach in mine.

Let us put this aside. Be Well.

hahah. i think we don't need holy texts to tell us how to live a good life. isn't that what parents are for?