The Bible A-Z

But surely, turning an 'M' into an 'L' is less difficult than turning water to whine...

Turning whine into wine, now there's a trick!

you've obviously never been to a basic white girl bachelorette party. It's not that hard.

Apparently ignorance of what's contained in the most influential book ever written is a good thing, I guess?

Many Atheists, like myself, have read the bible and know more about it than many christians. Being proud of not knowing something is just dumb, you don't have to believe in it to learn about it.

I didn't say anything in it was true. I said it was the most influential book ever written, so people who strive to be educated should have some idea what's in it, or, at the very least, should not celebrate being ignorant of what's in it.

Ah, the old Pascal's Wager. Truly a classic. Here are some reasons why we "gamble" thus:Which belief system is the "right" one? You can't pick all of them, and for any one you pick there are many others that say you're going to hell for that choice.I can't force myself to believe in something I don't.I don't think that, if there is a God, they would be fooled by me paying lip service with no actual faith backing it up just to hedge my bets against going to hell.Any god that would be fooled by that is either incredibly shallow and only cares about surface-level praise, or is pretty incompetent. Neither way really feels worthy of worship.

+the possibility of a god who rewards an honest disbelief and punishes dishonest belief forces you to not belief if you simply don't belief

+ the mather of principle that a god who forces you to belief with the punishment of eternal damnation if you don't and doesn't look at you actions or how you lived your life, is a dictatorial god who isn't worth worshipping

Ironically @devantilya, the 'legitimate' translations you've read are literally vulgar. As in, translated into your language (aka a vernacular, instead of Latin etc). Etymologically the root of vulgar means common. A lot of Christians were burned, tortured, and killed by other Christians for translating the Christian bible into vulgar languages that common people could understand -- instead of allowing scriptural literacy and interpretation to be monopolised by the clergy and edu-ma-cated elites. One guy's bones were dug up and thrown into a river decades after he died because people were still upset. So yeah, no shame in vulgarity as far as I can see. Snobbery and prudishness strike me as odd vestments for a slave liberation religion.

Christianity isn't a slave liberation religion.

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified." Isaiah 61:1-3, quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:18

Same! I thought it was spelled the same way!

In French, we say Mathusalem, but it's in French ;).

Not in English, but most continental languages have Mathusalem, Metuzalem or something similar. It's probably from the Latin translation

That must be why the 5 points I got registered as new. Was there no X answer before?

I'm not English mother-tongue, but why fishermen is not correct?

for everybody that knows what they're talking about, the Sabbath is Saturday. Always has been. Though Sabbath now is sometimes used to refer to Sunday because at some point some Christians got confused and mixed up The Lord's Day with the Sabbath, even though it's super clear even from Christians' own stories that these are two distinct and different days, Jesus rising from the dead 3 days after the day before the Sabbath, in other words on Sunday.

Christians, Mormons, Hindus, Jains, Scientologists...

My word choice above might be potentially confusing. Jesus rose "on the third day," not "three days later." So.. on the first day he was crucified (Friday), on the second day he was in the tomb (Saturday, the Sabbath, the reason why they had to cut him down and get him buried in a hurry so they wouldn't break the Sabbath), on the third day he rose (Sunday, the day after the Sabbath).