Religion Are Christians believing in life outside Earth compatible?

Oh my! Is being a Liberal Good? Like the one's that gave us Jimma and Barrack?
I can't find any reference to the Bibles position on Life else where either, please don't tell me I am now liberal!
Oh well.

 

I meant a liberal interpretation of Christianity, not politics, and I wasn't inferring anything about the thread topic.

Although I would say that a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 strongly implies the Earth is the focus of all of creation, so a strict literalist fundy can't really be blamed for concluding that "souls" equal to humans can't exist elsewhere.

 

The earliest books of the Bible or the Torah were probably written by men even earlier than the Hebrew Rabbis that wrote the later books in the old testement.
Interesting stuff, but I don't think there is any reason that a truly modern Christian would need to accept the Book of Genesis as the Gospel truth. I don't and I doubt
Jericho fell into a heap of rubble just because a few Jews were traipsing around the place. That story may just be a story told by a Rabbi to emblish the power of his God,
perhaps he had an agenda to work that day.

 

This is OT but I don't see how allowing that for the Torah doesn't open up the entire Bible including the Gospels to similar criticism.

 

If you feel the need to be critical of the books that give us the teachings of Jesus, go ahead. I don't find anything to bitch about.

 

What is eternal 'life'? And where exactly is it's existance?

I think that answers your question. They believe.

 

Oh touché!

 

I said nothing about the philosophical value of the teachings of Jesus. The point was if the Torah was not "inspired" and was embellishment based on the whim of the authors the same could apply to any part of the bible.

 

double post

 

Not to my way of thinking. The old testament the Torah, shows us the origin and the way it was, that sorely needed improvement. The new testament is about teach us the improvements needed. The whole idea of that section is that it was indeed inspired by Jesus irrespective of whether the old testament was inspired by God or not. I suppose that question is for the Jews to answer, I don't see the need for a Christian to be concerned with the issue or the answer.

 

i guess if you believe in the bible more than you believe in god?

 

Im not a christian so this is my opinion. But generally I think that religion is threatened by the possibility of life on other plants and how it might effect their followers and belief system here. I find that religions in general are not really open to new ideas and fear change. However if life was to be discovered on another plant I think all the religions would find a way to accept it and adapt it into their current belief system. First question I would ask intelligent life though is what is your belief system. If they follow something similar to earth it could give lots of validity to our current religions.

I tend to think all the life in the universe is connected and the origins of life on one plant can be traced (after evolution) to a comment or other celestial body carrying microbes from a land far far away. When those microbes find the right conditions they flourish and create life adapted to their environment. Maybe its just a nice thought that every living thing in our reality and beyond is linked together is some web of life type way. That also doesn't answer the question of where did it start?

 

You just implied it doesn't, at least not reliably.

Again I'm talking about historicity, not philosophical inspiration. By not inspired I mean God was not actually there guiding/overseeing the author's intent or accuracy. For example if God was not weeding out agenda-based embellishment by the authors of the OT, which you say might be present in the Torah, why is the NT necessarily any more reliable in that regard?

 

Well it seems to me the NT teaching is consistent, and good. Nobody says they were inspired by God, we know they were written by the disciples of Jesus. I see no agenda other than teaching
the message of Jesus. Can't say that about the OT and in many cases the message there is what Jesus said needed to change, like stoning people. There seems to be an obvious difference
between the messages of the OT and the NT. Perhaps not the message in the OT but the practices under Hebrew law. The NT does seem to be inspired, where the OT in many cases seems to be somewhat of a documentation of the old way, and the things that needed to be changed.

When I said , perhaps there was and agenda influencing the OT in some places, I don't know that, it just seems possible. I don't not get that impression from the New Testament, only one agenda involved, the teachings of Jesus on how to improve the world of men.

 

See this is what I'm talking about... If everyone followed the textbook, then advancements can't be made. Instead, you use the first "law or whatever" as the foundation, then build on it. It would be no different than the Constitution... It's a living rule that can evolve as time evolves. I don't expect many to "change the bible", but apply the teachings and principles to the modern era.

 

You mean apply the principals of the modern era (modern morality and science) to the teachings of the Bible, which is in fact what you're doing.

 

If that's what you want it to mean

 

What is modern morality?