How many virgins are on Earth right now?

Book of Revelations:

14:2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
14:3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
14:4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins...



Um, okay... so at the time of the world's demise, only 144,000 men have never done it. I don't get it... well, obviously, but that's another story...

wouldnt gay men who have never slept with women qualified for not defiled with women?

:)

I do know the Bible, like most religions, has a considerable amount of contradictions. (Especially between the Bible's own Old Testament and New Testament).

The only way to know the absolute truth is to find those who wrote the original texts and ask them point blank. Anything else is conjecture, or modification of the original texts -- either accidental due to improper reading of the texts and/or inadequate comprehension of the languages being translated... or malicious intent/political gain/money/booze/you-name-it.

Indeed, the 10 Commandments alone offer years' worth of discussion when compared with later passages; even within other chapters of the Old Testament.

That's when it's usually preferable to find philosophical meanings rather than purportedly literal translations. Even in the most inaccurate of passages, an alternate philosophical belief could present itself. And even then it still depends on who wrote the original texts, how they were translated, and the thoughts of the people who did the translating. (We both know the truth re: Sodom and Gomorrah; it was about selfishness and greed as being the motivators for God's wrath -- not homosexuality as some would erroneously claim it to be. And to venture outside the box, the original settlers of those two cities may merely have parked on an area next to an area destined to become volcanic thanks to natural geological movements - and *poof* - the cities' inhabitants became toast; whomever opted to write that chapter in Genesis deciding to make a political jibe out of it.)

Yes, texts get mistranslated, but we don't lose the originals. We still have those.

Oh, do tell. You're right that the discussions could last years, but before we start: have you read the Talmud? 'Cause if you haven't, then you aren't really prepared to have a knowledgeable discussion.


First of all, the absolute truth of what? Second of all, have you ever studied eyewitness testimony? We don't even have the absolute truth about the Kennedy assassination and there were hundreds of witnesses many of whom are still alive today.

Almost none of what we know about anything prior to around 300-400 CE comes from direct eyewitness testimony, yet you yourself are probably full of "facts" about people like Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar, etc.

Post-modernism isn't cool when it is an apologetic for ignorance of the source material.

:hi:

:shrug:

Too many freakin' literalists on this planet. It really means....way too many men have never done it.

Not when Adam and Eve made Cain and Abel, Cain kills Abel, and then magically come next chapter we've got a whole human civilization. Uh, who made all the extra humans? Adam and Eve really got busy? Or if Cain could kill, there's not much he probably wouldn't do...

I am a Literalist -- in the sense that this stuff just cannot be believed literally; it's too asinine. Not when we have 6 billion people + on this planet and not even 150k haven't done the horizontal toaster yet! No amount of faith makes sense out of those bits...

"The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible" by AJ Jacobs. I cannot wait to read it!

They're put into the key texts to ensure the reader has the requisite degree of mental sluggishness and unquestioning credulity to believe the really big whoppers that form the core of the faith. If, for example, you read the Bible and find yourself saying, "WTF? Swallowed by a whale? And then barfed up whole? Really?" then you're not ideal Christian material. If, however, you think, "It could totally happen that someone can instantly transfrom tapwater into Manechewitz and feed 50,000 people with one Happy Meal and a half-box of Twinkies," then all the virgin birth, death and resurrection business is easy to swallow.

:rofl:


Daintily put. :D

144,000 is a Gematrial number representing the perfection of mankind.

The reference to being a virgin is symbolic of the idea that these elect lived without compromise and did not allow rules of social familialization pressure them to acquiesce to the status quo.

Of course, understanding the mindset of first-century mystics requires reading actual books and would cut into the time you spend honing sardonic pop-culture-referencing put-downs of things that you don't understand.

The story of Jonah tell us that 1) we must follow the calling of our hearts and 2) we are not the arbiters of God's judgments. And yes, if some people think that they can determine who's "in" or "out" with God, then they are not, in fact, ideal Christian material.

Rabbi Hillel famously observed that only children and imbeciles interpret scripture literally. If you read the allegory of Jonah and the fish (the Hebrew — which I'm willing to bet you can't read — says, "large fish" not "whale") and just see a story about a guy getting eaten by a whale, then you must be one or the other.

...and repurposed legends from just about every culture the ancient Hebrews came in contact with. The "mystics" you speak of leavened it with a hefty dose of numerology and included whatever stories would appease whoever was in power at any given time. It's a wonder the Book is as coherent as it is (even though that isn't saying much).

I'm well aware that Jonah was swallowed by a "large fish" in the original (and have a fair idea in which cultures the fish story originated before it was "borrowed"). The Virgin Mary was also "a young girl" rather than a virgin. But being the big reader I'm sure you are, you knew that too. There have been reams of paper written about this Greek word vs. that Aramaic one vs. the other Hebrew one. And of course there were the compromises made at Nicea and by King James' crew. But so what? If the Book is meant to be some kind of spritiual rorschach test, meaning whatever the reader wants it to mean, one fable is as good as another, right?

If the Bible was simply a work of allegory and symbolic moral lessons, it would be harmless and I would have no issue with it. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the American public (and a goodly number of people elsewhere) fall into the category you label "imbeciles," and take the Book's prescriptions as (pardon the pun) gospel. In it's literal capacity, the Bible has enormous capacity for causing harm (as has proven to be the case for much of the past 2,000 years), so you'll excuse me if I don't share your opinion of it's positive spiritual value. This world would, in all probability, be a much better place if the thing had never been compiled.

Rabbi Hillel was one of the wiser men of the 1st Century. Unfortunately, in the centuries that followed, his kind of wisdom has proved a rare commodity indeed.

Ah, the "if you can interpret it, it could mean anything," canard.

There are disagreements over what certain parts of the Bible mean, but when you eliminate the many uninformed opinions, they don't really vary all that much. It's really not that hard to figure out the message of, for example, Jonah; even people who believe that it is literally true can agree on the gist of the story with people who don't. Other things require a deeper understanding of the culture which produced them.

One school of thought on Revelation was that it was written by people at the end of the first century for people of the first century and everything it talked about has already happened. But people love mystical writings (also see Ezekial) because they can act like a "spritiual rorschach test," but by and large there is nothing particularly puzzling or mysterious about the content of the Bible, if you have sufficient background to understand the context.


Attacking ideas is so much easier than opposing people. The idea that society can be fixed by removing harmful ideas is the brainchild of every would-be fascist. "Oh, if only Marx hadn't written the Communist Manefesto, Stalin and Mao wouldn't have killed tens of millions of people." Stalin and Mao didn't need the Communist Manefesto to do what they did any more than they needed the Bible. All they needed was the human desire to exert ruthless control and an industrialized society to facilitate that control.

People who want to control the availability of ideas have proven much more dangerous than any idea that's ever sprung from the human mind. It's why we have a First Amendment.

You might want to add that to your reading list.

...so I'm not quite sure what your little First Amendment dig is supposed to mean. I simply believe that the book has attained a prominence unwarranted by its intrinsic qualities. It is, to paraphrase Robin Lane Fox, an "authorized" version, culled from a far wider range of texts, most of which were subsequently forgotten or suppressed. Those that have come to us as canon are inevitably skewed to reflect the political or cultural goals of the people who compiled them. In that sense, the Bible does represent the concerns of not only the 1st Century AD, but also the 8-6th Centuries BC and the 4th Century AD (with a little seasoning from the early 17th).

The historical ruthlessness with which this canon was enforced for the better part of two millenia weighs very heavily against the Bible's claim to be a spiritual text (unless one's preferred flavor of spirituality runs to the worship of evil). It has been and still is an instrument of political control in a way that Mein Kampf or Capital never were, if for no other reason than that the latter two books couldn't claim to be the Divine word of an infallible God. No amount of putting oneself in the mindset of 1st Century mystics will change that. In fact, I'm willing to bet those mystics would've been the first to put a torch to the work if they'd been able to foresee it's future application.

I think that the Jews who died in the Holocaust were unaware that their holy books were "an instrument of political control." Not a very effective instrument. Perhaps they forgot to exercise the "historical ruthlessness" that had previously been used to enforce "the canon."

As far as Christian Scriptures go, none of them claim to be the "Divine word of an infallible God." They are merely attempts to document history as best as it was remembered, record the wisdom of Rabbi Jesus and explain to various groups of people how they could adopt Christianity. Anyone who claims that the "new testament" is the "Divine word of an infallible God" hasn't read it any more than you have.

A lot of the 1st century mystics didn't want any of this written down in the first place. Then again, if you had a religion with a prime directive of "love one another," would you be worried about it falling into the wrong hands some time in the future?

What I really find amusing is how quickly you backed off this bullshit:

It's like a guy at a party telling his white friends about how black people are all on welfare, and then a black guy walks up and suddenly, it's all, "(cough) well, there's certainly a cycle of (cough) poverty... that um (cough) has... er... affected minority... I mean, African-American, demographics... and well, I was just, um, pointing out... that... erm... historically, you see." Except you have the luxury of running off to Wikipedia between outbursts.

You've been pwned.

When you can't get away with tacitly calling me a fascist, you settle for an oblique charge of racism. It's been some time since I've experienced a degree of intellectual dishonesty to equal yours. As for the Jews and the Holocaust, perhaps you'd care to cast your attention a bit closer to the present if you'd like to see religious authority and exceptionalist doctrine being used in the interests of social control. Or you could just ask any random Palestinian.

To be clear, I stand by exactly what I said in my original post. The Bible is a book of fairytales; the same mix of mumbo jumbo and snake oil religious hucksters have relied upon since time immemorial. Those who need such mystical support in their lives are welcome to it, but shouldn't expect to be taken seriously.

But this is simply a waste of time. To an insulting, snide, and pompous idealogue, any counterargument is just noise. So I won't waste my breath any further.

Now I've got tea all over my monitor.

Yeah, that's right... all those Palestinians need to do is convert to Judaism and everything will be just fine. The fact that they're still Arabs won't mean a thing. :rofl: (Edit) Oh yeah, and Israel is a secular democracy.

So, you're standing by your claim that people who don't take Jonah literally are not fit to be Christians? :spray: Gee, Professor, that's in no way insulting to a great many people on DU.

And calling a book you haven't read and obviously don't understand a "mix of mumbo jumbo and snake oil religious hucksters have relied upon since time immemorial" is not a "counterargument." Brain-dead straw man misrepresentations of a major world religion propped up for the sole purpose of your masturbatory satire also do not qualify as a "counterargument." Sorry, but Anne Coulter has a patent on the use of the arguments "nuh-uh" and "'cause I said so."

Don't forget to stomp your feet purposefully as you storm out in righteous — I say, righteous — indignation.

And don't forget to yell "no true Scotsman!" — it's part of the ritual.

Pwned. :rofl:

Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

vestal virgins leaving for the coast.

:D and I am proud of that...

:P