Spider>

Any man familiar with the desert can survive as long as he wishes.

The desert is full of water and food if you but know where to look.

invisible,

Interpretation is an attempt to see what the original intent of the
scripture was, so it is very possible to be wrong. Unless one looks at
the original language and views a scripture through a lens of the whole
of the Bible, it is very likely that one will be wrong.

AdventureBegins,

The Bible does not state that Jesus was a survivalist, it does however
state that he fasted (ie didn't eat food) for fourty days and nights in
the desert.

Spider, It's still MY interpretation, you don't expect of a sad Panda,
not able to drink milk, and even less able to eat meat,
to read all the scriptures in a time when God is out there in nature,
and when I find it more desirable to meet him there and talk to him in
my heart?

fasting is the act of not eating or drinking or placing unclean things
within your body during the time the sun is up.

He could have eaten and drank at night and still fasted.

religion : just another reason to hate others

as if we need any more reasons.

oh wait, but do it all lovingly.

AdventureBegins,

Dude, stop it. First, that's the Muslim version of fasting. Second,
the scripture says that he didn't eat anything, day or night, for 40
days.

Spider what does it say about water?

If interpretation is necessary than the book was not written for our
time.

I refuse to beleive that.

Read it.

Live it.

Intrepreting it is but a vain imagining and puts one in the realm of
speaking falsely.

The holy spirit needs not the book for it is the word of god.

I am unfamiliar with the bible as it is interpreted by the churches
erected in its shadow. Edifices of cut stone. This I do not
understand. God is in all things. Should you cut upon the stone to
shape it for your purposes you have removed from it a part of the
essence of God. How then can you claim that the building so erected is
the house of God when you have removed part of him from it with your
tools and your self-pride.

Differentkindofwench,

Nothing, so I assume he might have had water. I know, I earlier said
"without food or water", but it appears that he might have had water.
So I will choose to add nothing to the scriptures and state matter of
factly that I don't know if he had water or not.

i love sitting back and watching beliefs on religion clash.

everyone knows the right religion , and follows the right gods etc

and if you dont believe them , well then you better watch out.

first comes the debates, then the arguments, then the physical side.

so what has religion taught me?

nothing.

unless you count , hate, anger, childishness, arguing, frustration,
dispair, etc

I dont care what religion is correct. all I know is none of them accept
this behavior.

and i dont mean the people in this thread. I am speaking in general.

Spider wrote:
“What's interesting is that Abra and AdventureBegins freely admit that
they don't read the Bible, so why would anyone believe that they could
offer accurate commentary on the Bible?”

This isn’t exactly true. There was a time when I was an extremely
devout Christian. I went to the altar whilst the choir sand “Just as I
am” and I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Almost everyone
in my family was a devout Christian, and there was nothing plastic about
them at all. They were very sincere about it, not hypocritical, and
certainly not pushy or fantastical about it. They were very meek.

Two of my Uncles where actual preachers. I decided that I too wanted to
become a preacher and preach the word of God. With this in mind I began
to study the Bible intently. After all, if I was going to teach the
word I wanted to be able to answer any question that anyone might ask.
So I asked the tough questions, not to attack my very own religion, but
rather to understand the answers. After all, if God is rational and the
Bible is God’s word then surely there should be rational answers in the
Bible to all my questions.

Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. Every time I asked a
question I would come away with more questions instead of clear-cut
rational answers. I finally realized that I cannot possible teach the
Bible because I can’t honestly answer the questions that people will
naturally ask about it. Moreover, it struck me like a ton of bricks
that if I can’t honestly teach this religion to other people then why
the hell am I believing in it myself.

That was just the start of my spiritual journey. Once I realized that
the Bible was not of God but was instead written by men who has various
motives it began to make perfect sense. In fact, it made such perfect
sense that it was crystal clear to me that this is indeed what it must
be.

Fortunately I went own to find god without having to lock myself into
any doctrines.

So whilst it may be true that I no longer read the Bible today, and
haven’t read it in many year, there was a time when I studied it
intensely as a believe of GREAT FAITH. I sincerely believed that it
was the word of God at that time. But it fell flat on its own face when
I turned to it for answers.

And yes, the moral teachings of Jesus were just fine. But they are not
unique, those same morals have been taught by many sages and
philosophers throughout the ages. Also, there are no writings in the
Bible from Jesus. Jesus was not an author of the Bible. All
references, and ‘quotes’ of Jesus are hearsay written by men who clearly
misunderstood him and who already had a preconception of what God was
supposed to be like.

So while I don’t read the Bible today, I had studied it in great detail
many years ago. And while I may not be a Christian today, I had been a
devout Christian at one point in my life too. I used to sit around the
campfire at night with my uncles as they played their guitars. My
favorite song was “The Old Rugged Cross”. And people would often ask
me to sing it.

I still admire the sacrifice that Jesus made in the name of brotherly
love. But I no longer see him as the one and only incarnation of a
separate godhead. I simply no longer view god in that way. That
doesn’t lessen what Jesus did. On the contrary it heightens it. He
stood for brotherly love.

If only the world could have learned that lesson, instead of viewing him
as their meal ticket to get into heaven.

I simply could not get into preaching the latter. I believe that misses
the point entirely.

Spider, thank you for answering the water question.

Adventure Begins, are there certain dessert plants that contain
nutritional value as well as liquid?

invisible,

Please, read the Bible if you want or don't. I'm just saying that
someone who doesn't know the scriptures shouldn't be writing commentary
on scripture. I can't do anything to stop someone from doing that, but
it is an ignorant thing to do. If someone asks "What do Buddists think
of X" or "What does the Koran say about Y", I won't answer, because I
think it is rude and presumptuous.

Also, "sad panda" is a reference to a South Park episode. I didn't mean
it as an insult. I added it because I assumed (I know, shouldn't
assume) that you would be familiar with the episode and realize that
what I was saying was good natured and I didn't mean any insult.

AidenBowers
“and i dont mean the people in this thread. I am speaking in general.”

Thank you Aiden. You’re points are well taken and appreciated.

There are many desert plants that contain liquid which is sustaining.

Most plants in the desert hold water. When it rains they soak it up and
store it in their fibers.

How long a person could live on just the liquid I do not know.

Most of the time you get the liquid by placing the pulp of the plant in
your mouth and chewing it. Some plants the water is bitter from the
nutrients added by the plant. From some it is sweet.

Adventure Begins - Thanks for that answer. So can we at least agree
Jesus could easily have been in human form and survived in the dessert?

That he could.