And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. (Matt 15:34-38)
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I always laugh at these Bible illustrations. Love how they’re handing out whole raw fishes to the crowd. Really, they didn’t prepare them before the miracle multiplication? Must have been stinky.
Since they’re not right on the coast, any fish the disciples had with them would have been dried, smoked, or salted- probably whole, just gutted.
If you think about it, it promotes cloning.
And bioengineering.
And plagiarism.
If you think about it, it promotes cloning. And bioengineering.
It always puzzled me that they don’t actually say the food multiplied in any way. Maybe the disciples just walked around with the crumbs and people pretended to be eating, and were “satisfied” through their own power of delusion, much as people are “healed” by preachers today.
That may be in another gospel, idk. I wonder if he could do long division though…
One interpretation is that many of the people actually had food, but were not looking to share it with others. When the crowd saw that Jesus was offering to share the little he had collected – rather than keep it to himself and his disciples, others began to share what they had as well. With everyone taking just a bit and no one hording, there turned out to be plenty enough food in the crowd to give everyone a bite (remember it was only one meal).
Many of my more conservative colleagues would consider that interpretation blasphemy – but there are Christians that are level headed and realistic as well. We just don’t try to push our beliefs on others or go on TV with ridiculous claims about “the inerrant word of God”. Its a book of strories and lessons to learn from – not absolute facts
Ummm – sharing isn’t really much of a “miracle.”
One interpretation … is that it’s all basically rubbish and that the inspired word of god is just stuff made up as we go along.
Do you believe that the story of Jesus is just that, a story wih lessons but not a fact, or does your “interpretation” not go that far as you’ve already stated that the Bible is not a book of facts?
“but there are Christians that are level headed and realistic as well”
Matthew 14:22-33 (New International Version)
25During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
31Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
DM – do you doubt that Jesus walked on water?
I’m not a Christian, but I am a software developer, and please don’t try to legitimize piracy with a ‘Jesus did it’ argument. The major problem comes from the fact that it takes en enormous amount of time and effort to create the software you use. We, as software developers, have to eat and pay rent like everyone else. The ethic of “everyone gets it for free” doesn’t work for us because it means we end up either having to work for your benefit (and you don’t give back to us, meaning we can’t be properly compensated for our work or pay our bills) or it means we go bankrupt and go find something else to do that pays our bills (which is bad for us both). It’s hard to have everyone throwing around these “I should get it for free” arguments when, from our perspective, it translates to “I should benefit from your work for free. I don’t really care about giving back in kind. I don’t really think about whether or not you can pay your bills.”
“I’m not a Christian,” – Great! Please don’t go off half cocked. Whoops, too late!
“but, I am a software developer, and please don’t try to legitimize piracy with a ‘Jesus did it’ argument.”
Name one argument used here.
I’m not sure what your response is about. I’m just pointing out the trouble we — as workers — face when people (1) feel like they should get our work for free, and (2) have the means to take our work without paying us.
I don’t know what you’re complaining about. Nobody had mentioned software development and piracy until you did. Get off the cross you’re blocking the light.
Whoops I take back the snark comment about the Cross and the Light. Sorry. I think I went too far on that one. Just cross it out and stick with the first two sentences.
I’m not a Christian, but I am a software developer, and please don’t try to legitimize piracy with a ‘Jesus did it’ argument.
Don’t worry. We’re an atheist blog. We’re not supporting piracy, we’re mocking the Bible.
I pirated photoshop as a teen to learn it. I could never have afforded it. Since then Adobe has earned thousands because of me either buying their software, employers buying their software, or friends I taught how to use it buying it. So piracy can be a good thing, too. Adobe wouldn’t have made anything if I would never have learned it as a teen.
That being said, pirating can really suck for indie devs.
Maybe if software companies weren’t charging an arm and a leg for $0.05 worth of plastic, people wouldn’t feel the need to pirate the software.
Just sayin’
As far as music piracy goes, I’ll be a lot more willing to buy CDs when music companies stop pumping out duplicates of the same bland, pretty boy/ group with no talent concept. I don’t see any investment in real talent, just the easy baby-sitting money sales cash-in over and over again. I’m just not willing to pay for that – so I download music. If it’s any good, I’ll go and buy it, if it’s not I delete it. Why should I have to pay £8 for an album and a 90% chance that I won’t like more than one song on it? The industry needs to change because the consumer already has, and won’t be changing back.
“charging an arm and a leg for $0.05 worth of plastic”??? It’s the hundreds upon hundreds of man hours worked that they charge for. I’ve been working on a program for over two years that compiles down to the size of a single .mp3 file. Does that mean I should charge .99 cents for it?
Indie devs probably won’t charge +$500 for their software, either.
As for music, what Custador said. I’d also love to pay for MP3s (CDs take way too much space). I wish companies things iTunes Store and Netflix operated in Brazil. There’s also the factor nobody I know in Brazil ever heard of the bands I like – finding it in music stores? Hah.
Get a real job. You can write code for a hobby. Seriously, man, you’re putting on weight.
Pretty funny illustration of copying and sharing being a benefit to everyone.Hopefully one day son, we will have the technology to do this “miraculous feat” with science, with the nano scale printer/replicator being developed. I doubt that Christians would even flinch if a guy went out and performed ALL of Christ’s miracles, in like a day. They’d call him an instrument of Satan most probably, and go on about their ignorant way.