Chinese characters and God

[Lovelybird]

"Surrey's Shirley Eu has created a tool to illustrate how the gospel is hidden in ancient Chinese characters.

..

The booklet, which deconstructs 10 Chinese characters into its basic components, explains the creation, the fall and redemption of man."

 

http://www.canada.com/surreynow/story.html?id=2373ea9d-a518-4560-82a2-d47cc4ff6bb1

 

 

It is amazing ! I checked out those words, they actually meant the stories in Bible !

[Lovelybird]

http://www.thesourceoflove.com/english.pdf

 

 

The Lamb of God

hidden in the

ancient Chinese

characters

[dunstable]

Even if these claims are true, it would not be surprising to find a lot of agreement between Christian myths and ancient Chinese myths. One of the interesting things about the Christian myths is how unoriginal they were.

 

PS Why did she only deconstruct 10 of the 3,000 Chinese characters? Did the other 2,990 characters tell the wrong story?

[Lovelybird]

The ancient historian wrote something about God's characters, and those characters are smiliar with the God in Bible. Other 2,990 tell about other stories and meanings:D

 

In ancient times, there weren't plane, train or ships yet, how come people from different places decribes a God with same characters? Unless the Babel Tower story is true?

[dunstable]

... how come people from different places decribes a God with same characters?

 

Those different places - e.g. China, India, Persia, Greece, Egypt, the Middle East - have mythologies about creation with common elements. Even the elements of the Jesus story are to be found in e.g. ancient Greek mythology. My guess would be that all those peoples had common ancestors and so inherited the same stories. The stories would evolve with time and place so that they would not be exactly the same everywhere and at all times, but they would retain elements in common.

[dunstable]

Unless the Babel Tower story is true?

 

I just looked up the Babel tower story. I see that the idea was that there was a united humanity after the flood and they then dispersed around the world and developed different languages.

 

I think that the world population at one time would indeed have been very small and concentrated so it would not be surprising to find similar myths around the world after the dispersion of the early peoples.

[Lovelybird]

I just looked up the Babel tower story. I see that the idea was that there was a united humanity after the flood and they then dispersed around the world and developed different languages.

 

I think that the world population at one time would indeed have been very small and concentrated so it would not be surprising to find similar myths around the world after the dispersion of the early peoples.

So, according to evolutionist, the human being shouldn't be "happen" all over the earth? not only just concentrated on one small place?

[dunstable]

So, according to evolutionist, the human being shouldn't be "happen" all over the earth? not only just concentrated on one small place?

This is so ungrammatical, I don't know what you are trying to say.

[Lovelybird]

I see, when you cannot answer my question, you pick on my grammar

[Lovelybird]

Did evolutionist mention that human being only can be evolved (happen) and concentrate on one small place, even the earth is so big?

 

According to their theory, that human being should be evolved all over the earth.

 

If human beings formed independently from each other, scattered all over the places, how come they have same concept of God?

[dunstable]

Did evolutionist mention that human being only can be evolved (happen) and concentrate on one small place, even the earth is so big?

 

Investigations of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomes have shown:

 

• Everyone in the world today had a matrilineal most common recent ancestor who lived about 140,000 years ago in Africa.
  
• Everyone in the world today had a patrilineal most common recent ancestor who lived about 60,000 years ago, probably in Africa.
  
• Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa about 60,000 years ago and spread to the rest of the world.
  

Here are some interesting links for more information on the above:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations

 

If human beings formed independently from each other, scattered all over the places, how come they have same concept of God?

 

The common African ancestry of all people alive in the world today could account for similarities in mythology across the world.

[Lovelybird]

you mean only Africa can produce human?

 

and all human's ancestors are black? where does white people come from? aberrance?

[LucreziaBorgia]

It definitely goes to show that humans are wired to find patterns in things, and to adjust those patterns to reflect whatever belief they want those patterns to convey.

[NoIDidn't]

No offense, LB, but whenever I read stories or claims of the Gospel in this or that, I only think of some charlatan aiming to make money off of gullible Christians.

 

When people need to have their faith validated (not saying that you do), these people can make a killing.

 

My faith in God and belief in the Gospel won't be bolstered by magic lettering. This is no different than the Catholic relics, to me. Its powerless, and oftentimes hurts more than it helps.

[LucreziaBorgia]

Offense? I'm not sure I follow. I saw it as more of a pattern finding/pattern manipulating behavior rather than having any sort of religious validity. Sorry for the confusion.

 

I'm wholly with you on the charlatan thing.

[Enema]

The booklet, which deconstructs 10 Chinese characters into its basic components, explains the creation, the fall and redemption of man."

 

A quick google search tells me there are over 80,000 chinese characters.

 

Is it really surprising that by studying them for years, you manage to force a desired meaning out of 10 of them?

 

That's 0.125% of characters.... talk about grasping at straws.

[Lovelybird]

I didn't say I want to validate my whole faith on several letters because Spirit in me convince me about God and truth, I don't need other source to tell me that. But still that is interesting to know that Chinese characters tell stories and meanings about God. This is same as when a person see a marvelous scenery, she may feel awe about God who can create this scenery. When she knows about how a human body functions, she may feel awe about God's wisdom. when she knows some characters tell stories about God, she may feel God is everywhere.

[Enema]

I didn't say I want to validate my whole faith on several letters because Spirit in me convince me about God and truth, I don't need other source to tell me that.

 

I didn't say you took these letters to validate your whole faith, I merely showed how absurd it is to think this is evidence of anything.

 

I think it's interesting that every point you raise that is based on something real is easily dismissed and explained away. After all these years you still only have your personal testimony of a ghost talking to you as a reason for your belief.

 

But still that is interesting to know that Chinese characters tell stories and meanings about God.

 

0.125% of Chinese Characters were cajoled into providing that meaning.

 

I'm sure if the christian researcher really wanted to, she could find another 10 characters out of 80,000 that tell the story of Zeus's life.

 

This is same as when a person see a marvelous scenery, she may feel awe about God who can create this scenery. When she knows about how a human body functions, she may feel awe about God's wisdom. when she knows some characters tell stories about God, she may feel God is everywhere.

 

This is same as when a person see a tsunami kill tens of thousands of people, she may feel awe about how evil a God is who can create this scenery. When she knows about how badly the human body is built: problematic knees and backs because we evolved on all fours, eat and drink from the same hole so we choke to death, skin damage from exposure to sunlight, she may feel disappointed at God's ineptitude. When she see's someone give real consideration and weight to a pattern spotted in 10 out of 80,000 characters, she may feel human stupidity is boundless.

[Lovelybird]

This is same as when a person see a tsunami kill tens of thousands of people, she may feel awe about how evil a God is who can create this scenery. When she knows about how badly the human body is built: problematic knees and backs because we evolved on all fours, eat and drink from the same hole so we choke to death, skin damage from exposure to sunlight, she may feel disappointed at God's ineptitude. When she see's someone give real consideration and weight to a pattern spotted in 10 out of 80,000 characters, she may feel human stupidity is boundless.

This is a fallen world, what do you expect? God made human being responsible, gave them choices. If every human being is doing perfect, and still those things happen, then you have rights to blame God. The fact is, EVERY human being does wrong things, just different degrees

[Enema]

This is a fallen world, what do you expect? God made human being responsible, gave them choices.

 

If god knows everything and controls everything, then he created us- knowing the choices we would make.

So, he knew he'd have to "punish" us for them.

 

In effect, we had no real choice at all and it just shows him to be an evil sadist who takes pleasure from creating beings he knows he's going to punish.

 

If every human being is doing perfect, and still those things happen, then you have rights to blame God. The fact is, EVERY human being does wrong things, just different degrees

 

Isn't judgement by god supposed to be reserved for after you're dead? Not much of a chance to come to god and "do perfect" if he kills you out of the gate.

 

Natural disasters don't pick and choose who they kill. They kill "good christians", atheists and children indiscriminately. There is no rationalization for this while trying to connect it to sin.

 

But, you're missing the point: You can't point out the good things in the world and give credit to god (marvelous scenery) without also giving him due credit for the bad.

 

I also noticed you ignored the terrible "design" of the human body. Pretty hard to stick your fingers in your ears about that one, I know.

[dunstable]

...whenever I read stories or claims of the Gospel in this or that, I only think of some charlatan aiming to make money off of gullible Christians.

 

It seems the motive is evangelical. The Shirley EU work has been put into a booklet and DVD. An overview of the booklet is available at http://interculturalnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/howtousedgccedited04-2008.pdf. The booklet says it is intended for use in evangelical work mainly amongst Chinese, Japanese and Koreans.

 

An advertisement on the page at http://www.christianweek.org/spotlight/23_NCW21-22.pdf gives three examples of what this is about. Allegedly, the Chinese character meaning "blessing" is made up of elements meaning "god" and "lamb", "eternal" is composed of "lamb" and "water", and "righteousness" is composed of "lamb" and "me". This is seen by Eu as a correlation with the gospel message. On the same webpage, Eu states in relation to the character for "blessing" that it means that Chinese people are to look out for God's lamb, namely Jesus.

 

Interestingly, the Shirley Eu work is not new but seems a rehash of an article published in 1999 by Voo and Hovee in a religious journal, see http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tjv13n1chinese_lamb.pdf. The Voo and Hovey article is well worth reading. It provides interesting information on ancient Chinese religion and on the system of Chinese writing. It seems the supreme god of the ancient Chinese had parallels with the god of the Hebrews, also that some of the ancient Chinese myths are similar to some of the myths in the Old Testament. In addition, the sheep was a sacrifice animal, same as for the Hebrews (and for the Muslims, who still sacrifice sheep at Mecca). If I understand it right, Chinese characters are combinations of pictures and symbols -- the picture of the sheep appears in many of the characters because it can symbolize many different concepts. Hoo and Hovee do not have such an outrageous interpretation of the character meaning "blessing" as Eu; they say the pictograms for god and lamb are combined to form "blessing" because "the Chinese perceived the sheep to be a blessing from god".

 

So it seems the symbolism in the 10 characters is just a reflection of the Chinese religion of the time, which happened to be similar to the religion of the Hebrews of the same period.

 

So ultimately we just have a degree of consilience between ancient Chinese religion and the religion of the Hebrews of the same period (and hence also with Christianity and Islam).

 

It appalls me that people like Eu would twist this consilience into some kind of prophesy come true to foist on the gullible as evidence of the validity of Christianity.

 

Similarity of mythology between different religions doesn't prove any of them are right!

[Lovelybird]

It seems the motive is evangelical. The Shirley EU work has been put into a booklet and DVD. An overview of the booklet is available at http://interculturalnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/howtousedgccedited04-2008.pdf. The booklet says it is intended for use in evangelical work mainly amongst Chinese, Japanese and Koreans.

 

An advertisement on the page at http://www.christianweek.org/spotlight/23_NCW21-22.pdf gives three examples of what this is about. Allegedly, the Chinese character meaning "blessing" is made up of elements meaning "god" and "lamb", "eternal" is composed of "lamb" and "water", and "righteousness" is composed of "lamb" and "me". This is seen by Eu as a correlation with the gospel message. On the same webpage, Eu states in relation to the character for "blessing" that it means that Chinese people are to look out for God's lamb, namely Jesus.

 

Interestingly, the Shirley Eu work is not new but seems a rehash of an article published in 1999 by Voo and Hovee in a religious journal, see http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tjv13n1chinese_lamb.pdf. The Voo and Hovey article is well worth reading. It provides interesting information on ancient Chinese religion and on the system of Chinese writing. It seems the supreme god of the ancient Chinese had parallels with the god of the Hebrews, also that some of the ancient Chinese myths are similar to some of the myths in the Old Testament. In addition, the sheep was a sacrifice animal, same as for the Hebrews (and for the Muslims, who still sacrifice sheep at Mecca). If I understand it right, Chinese characters are combinations of pictures and symbols -- the picture of the sheep appears in many of the characters because it can symbolize many different concepts. Hoo and Hovee do not have such an outrageous interpretation of the character meaning "blessing" as Eu; they say the pictograms for god and lamb are combined to form "blessing" because "the Chinese perceived the sheep to be a blessing from god".

 

So it seems the symbolism in the 10 characters is just a reflection of the Chinese religion of the time, which happened to be similar to the religion of the Hebrews of the same period.

 

So ultimately we just have a degree of consilience between ancient Chinese religion and the religion of the Hebrews of the same period (and hence also with Christianity and Islam).

 

It appalls me that people like Eu would twist this consilience into some kind of prophesy come true to foist on the gullible as evidence of the validity of Christianity.

 

Similarity of mythology between different religions doesn't prove any of them are right

!

you explained it better than me, except that part

 

you are interesting

[knaveman]

Isn't there a saying about things like this? "God is in the details." Or was that someone else?

[Island Girl]

If every human being is doing perfect, and still those things happen, then you have rights to blame God. The fact is, EVERY human being does wrong things, just different degrees

 

Yeah. That baby born with his spine outside of his body did SOOOO many wrong things! No one can blame God for making sure he was born that way.

 

And those kids dying of leukemia -- they had plenty of time to sin (especially since some of them are toddlers)! And did so quite readily! God isn't to blame for anything. Those kids brought it upon themselves obviously.

 

[dunstable]

And those kids dying of leukemia -- they had plenty of time to sin (especially since some of them are toddlers)! And did so quite readily! God isn't to blame for anything. Those kids brought it upon themselves obviously.

 

Ah, but you are forgetting Exodus 20:5 in relation to graven images: "I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me”. So it was the kids' parents, grandparents, greatgrandparents, etc. fault for making graven images.

 

Hang on though, Deuteronomy 24:16 says "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin." so maybe you were right after all - the kids were to blame.

 

You would think the editors of the bible would have proof read it better to eliminate inconsistencies like that.