Is the Bible to be believed? New thread-Old subject

Without trying to be inflammatory. I would like to ask a serious question.

How many of you actually believe that the Bible is a infallable, divine scripture that has it's source from God.

And why?

I'm not wanting to challenge your faith or anything like that. I am truly curious.
I also realize that there are other threads that deal with this subject. But it seems that at this point in time we have drifted into two more separate camps on this and I would like to present a guage based on the current outlook.


[edit on 9-4-2005 by freddieb]

The bible and Quran should only be viewed as sources of information, information that has been warped out of reality over time. They are both fragmented and destorted at best. Ant at worst, modified to hide certain truths from the past

I believe the Bible is from God and details how mankind can be saved and come to know Him. I believe it answers the questions we have. It tells us in general what to look for in the future and in instances in greater detail. It is a source of information that we have that can change us for the better. There are probably alot of other things that could be said about it.

I believe that for the most part that the Bible can be considered divine. The Bible has gone through many hands and many translations, and the individual books quite likely differ from those that the original authors wrote, so as AllSeeingEye says, there is likely some distortion in them from the originals, though, I believe, less than ASE thinks.
The history and archaeology of the Bible has been, to a large degree, verified by modern scholars. It is probably impossible to prove one way or another that the Bible is divinely inspired; I take that aspect of it strictly on faith.
I guess the answer to your question (for me) is that since we have proven the Bible correct on most of its historical references, I take the next step and assume that it is correct on theological matters as well.

There is no evidence to substantiate a past you have not yourself experienced or at least discussed with someone living who has themselves experienced it.

Everything else is hearsay - including the Bible.

How can you prove the bible was not written by Satan ? ( This is not a deliberately inflammatory question - I honestly seek that proof)

Consider that we can not even establish who killed JFK - A PRESIDENT of all people - a little over 40 years ago - so how can we accept information from over 2000 years ago when it has been made 'available' to us by cruel and ruthless people who facilitated the death of Jesus Christ!! - they then hold it up and declare it holy - then continue to kill in it's name throughout the ages.

This should be the first clue that perhaps they ain't as sweet as the roses they paint on their windows.

Originally posted by DragonsDemesne
I believe that for the most part that the Bible can be considered divine. The Bible has gone through many hands and many translations, and the individual books quite likely differ from those that the original authors wrote, so as AllSeeingEye says, there is likely some distortion in them from the originals, though, I believe, less than ASE thinks.
The history and archaeology of the Bible has been, to a large degree, verified by modern scholars. It is probably impossible to prove one way or another that the Bible is divinely inspired; I take that aspect of it strictly on faith.
I guess the answer to your question (for me) is that since we have proven the Bible correct on most of its historical references, I take the next step and assume that it is correct on theological matters as well.

I respect your view, Dragon. But yours is the point I'm trying to reconcile.
To say that because the places of the bible existed and that people spoken of existed does not lead, in my way of thinking, to that next step. If I said that I had a personal audience with the pope, in New York, yesterday, why would that make it so. The city of New York exists, the pope existed(not yesterday) and I can document my presence in New York. But that doesn't lead to the conclusion that I saw the pope there yesterday.
I'm not wanting to argue here, I'm just trying to understand.
It is interesting to me how a book that leaves so many unanswered questions and reveals so many paradoxes can be taken as divine.
Hopefully this thread will continue and some patterns will become apparent.
In the other threads it seems that most say basically what you say.
That just strikes me as strange because most of the same people that say this, demand a high level of evidence to be convinced of other topics that appear on this board. Many of those having far more documentation than what we have concerning the bible.
If the bible was written today, I dare say that it would recieve even less coverage on this board than reports from the Weekly World News.
Does tradition and the repeating of a story over a long period of time give credence to that story? I'm just asking. This is a puzzling part of human nature.

[edit on 10-4-2005 by freddieb]

when one starts to study the history of humanity and the history of the earth, you will see that there are questions that will not/ are not asked. some bible stories have be around for thousands of years brfore the bible was written. who decided that these were the versions of the stories that would be believed? if everybody ( religion wise) is right, who is wrong. why are there soooooooooooooooo many different forms of christianity?

'i don't like the way you are interpurting the meaning of the bible, so i will form my own branch of christianity.' a belief is merly an opinion held as fact.

so in short my 'belief' is that the bible is not a 'divine' peice.
i 'believe' that organized, dogmatic religion , in its current form, is to keep the people scared, spiritualy unempowered and to keep the poeple from looking into the history of humanity and the earth.

and to end with a new favorite.."your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko"

I've been thinking lately that what is written in the bible (and then translated, edited, translated again, edited again, ad nauseum) should be viewed in a similar light as we all (should) view media today. In other words, different accounts from different points of view colored with different agendas from each source. Take almost any major news story and read the various accounts from 10 major newspapers and compare those to each other and to 5 major TV news network accounts and then, just for grins, add in a couple of hundred editorials telling us all what this means. Plenty of contradictions of fact, mind-boggling contradictions of the opinions about it - so, all you have in agreement is a very small base of what you may or may not accept as fact.

Most of us will cite the news/media outlet with which we most agree as having the "straight story" and the others as distorted. We'll be divided into many different groups as to which of these is most believable and which we feel are pushing some agenda (spin). One man's idiot is another man's expert, I guess.

It really is impossible to take the entire New Testament literally because there are (very well-documented) contradictions and disagreements between the various accounts.

So, one can "believe" that the bible is, very generally speaking, the Word of God but no one can believe that every single word of it is absolutely true.

Personally, I think it has some good stories and a smattering of history but, overall, I view it as good historical fiction that has some good "life lessons" that have endured. I'm not anti-bible; I'm not anti-Christian. I have serious problems with the way some people use the bible as a weapon against others who reject their views. But, that's another series of debates for another time and another forum.

For me, the conspiracy angle of the bible is the distortions of historical events and how they are used to try to control the masses - going all the way back to recorded history right through today's modern world that has more people watching "Fear Factor" and "American Idol" than studying history. And, these same couch potatoes and willfully ignorant are actually voting and supporting ideas in which they have no grounding other than what religious leaders have spoon-fed them from the pulpits. Even a cursory study of the Crusades would reveal to them how badly they're being duped. But, we can trust the world, particularly the modern western civilization to remain blissfully ignorant - it has been thus for well over 1,000 years.

Fred, let's try and see the difference between conspiracies and spiritual questions, and then maybe we can, as humans, discuss whether or not God is infallible.
Moved to Spirituality

Originally posted by freddieb
I respect your view, Dragon. But yours is the point I'm trying to reconcile.
To say that because the places of the bible existed and that people spoken of existed does not lead, in my way of thinking, to that next step...

It is interesting to me how a book that leaves so many unanswered questions and reveals so many paradoxes can be taken as divine.
Hopefully this thread will continue and some patterns will become apparent.
In the other threads it seems that most say basically what you say.
That just strikes me as strange because most of the same people that say this, demand a high level of evidence to be convinced of other topics that appear on this board. Many of those having far more documentation than what we have concerning the bible.
If the bible was written today, I dare say that it would recieve even less coverage on this board than reports from the Weekly World News...

You have some good points here, Fred. I'm not sure that it is possible to reconcile the point you bring up. My belief in the divinity in the Bible is no less illogical than, say, someone else's belief in aliens, NWO theories, psychic phenomena, or anything else of a controversial and unproven nature. I think it would be accurate to say that I have adopted the theory that the Bible is true. There is not enough evidence to conclusively say that it is, but there is enough evidence to suggest the possibility, just as aliens or evil NWOs are also possible, but haven't been proven yet. Some choose to believe, others to disbelieve.