The Bible, Man's book or God's Word?

reply to post by KingKeever1611


Lot's have offered their answers but none have defended the idea that the Bible is God's Word sufficiently. No one has really been able to prove that the Bible is the Word of God and thus I feel it fair to say the Bible is not the Word of any God but is a collection of writings and myths composed by men (even many Christians admit this).

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


As it is man with the brain, and man with the language, and man with pen. I believe religious dogma is the work of man.

God still could potentially exist, but there has been so far; no logical or empirical evidence for a supernatural deity. Guessing there is a God, is as i say; a GUESS.

Explaining the "colour" of God before proving God exists is like saying "invisible unicorns are blue" - Religious dogma is so obviously man-made.

Enjoy this one believers.

double post, firefox bug

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


just because he said first born , doesn't mean they were all children, you can be 70 yrs old and be the first born of your parents. and God does not hold children under accountability if they can not comprehend the difference between good and evil, God would not condemn them to torment for the rest of eternity. thus the saying age of accountability. so for me the children that didn't know the difference, are in heaven. God knows the heart of man, you can profess all kinds of things with your mouth, but God know what is down in your heart. i do believe most people think that there is some from of spiritual world, unless your one of the few people that think we just live for awhile and then die. so i do think that there has to be a separation between good and evil when the body dies.

God still could potentially exist, but there has been so far; no logical or empirical evidence for a supernatural deity. Guessing there is a God, is as i say; a GUESS.

reply to post by awake_and_aware


there is no empirical evidence that there is not, other than speculation that life came from big globs of different types of amino acids, that were boiling on the face of the earth. then all of a sudden all these cells that had been lying around in these pools for millions of years, got together and decided to join up and from new ones, and these new ones decided to make even more. so which cells decided it wanted to be a tree, or a flower or so forth and so on. all this is mostly from people who don't want believe, for what reasons only god knows whats in there hearts.

reply to post by hounddoghowlie


An Argument from ignorance i see.

Cool story.

You can't prove a teapot doesn't exist on Mars ( underground )

You can't prove that i can't fly. (when no human is looking or recording)

See how making up unfalsifiable hypothesis gets us no-where? It's intellectually bankrupt, especially for debate.

Other unprovable hypothesis like "the multiverse" or "the 4th dimension" are rationally formed using the current mathematics and physics that we have gathered from this reality.

Things like "afterlife" is just the wishful thinking of the human mind for what they don't understand or can't comprehend. It's fiction.



I can't prove whether God does or doesn't exist, but priests and religion can? How so?

What about science? so far no scientist, theologian, mathematician, physicist, astronomer or historian has ever empirically or logically implied a creator. I'll keep an open-mind; awaiting further critical evidence.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


Ok, what is it your really wanting to know? Are you truly wanting some evidence and prove that the Holy bible is true? Or is your mind already quite made up and your not willing to accept other views?

God never asked you to believe him totally out of BLIND faith. Why would he? This is why he gave us the Bible, so we could have a record of what God wants us to do in the different dispensations.

One of the main reasons to at least consider the Holy Bible as credibly is its many hundreds of prophesies which have never been proven wrong.

But before I dive into this, I must state, you can never understand the Bible unless you come before it with interest, curiosity, or general concern for your soul.
If you come before the Bible with disdain, mockery or disbelieve God will not show you a blame thing out of HIS book. And why should he? would you under the same situation?

reply to post by hounddoghowlie

doesn't mean they were all children

Emphasis added. All is the keyword here. If even one of them was a child it becomes inexcusable. Even if they were adults do people really want to worship a God who slaughters people? It isn't like the story says God is going to go out and punish the guilty, it says he's going to kill the first born. While it doesn't specify children if you read the story in context the truth is inescapable. The entire genocide of first born is based upon what Pharaoh did earlier when he had the Hebrew children killed. The story is congruent with the barbaric eye for an eye justice supported in the Old Testament.

are in heaven

This excuses murder how? If you murdered a child and tried to use this defense in court you'd likely be given a harsher sentence, its an insulting excuse.

there is no empirical evidence that there is not

That isn't how evidence works. You don't collect evidence against something being real. You wouldn't go out and look for evidence that Atlantis doesn't exist would you? The burden of proof rests on those making the claim.

then all of a sudden all these cells that had been lying around in these pools for millions of years, got together and decided to join up and from new ones, and these new ones decided to make even more.

This is a straw man of abiogenesis but even this laughable strawman is at least as valid as creation via magic.

reply to post by KingKeever1611

Ok, what is it your really wanting to know? Are you truly wanting some evidence and prove that the Holy bible is true? Or is your mind already quite made up and your not willing to accept other views?

When I wrote the OP I was very much on the fence about religion and spirituality. Nowadays I do have my mind made up about the Bible, but that comes primarily from reading the Bible a lot more often and looking into the various arguments for it and against it (this thread was helpful in that regard a while back). At this point the questions are ones I want you to ask yourself.

This is why he gave us the Bible, so we could have a record of what God wants us to do in the different dispensations.

There are a few problems with this assertion, the first is that God never gave us the Bible. If you want you can argue that God inspired the Bible but ultimately you have to admit it was written by men and compiled over several centuries. The second issue is that God never signed off on the Bible, people did, they had committees and meetings on what books to keep and what ones to leave out of Biblical cannon. The third issue is that the Bible depicts God as being one of the most evil characters in literary history, which is one of the reasons I questioned it when I was a Christian, the God I believed in WAS LOVE, the God the Bible depicted is evil.

God will not show you a blame thing out of HIS book. And why should he? would you under the same situation?

Would I show my beloved child love and truth even if he mocked and ridiculed me, OF COURSE I WOULD.

If you come before the Bible with disdain, mockery or disbelieve

When I read the Bible for the first time I was a Christian, by the time I finished the book I no longer felt comfortable with the term. The time for open minded Bible study is over as far as I'm concerned. I read through the book years ago expecting to find it to be the truth but the more I read it and the more I looked into its history the less I believed.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


I just wrote you some good verses for answers to your questions and excuses, but sadly I hit backspace without my mouse on the text and my page backed up and deleted everything I will write later explaining why you don't understand the God of the Bible.

Mainly because not everyone are children of God, not in the least. Some (many) are children of the devil according to the Bible)

God is not all LOVE. God is Holy, and cannot even look on sin. If God was all love and loved us even though we kill, lie, hate, steal, and deny him, then why did Jesus have to die? Someone had to die for our sins. The love of God is showed ONLY in the sacrifice of his perfect sinless son, Jesus Christ.
Which explains Abraham's story in the old testament about God telling him to sacrifice his only son, but providing a ram in the end. (a substitute, foreshadowing Jesus Christ)

Read John 3:16 again slowly. Notice how God does not love the world at all. He loved the world, past tense, and sent his son. We killed his Son. How do you think God looks at us now? Vengeance should come to mind....which also brings hell to mind. See the progression?

You accept God's Son as your personal sin sacrifice, then God loves you. You reject him, then God hates you, yes hates, and will send all those to hell forever with the devils and his angels.

So as you see, there is a great balance. You can't have love without hate. For in order to love something, you must by definition hate that which hates what you love. Same works the other way too. Yin-yang, Karma, all religions how this basic value shown in the Bible.

I wrote almost the same before I deleted it, but I had all scripture to back up what I said above. You should be able to find it yourself if you use to be a Christian. Or ask, I'll help. King James Bible of course.

reply to post by KingKeever1611

God is not all LOVE. God is Holy, and cannot even look on sin.

Than why can God commit sin?

Someone had to die for our sins.

Why? Why does God demand death and blood to forgive people? I forgive people all the time without requiring them to kill an animal or sacrifice their first born son. Why would it be harder for a compassionate all powerful God to forgive than it is for a human being? Also most Christians still sin all the time, so Jesus really can't be saving them from sins.

The love of God is showed ONLY in the sacrifice of his perfect sinless son, Jesus Christ.

Having his own son brutally murdered for the wrong doings of others is not love, its barbaric.

How do you think God looks at us now?

But according to the Bible God sent his son to die, his death was pre-ordained, so why is he angry? I thought you said Jesus was meant to sacrifice himself, now all of a sudden God's angry about something he wanted to happen?

and will send all those to hell forever with the devils and his angels.

That's not a description of love. Love is not expressed by: Do exactly what I say or I will torture you, yet that's exactly what you've just described. God's love is meant to be unconditional, at least that's what I learned in Sunday school, what you've described isn't even love. It's contemptible and evil to torture someone let alone do so for an eternity.

For in order to love something, you must by definition hate that which hates what you love.

No. If I love my child and a bully at school hates my child I do not have to actually HATE the bully, in fact I might pity or just be indifferent toward the bully, or I might be a bit angry. Hate is a strong word. This is not to mention the fact that this contradicts what you said earlier about Jesus being God showing his love. The entire world were sinners when God sent Christ so he should have hated them not loved them.

but I had all scripture to back up what I said above.

I'd rather avoid throwing scripture back and forth, those discussions tend to go nowhere. Obviously you can quote it if you need to but I don't want this to turn into a back and forth of just endless scripture.

I do not know how to "prove" something that is believed on faith.

God has destroyed many "bodies" of all ages all throughout time for what is His purpose and logically when examined can be pretty easily recognized as greater good in the ulitimate Big Picture that would be unique to the vantage point of a Supreme Being.

God is love and God is just. Therefore the most logical explanation is that these souls were reborn into new lives and spared or robbed, however you prefer to view it, one chapter of what is most likely many lives being lived even to this day.

The older you get and the more you liberate yourself of the the mind control of both organized religion AND athiestic-based science the more you really begin to realize that these bodies and the lives they live are just classrooms and hopefully one day, I will have amassed enough understanding to graduate into the next school.

I believe there is God. I believe He is perfect and I am not which means there is going to be a HUGE shall we call it a language barrier or more appropriately a comprehension barrier between us. I attempt to navigate these confusing areas with all the tools God has given us to aid in our instruction, revelation, nature, science, spoken and written teaching and most of all since all of these tools are vulnerable to flaw at the hands of flawed beings I also use faith, the true north on my spiritual compass.

The Bible has been deified by mainstream Christianity and that in and of itself is a violation of God's Law as there is to be no other gods before Him. The Bible has been handled by flawed hands for thousands of years and therefore it cannot be perfect, to claim otherwise is to claim that man is capable of perfection, even under Divine influence such cannot be true in this present existence.

THAT being said I am unaware of any other work of literature that's authorship spans 3000 years, written from every corner of civilizaton from Babylon to Rome by people of all different ages and cultures and still maintain amazing continuity and clarity in it's core messages and teachings. It's quite remarkable from a literary standpoint that such a work exists under those circumstances regardless of your views on the existence of God or not. Yes, there are contradictions, but they are few and minute at best. There are some discrepcencies but once again they can be "spun" within context and are minute when compare to the vast volumes of teaching and theology that remains cohesive and centralized.

But the Bible was meant to be a tool, an aid, a resource. Like any tool or gift from God, there is no end to the abuse that mankind can wreak with it. Sex, food, knowledge, science, language, government etc etc. all wonderful tools from God and all used for great evil in the hands of wicked people.

Or it's just an elaborate hoax, ramblings of mad men.

Now I'm going to rant.

If we are just products of random evolution (I choose the word random because it implies that evolution was a coinicidence without design, note it does not dismiss it's basic concepts), so if we, humankind are just the product of random coincidences without design or purpose then I challenge every athiest, traditional evolutionist to stop being a hypocrite and live by your beliefs. Do not cling to any morality. If you see someting you want, take it. If another stands in your way then kill them and if they weaker then it is nature and not to be cringed at no more than Lion that does not cringe when he tears into the fleeing Gazelle on the African Plains. Protect your seed, eliminate threats and secure your genetic code, survive. Do not give in to the illusions of law, morality or conscience...concepts created by minds that believed we are more than a collection of coincidences that resulted into what we are.

If you have ever denied yourself what you wanted, did not attack or flee from any perceived threat, did not kill a weaker human that would result in securing your territory or spread your seed to every female that you could physically subdue then frankly, athiest/traditional evolutionist, you are a hypocrite too afraid to live their beliefs, and as such I cannot respect you or your beliefs as you are afraid to live by them and ALL the inevitable concepts that belief represents and lead to when followed through with unbiased logic and reasoning.

Now if you hesistate and entertain the idea that you are MORE than just the collection of random coincidences that resulted in your pathetic ass, then begin your journey of discovery. Realize that all the voices you will hear are rooted in selfishness to varying degrees, yes even that voice within you, very motivated by selfishness. Challenge everything, attack the bull**** all of it, all religions, all politics, all wackos and philospophies present, past and yet to come, but be sure that you are an equal-opportunity bull**** hater, especially the mounds of it that are manufactured by your own self serving desires.

Good luck.

Ok, I'll give you a couple of bread crumbs. A great man once equated the words "truth" and "free" in the same sentence.

"Truth" that tries to imprison and control you, or your women, or your children, or your fashion, or your speech, or your money and so on isn't really Truth.

Truth that brings liberty, freedom, that is truth. But be careful, sometimes we perceive things to give us freedom and all the while they building bars of steel around us. Good luck with that.

Another crumb, all religions have disagreed and killed each other over their disagreements, however there are few things that they ALL actually agree on...those things might be good starting points for a truth-seeker.

Have fun and good luck, don't worry, if you don't get it this go-around maybe you will on your next spin through life....although why in the hell would you wanna do that if you didn't have to?

Personally, I think I'm getting closer, another 3-5 and I think I may acutally get it...but then again I still find that I'm quite full of bull****.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


Titen-Sxull!!!!!

Let me tell you something, buddy...........


On second thought......


Have I told you lately that I love you?

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull........

If God is good, righteous, and holy than why does he smite the first-born Egyptians. Many Christians believe that children were among those Egyptian’s killed. What justification can there be for this? There is no justification, in my mind, for God to kill innocent Egyptian civilians as opposed to, say, Pharaoh himself. It was Pharaoh’s hard heart, if I’m not mistaken, that kept the Hebrews enslaved. A good God would not slaughter children.

There are some who believe the Great Flood actually took place the way the Bible says, surely some innocent children must have drown unless all the sinners were sterile.......

That's a pretty lame argument. "Look he must have hurt children, not the little children, what an evil god"

Are you a parent ?

Have you ever had to discipline your own child. You love your child more than anything yet feel compelled to enforce right and wrong so the child will grow into a wonderful adult. Not doing so is failing them.

If you think God is something that only gives you cuddles and big kisses then you are deluded.

Of course the bible was written by man. Some say under the guidance of God.

You have a consistent theme of labeling religion as evil. So I have a question for you -

DID GOD COMMIT THE EVIL OR WAS IT OUR FELLOW MAN ?

Originally posted by imjustlikeyou

That's a pretty lame argument. "Look he must have hurt children, not the little children, what an evil god"

Are you a parent ?

Have you ever had to discipline your own child. You love your child more than anything yet feel compelled to enforce right and wrong so the child will grow into a wonderful adult. Not doing so is failing them.

Would you drown your children in order to discipline them?
How many drowned children do you know who have grown up to be wonderful adults?

Originally posted by KingKeever1611

So as you see, there is a great balance. You can't have love without hate. For in order to love something, you must by definition hate that which hates what you love. Same works the other way too. Yin-yang, Karma, all religions how this basic value shown in the Bible.

I love my daughter more than my own life, and when she was at primary school a terrible bully kept harassing her, terrorising her, hurting her, even pushing her out on the street in front of cars.

One afternoon I could hear her screaming, she was only seven, on her way home from school, so I went to meet her. This little thug was at it again, running after her hitting her, but he got close enough for me to catch him and drag him inside. He thought I was going to belt him, and glared at me defiantly. Suddenly I saw his life through his eyes, and knew how he'd been treated, and what had been done to him. Knowing him properly like that, understanding him, I found I now loved him as much as I loved my daughter.

So instead of belting little Paul, I sat him down and asked if he liked chocolate cake and milk shakes, and, while my daughter looked an as though I was the worst betrayer ever, spoiled the little blighter rotten.

From that day Paul changed. He protected my daughter and was always there to defend kids who were being bullied.

I believe god gave me that glimpse of Paul's life so I could nudge his life into a new direction, and in doing so blessed me with a glimpse of what it's like to be god.

God understands us completely. When you understand completely you love completely.

Love and hate are like light and dark. Dark is not a thing on its own. All dark is, is the absence of light. Light can exist without darkness; all can be light. Love can exist without hatred; all can be love.



There is no hell. There are only individuals who, because of the hatred in their hearts, will not be able to let themselves approach the source of complete love and understanding for all.

reply to post by dusty1


Rofl at Rod.



Also:

Originally posted by KingKeever1611

So as you see, there is a great balance. You can't have love without hate. For in order to love something, you must by definition hate that which hates what you love. Same works the other way too. Yin-yang, Karma, all religions how this basic value shown in the Bible.

The bible is an attempt to polarize morality and separate society with duality.

Create a "GOD" that is all "good", you must have an opposite so you can condemn non-believers or rebels as "sinners" and "evil" or even more retarded; "Satan worshippers"

In 2 words maybe:
Homo Logos

Originally posted by awake_and_aware

The bible is an attempt to polarize morality and separate society with duality.

Create a "GOD" that is all "good", you must have an opposite so you can condemn non-believers or rebels as "sinners" and "evil"

I like that.

Never thought of it that way.