Prove to me that the bible or any religious book is correct or useful

reply to post by whatevername


There is a way to prove the authenticity of the Bible without having to resort to faith. Test the prophecies.

Originally posted by whatevername
Thanks for the replies.
I will try to answer the questions/make comments to the above posts:

That is exactly what I mean. (avoiding accountability)

Being in total ignorance is avoiding accountability. Sure, there are many ignorant followers but times do change, sometimes for the better.

I do not doubt it is highly accurate. But a book of God must have 100% accuracy.

en.wikipedia.org...
www.answersingenesis.org...
www.answersingenesis.org...
note that this is a christian source, but nevertheless they have to admit that the date from Jericho is incorrect, and that the flood only covered the middle east.
www.asis.com...
Jesus found the first church at Glastonbury
en.wikipedia.org...
Wikipedia says no solar eclipse could have happened at the crucifixion.
www.religioustolerance.org...
I am unable to dig up all the information I wished for at this moment, but I will try to find more sources.

God didn't write the Bible, it was man. However, it doesn't mean the teachings are false. Those teachings are over 2,000 years old, some are still used and some are not. When society changes we must change our ways as well. We shouldn't change our ways if society has become evil.

We will talk more when you dig up those files. Again, we are still uncovering archeological sites all over the world so to draw any premature conclusion is not fair to either side.

www.sacred-texts.com...
Book of Enoch

It is actually the church leaders who created the canon because there were contradictions. They also added pagan traditions. (sorry for no source, will look for it)

The book of Enoch was used for the first 3 centuries but why it stopped circulating is beyond me. It was deemed holy first than it was banned. I would assume someone had to profit off of it.

It is not just the bible and those verses. Besides, these verses were once used to create justice by a morally perfect God.

Can you elaborate more?

Muslims are believers too.
Who did all those pillaging? Mostly our religious leaders...

It was a dark age and pillaging meant survival. The vikings were in that age and they heavily assaulted the church's treasure. Remember, this was after the fall of Rome so all economies were at a complete halts. The only way to survive is to pillage. That same age the Muslims were beginning to conquer many parts of Africa and moving up to Europe. The Francs gathered all Catholics under one common cause.

If the church hadn't given the Francs land and money one could argue that we would have been the majority Muslims today.

So of course to pay their men pillaging was necessary in war and it happened by both sides. After the crusades for the holy land, even though they lost, they came back with treasure that actually belonged to Rome. So the Muslims pillaged the treasures of Rome as well as blueprints for architecture and knowledge. So pillaging was a reward.

I think it's fair to believe it is not that hard for God to contact me.
Since he didn't, he should have a hell of an excuse.
And I'm not even mentioning those other 5 billion people...

Why would it be fair to believe that? You are holding a grudge against God because he wasn't like hey "whatevername" sorry I didn't e-mail you sooner, but I had to catch my flight to heaven.

There is no direct contact to God because all of us are not worthy or pure enough to enter his light. Once you die you leave the vessel behind and you become part of the light. Than, if your soul is cleansed, you might be able to enter into his light.

Many influential leaders in various religions have ordered their followers to kill others.
Many of those leaders have abused their followers and their own children.
I do not want to give out names, I think you can use your imagination.
Then think of the many people who blindly believe what they are told and act accordingly (American soldiers, Jihadists, Zionists and many more)
Then we have these catholic priests that can't take their greedy hands off our kids.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. People may think they are doing God's work but the devil's work sometimes seems like the right thing. We have over 2 billion people today. We had over 3 billion followers in history. So to think that we won't have bad apples is to think humanity is pure. Those people hunger for power and lust being authoritative.

To get everyone to quiet down they used anything in their disposal. Against we have 2 billion people, we will have rotten apples everywhere.

However you must also be more specific so I can talk about one event rather than go through a history lesson.

I have prayed a lot in my life. I prayed for many things and God answered my prayers. Later I noticed that I could achieve the same effect when using drugs. I'm not joking here.
I did not often pray for things. If I prayed for anything it was happiness.

Well if God answered your prayers what is your grudge against him? This whole time you were saying he never answered your prayers and when he did it wasn't good enough for your life?

This was more a general statement of mine, the facts being ignored are many things stated in the bible and some of the things I listed above.
The belief that is proven false is that the bible is 100% correct and the word of God.
The people who are becoming abusive and/or violent are the believers (in this case the christians).
Depending on the situation and their intelligence they will try to use different means of silencing you.
I believe this process is very natural but still wrong.

edit on 8-12-2010 by whatevername because: (no reason given)

The morals are correct but the Bible was written for an audience 2,000 years ago. So now we must make a few changes to suit our life today. And what you just described isn't a characteristic of Christians only, that is humanity.

I am not 100% sure that all the things I stated in my original post are true. The thing about Moses being Tutmose 3 I am not sure about anymore and I will remove it (can't edit original post). However, I think there are enough other things that are debatable.

What reason can you give me to actually believe that it has all truly happened, and that it is all God's message to us?

edit on 8-12-2010 by whatevername because: (no reason given)

edit on 8-12-2010 by whatevername because: (no reason given)

edit on 8-12-2010 by whatevername because: (no reason given)

God's message is simple and Jesus summed it up into two main ones:1) Love your God with all your heart(trust in him), 2) Love thy neighbor.

We are humans and if we never sinned Jesus would have never came. But we sin and therefore God will forgive us as long as we learned our lesson. This life is about experience to learn and grow. If you are stuck in a rut and blame God for everything, without doing a single thing to improve your life, it may seem as though he doesn't exist.

You prayed for happiness and you got it, why is that not good enough for you?

reply to post by bijouramov


I agree that that would be an indication of its truth.
However, the results must be measurable.

Was Jesus really born in Bethlehem?
100prophecies.org...
www.religioustolerance.org...

reply to post by whatevername

I agree that that would be an indication of its truth. However, the results must be measurable. Was Jesus really born in Bethlehem?

That particular prophecy is, unfortunately, not within our capabilities to prove. If we lived somewhere near Bethlehem during the time of Jesus, then we would have concrete ways of proving where he was born. But since he lived more than 2000 years ago, there is no 100% way of knowing those things, even with the help of historical references, because even these cannot be proven to be accurate at all times.

Therefore, if we are going to test prophecies, then we should test those concerning our time, because we wouldn't need ancient manuscripts to prove it. Take for example the time of Hitler and Nazi Germany. I'm not saying this particular event in the history was prophesied in the Bible, but if it was, we would be able to ascertain it with accuracy because we have enough accurate historical data to compare Hitler and Nazi Germany with what is written in the prophecy about it. In short, if we want measurable results from a prophecy, let's examine one which pertains to our own time.

Originally posted by whatevername

I think it's fair to believe it is not that hard for God to contact me.
Since he didn't, he should have a hell of an excuse.
And I'm not even mentioning those other 5 billion people...

How would you have preferred he contact you? Facebook? Email? Phone? Snail Mail? Knocking on your front door? I'm not trying to be a smart-ass, I'm honestly curious. It's entirely possible that God has tried to contact you but that you haven't bothered to pay attention. I asked about your "preferred method of contact" because I wonder if you think that He should answer to you. Should God do what you tell Him? Should God behave how you want Him to?

Many influential leaders in various religions have ordered their followers to kill others.
Many of those leaders have abused their followers and their own children.
I do not want to give out names, I think you can use your imagination.
Then think of the many people who blindly believe what they are told and act accordingly (American soldiers, Jihadists, Zionists and many more)
Then we have these catholic priests that can't take their greedy hands off our kids.

This reasoning tends to frustrate me. I don't mean you on an individual level but that this is constantly given as an excuse to hate Christians for evil things that were done by "so-called" Christians.

Firstly, on the topic of people who have done evil acts "in God's name" let me give you an example of why that just isn't true. If I decided that I wanted to rob a store or murder someone and that I was doing it in the name of your mom, does that mean that she should be held accountable? If I say that she told me to do it (when really she didn't), does that mean that she should be held accountable? Obviously, the answer to both of those questions would be no. So why should God be held accountable for the acts of men just because they said they were doing those acts in his name? It's not really fair to God now is it?

Secondly, on the topic of "so-called" Christians that did evil things like killing people, abusing children, etc, I think I might have another example of why it doesn't hold water. If I say to everyone I meet that I'm the best athlete in the entire world and I make up hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc saying so, but I couldn't actually play a single sport to save my life, then it simply isn't true, correct? So how is it that people can't seem to understand that just because someone says they're a Christian, saying it doesn't make it so. Have you ever heard the saying "actions speak louder than words"? I'm sure you have. Well that applies here. When someone says they're a Christian but by their actions, they clearly are not, then they obviously aren't.

Matthew 7:15-18 says "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit".

If you replace "false prophets" with "liars", the word "fruits" with the word "actions" and the word "tree" with the word "person" it may be easier to understand.

I have prayed a lot in my life. I prayed for many things and God answered my prayers. Later I noticed that I could achieve the same effect when using drugs. I'm not joking here.
I did not often pray for things. If I prayed for anything it was happiness.

I don't quite understand why earlier you said he never answered you and here you said he did. Also, when you said all you prayed for was happiness, does that mean you weren't happy and expected that by asking God to make you happy, you suddenly would be? What were you unhappy about? Was it something that was within your power to change? If so, rather than asking God to change it for you, why didn't you just do it?

This was more a general statement of mine, the facts being ignored are many things stated in the bible and some of the things I listed above.
The belief that is proven false is that the bible is 100% correct and the word of God.
The people who are becoming abusive and/or violent are the believers (in this case the christians).
Depending on the situation and their intelligence they will try to use different means of silencing you.

How do you know that the bible being "100% correct and the word of God" has been proven false? How? I mean really, you don't, do you? You may think it, believe it and even say it, but those things don't make it true. Just like I think, say and believe that it is "100% correct and the word of God", it doesn't make it true either. Neither of us can prove anything, right? But we are both completely free and able to believe what we want, right?

As for the "people who are becoming abusive and/or violent are the believers (in this case the christians)" as you put it, see above for the whole "saying you're a Christian doesn't make it so". You obviously think that a true Christian would not be violent or abusive. I feel the exact same way. So if someone says "I'm a Christian" to everyone in public but in private they beat their wife and molest their children, they obviously aren't a true Christian, now are they?

What reason can you give me to actually believe that it has all truly happened, and that it is all God's message to us?

I can't help you to believe, I'm afraid. Only God can do that. But in all fairness to both of us, what reason can you give me that it hasn't all happened and that it isn't all God's message to us?

reply to post by Quikslvr


Thanks for the reply.
I would not really bother about which way God chooses tocontact me, as long as he does.
The same applies to prayers. I have no wishes for myself, because I feel I don't need anything other than what I already have.

The reason why I keep talking about the wrongdoings of the believers, is that it really hurts me to see all these bad things happening. I believe it does not have to be that way.

You must have seen this other topic, which states 75% of egypt/lebanon muslims support stoning people to death.

To me these are not incidents. To me, these are brainwashed people.

The Matthew quote you gave me, try replacing the word 'tree' with 'religion'.

I believe that the bible is proven false because of:
-the old testament commandments that are clearly not perfectly moral. (I can think of better laws and I think you can too)
-inconsistencies
-absense of divine intervention

again, one error means the whole book is wrong.

Originally posted by whatevername
reply to post by Quikslvr

 

Thanks for the reply.
I would not really bother about which way God chooses tocontact me, as long as he does.
The same applies to prayers. I have no wishes for myself, because I feel I don't need anything other than what I already have.

The reason why I keep talking about the wrongdoings of the believers, is that it really hurts me to see all these bad things happening. I believe it does not have to be that way.

You must have seen this other topic, which states 75% of egypt/lebanon muslims support stoning people to death.

To me these are not incidents. To me, these are brainwashed people.

The Matthew quote you gave me, try replacing the word 'tree' with 'religion'.

I believe that the bible is proven false because of:
-the old testament commandments that are clearly not perfectly moral. (I can think of better laws and I think you can too)
-inconsistencies
-absense of divine intervention

again, one error means the whole book is wrong.

First of all, you say that you're not bothered by how God contacts you, so long as he does. Also, you say you don't want anything for yourself and yet obviously you are praying and asking for something. If you don't want to discuss here I'm more than happy for you to U2U me and we can discuss it. I just think that there must be something more to it or you wouldn't have brought it up.

As for wrongdoings of "believers" - I'm extremely upset by the things that go on in this world whether its believers or not committing the acts. Of course it doesn't have to be that way, but no one is to blame for the actions of a few except for those few. Should you be to blame for them? Should I? Should God? I really don't think so. It all has to do with accountability and taking responsibility for your actions. It seems like so many people nowadays would rather blame someone other than themselves for their own actions (i.e. their upbringing, society, etc).

*Btw I didn't see the topic you mentioned.

Also, even though you ask me to replace the word "tree" with "religion", having given my own example back to me, it doesn't work. Here's why - what is being spoken about is man (tree) and actions (fruit) so I was just trying to make it easier for you to understand.

Finally, as for the bible being proven false, if you are completely honest with me (and yourself), you have to admit that it can neither be "proven" false or true. You saying that the Old Testament commandments aren't moral - how are you judging them? Are you judging them by your own standards? That's awfully subjective and biased isn't it? It doesn't matter whether or not you or I can think of "better" laws. If we are to be judged, it would have to be by someone/something completely objective, unbiased and other than ourselves, don't you think? We can hardly make up our own rules now can we?

As for the absence of divine intervention - was that something you were looking for in your own life or outside or yourself? Did you want the divine to intervene in your life in certain instances or did you just want to be witness to an example of it? Is it possible that those occurrences actually took place and you failed to notice them or you put them down to good luck, fate, destiny, etc?

With much respect,
QS

I think it can be proven that it is not 100% correct.

The thing that makes it correct is our interpretation. Our interpretation is clearly different from fivehundred years ago, even more different from the interpretation of the early christians and totally different of the interpretations of the jews before them. Therefore, only one of those groups can be right. Which is it?

Our interpretation will never be 100% correct, because we are not perfect.
That means that the bible can never be 100% correct too, because a perfect interpretation does not exist.

So, we must admit that there are fallacies in the bible.

Why do I think this is so important?
Because of the raping and pillaging discussed earlier.
When people say it is 100% correct, they are opening the door for selfish interpretations.
It is very difficult to battle certain literal interpretations when you are acknowledging the whole truth of the bible.
These literal interpretations are used by preachers to instigate mass hatred.

Of course I agree that there is a lot of wisdom and truth in the bible. But that is not the point.

I want to make an additional remark about prayer or meditation.
I don't get how it really works.
I somewhat believe that it is indeed possible to get things by prayer.
I have the impression that I got (seemingly impossible) things because of prayer.
When I quit church, I started doing meditation, binaural beats and drugs.
I had some weird experiences that were very similar to what happened when praying.
I'm sorry but cannot really explain how it feels or whatever, you'd laugh your @ss off.
But, seriously, I don't think its the biblical god that's responsible.

reply to post by whatevername


You may be right - it might be possible to get things through prayer. When I was younger I used to prayer for "things". Now when I pray, I talk to God about my day/life/feelings and I give him my thanks & gratitude. When I do ask for things it's usually for the peace/happiness/safety of others.

As for your experiences, you might be surprised about the fact that I more than likely wouldn't laugh at you. I really enjoy talking to people to learn about their lives, experiences, thoughts and feelings.

Btw, if it's not God responsible (for what though, I'm not sure what you mean) then who/what do you think is? Perhaps you're getting the "things" you ask for from someone/somewhere other than God.