The bible is not the Word of God

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by bricklayer, Dec 29, 2019.

  1. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good is what God is; evil is what God is not. God reveals both good and evil. God reveals both what He is and what He is not because anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.
     
  2. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    So, there is no such general commandment to go and slaughter children, just one to end a dire existential threat ,i.e. kill off their worst historical enemies in a specific time and place, and just a lot of dishonest hyperbole as usual; I thought so.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2020
  3. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    What Commandments did he violate? His priority seems to be the survival of the tribes in a tough neighborhood, and self-defense against predators isn't banned anywhere in the OT or the NT, either. We know at least some the Apostles carried swords as they followed Jesus, and Peter whacked the ear off a govt. official with one.

    If one's arguments rely in misinterpretations and distorting the contexts of single verses, it's safe to say one has no real arguments to make.
     
  4. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You are repeating a mantra over and over.
     
  5. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I can fluff it up, but I don't think that I can say it more succinctly. You seem to understand the statement enough to disagree with it. That's my answer. That's my point. Good and evil are not created; they're revealed. Good is what God is; evil is what God is not. God reveals both good and evil. God reveals both what He is and what He is not because anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.

    You can author a character that knows they're a character and knows that you're their author. You can even create a dialog between yourself and your novel character. However, that dialog would not be a conversation; it would be a condescension
    There is another way that you can condescend to your novel characters. You can write yourself into your novel work as yourself. You would be no less the author because you are also a character, and your autobiographical character would be no less a character than any of your novel characters.

    Jesus Christ is God's character incarnate. Our characters are novel. Jesus' character is autobiographical.

    No where in the bible does the bible tell us to be good. Indeed, according to Jesus, only God is good, but it's ok to call Jesus good. Good is what God is; evil is what God is not. God reveals both good and evil because anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.
     
  6. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't think I have disagreed with your statement - it is what your statement entails that you seem not to get.

    If evil is "revealed" rather than Created. This means evil already exists - Who created it ?


    You can define God however you like - If however - you assume that this God created Humans - then it was God who created Humans in such a way as to be capable of Evil.

    God Created Evil. She may also reveal it from time to time as well. God may well be Good - but our creator gave us the capacity for evil.
     
  7. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    Which might be interesting, were there any reason to believe He is bound by His commandments to His children.
     
  8. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good is what God is; evil is what God is not. Good and evil are not created; they are revealed.

    Only God is good. God reveals both good and evil because anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.

    The knowledge of what a thing is not is an inevitable consequence of the knowledge of the extent of that thing.
    The knowledge of evil is an inevitable consequence of the knowledge of the extent of love.
    We see that extent of God's love for man in Christ on the cross, and right there we also see the extent of man's evil.

    The law, and consequently sin, reveals evil. Animals do what is unlawful for men to do, but it is not for them a sin because they were not given a law. Consequently, evil remains unrevealed to them. Even though they do the very same things, it is not for them a sin because they were not given a law. Sin is a violation of God's law; apart from the law, there is no sin. Without sin, evil remains unrevealed.
     
  9. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    Ahhh... the do as I say, not do as I do, tyrant, eh?
    Is there any reason to believe those that claim to know the word of a Christian God?
     
  10. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    In other words, subject to interpretation?
    If God created everything, why Evil?
    And why, let evil, however designed, persist? Presumably, one means to end evil is for GOD to show/talk to everyone; thus would end evil.
    BTW, I used to have indigenous Maya work for me, every one of which would recently attended mass every Sunday without fail that would say they are Catholic, but that also would attend the various ceremonies with the same reverence. They could hold the dual beliefs of Catholic Christians and those of the Maya Gods in their minds simultaneously without seeing conflict. On many occasions, I was warned certain activities required observing specific rituals to avoid angering this or that God. When told of such a requirement, I never tried to subvert their beliefs or prescribed rituals; after all they were protecting me...Lol. And, one summer, I witnessed, absolute evidence (unequivocal according to every one of them), of the existence of, of their God (as opposed to the Christian God). To them, there were no question that their Gods existed. BTW, their exhibition of morality, was extraordinary; among other things, in the six years I worked with the I never knew of one that was impolite, lied, committed theft, or was lazy when work needed to be done (couldn’t say the same of many of the American and EU interns that worked for me, and who often treated the Maya as somehow less than. The Maya observed two sets of divine Laws, some of which complemented each other. But, as they would inform me, the Christian god did his punishments after death but the Maya Gods were far more impatient.so....
    Gods Laws and Evil? By whose divine revelation? I witnessed their God speak, the Christian God didn’t intervene.
    If God is so jealous of other Gods why doesn’t he end them rather than making lowly humans do it for him?
    BTW, the Maya also had ancient written scriptures, as old as those of the Bible, and that can be read today (I personally knew the two boys, yes, boys, that cracked the language).
     
  11. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    Not at all. He doesn't need any commandments not to murder, steal etc. any more than an apple tree needs a commandment not to yield lemons.
    How should I know?
    That the good in His creatures may be tested.
    See above.
     
  12. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You are mumbling the same mantra - over and over - like it has not been understood and addressed - This is a thought avoidance technique that was likely taught to you.

    You keep avoiding what follows from your claim - that the God who created Humans, created them with the capacity for Evil.
     
  13. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    Yet, The God of the Bible kills, not just kills, but commits mass murder, commits adultery, and more.
    [/Quote]How should I know?[/Quote]
    Why don’t you?
    [/Quote]That the good in His creatures may be tested.[/Quote]
    Since, he, I assume a ‘he’ since that is the how he is depicted in the Bible (can’t tell these days with all the PC variations. Why, the test? Presumably, being all knowing ‘he’ already knows and knows the future, so he would obviously know the the answer.
    [/Quote]See above.[/QUOTE]
    See mine above.

    One of my favorite retorts from believers, we can’t know why, ‘it is all part of God’s mysterious Plan’.

    Theists continually provide explanations that can’t be tested, but, must be taken on faith, faith built on the say so of someone else. But, then all men, supposedly are flawed, as often conveyed, yet those authoring the Bible and doing the translation are supposedly perfect in passing down ‘the Word’ thousands of generations. But wait, I forget myself, those working on the Bible are inspired to write the inspired words of divinity. If you have two authorities, accepted as authorities of the passed down word of God that disagree with interpretation who do you believe? Who is worth killing over that disagreement?

    I have always been impressed with some figures in history and their reflections, like Marcus Aurelius, Decarte, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Moor, Franklin, Martin Luther and many more...even George Carlin Lol, but that doesn’t mean I completely agree with them. I find as much useful in the writings of Shakespeare as I do the Bible. But, when I step back to look the writings passed down by those with supposed divine revelation or the newest profit or someone that utters ‘God tells me’, Sorry, I have to pause. Thomas Paine authored ‘Common Sense’ in the mid 1700’s and it had a significant impact on colonists and influenced thinking. Lesser known are some of his discourses on other matters, including his essay entitled ‘Age of Reason’ in which he uses the same faculties of reason as he did in his famous pamphlet ‘Common Sense’, to explain why he rejects second, or ‘n’ number of hands revelation is passed on.

    http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/thomas-paine-the-age-of-reason/index.php

    While written in 1794, it would be incumbent on any rational thinker, to answer Paine’s Logic, particularly his criticism and deconstructing of the inconsistencies of the Old and New Testaments in Part I and Part II and his reasoned conclusion. His critical analysis of the BIble is one of the best I have read, and it comes from a someone writing in 1794. So, if someone must be tested by their faith, reading, it in ‘the Age of Reason’ in it’s entirety, will test faith against reason, particularly if his analysis and reason can’t be refuted in full be cross reason but is rejected out of hand.

    In his conclusion, Paine’s conclusion, must be read after consuming his critical analysis for context,
    Here he writes of revelation, as relates to the ‘Word of God’ in the Bible,

    “Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God and man, can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to man; but though the power of the Almighty to make such a communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all things are possible, yet the thing so revealed (if anything ever was revealed, and which, bye the bye, it is impossible to prove), is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account of it to another person is not revelation; and whoever puts faith in that account, puts it in the man from whom the account comes; and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed it, or he may be an impostor and may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby to judge of the truth of what he tells, for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases the proper answer would be, "When it is revealed to me, I will believe it to be a revelation; but it is not, and cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it to be revelation before; neither is it proper that I should take the word of a man as the word of God, and put man in the place of God." This is the manner in which I have spoken of revelation in the former part of the Age of Reason; and which, while it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretended revelation.”

    Less anyone thinks Paine didn’t believe in God, he writes in his conclusion,

    “If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see there is no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What is it we want to know? Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach to us the existence of an Almighty Power that governs and regulates the whole? And is not the evidence that this creation holds out to our senses infinitely stronger than anything we can read in a book that any impostor might make and call the word of God? As for morality, the knowledge of it exists in every man's conscience.

    Here we are. The existence of an Almighty Power is sufficiently demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is impossible we should, the nature and manner of its existence. We cannot conceive how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a fact that we are here. We must know also that the power that called us into being, can, if he please, and when he pleases, call us to account for the manner in which we have lived here; and, therefore, without seeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe that he will, for we know beforehand that he can. The probability or even possibility of the thing is all that we ought to know; for if we knew it as a fact, we should be the mere slaves of terror; our belief would have no merit, and our best actions no virtue.

    Deism, then, teaches us, without the possibility of being deceived, all that is necessary or proper to be known. The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of his existence and the immutability of his power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries. The probability that we may be called to account hereafter will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief; for it is not our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher, or even the prudent man, that would live as if there were no God.”

    The Bible as the word of God? Anyone is free to believe what they want, but asking me to accept the Bible as truth and the word of God, it can only done if I suspend reason and accept the word of ‘flawed men’.

    Is there a GOD? Or, Gods, I don’t know, but then I am comfortable with not knowing, and with pursuing to chip away at learning what I can. I don’t merely accept the doctrine of others, beyond that of curiosity in tabulating possibilities and I see a lot of possibilities. What happens when I inevitably die will be revealed....or not, in which case, given the infinity before me and looming after, it doesn’t matter..today, tomorrow, in 20 years, but an instant in grand scheme of infinity. I suspect death will be the same as my life was before I became conscious there was a me; an infinity of something abbreviated by a tiny bit of consciousness followed by another infinity not experienced and thus the same as an instant to me. In that, I have always found Shakespeare’s exploration of death in Hamlet’s soliloquy on death interesting and relevant to my pondering. What I don’t do is worry what a God or the Gods will do to me when I die. Hell (pun), I may end up in Valhalla, or the Maya underworld, or any of the thousand of other places.
     
  14. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    There's no commandment against that, just murder.
    There's no evidence for any of that in the Bible.
    Because I can't be held to answer for the credibility of people I don't know, obviously.
    This is unintelligible.
    Be that as it may, the testing benefits those who are tested and not found wanting.
    Take it up with them.
     
  15. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    Believers could consider any group to be "Amalekites" and engage in genocide against them. The command still stands because it is part of the biblical doctrine.
     
  16. tkolter

    tkolter Well-Known Member

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    This God using the Exodus narrative through a mortal laid waste to Egypt, when followed created a pillar of fire and split the Red Sea then drowned an army and your saying He couldn't be bothered to show up to get tribes to back off without slaughtering them in bloody wars?
     
  17. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    This is of course patently absurd, and proof the poster has not read Samuel I and has no idea what it is even about. He/She/It/Mutant also has no clue what 'doctrine' means, much less what doctrines Judaism or Christianity has.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2020
  18. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    And again, what Commandments did he violate? His priority seems to be the survival of the tribes in a tough neighborhood, and self-defense against predators isn't banned anywhere in the OT or the NT, either. We know at least some the Apostles carried swords as they followed Jesus, and Peter whacked the ear off a govt. official with one.

    If one's arguments rely in misinterpretations and distorting the contexts of single verses, it's safe to say one has no real arguments to make.

    And, again, proof the poster has not read Samuel I and has no idea what it is even about.
     
  19. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    Did you know that parents had to pay extortion to the priests or else the bastards would kill their babies?

    Of course I know what the fairy tale is about. Why do you approve of such disgusting doctrine?
     
  20. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    The Holy Bible is an awkward combination of the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) & the Christian New Testament. No one really knows who wrote most of the books of both. Their lack of agreement philosophically makes it difficult to accept them as having any common author. And, they most certainly weren't authored by God.
     
  21. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    A committee wrote the Bible. They did a wonderful job of basing all of the stories on the real Ten Commandments found in Exodus 34:11-28. They based the miracles on Exodus 34:10. They also included numerous clues in it to show that it was a big prank designed to fool the gullible. The stories show what happens when people follow the real Ten Commandments and how they suffer when they don't. You should be able to read, or listen to, any of the biblical stories and link it to one or more of the real Ten Commandments. The stories are mnemonic aids and therefore they don't have to make logical sense.
     
  22. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    I have no doubt there's a lot of truth in your post. It also reflects the persistent reality that many Christians--especially fundamentalists & Evangelicals--concentrate on following the Old Testament more than the New Testament, not realizing the Old Testament is the Jewish Bible that Jesus' teachings revised.
     
  23. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    Which of the Ten Commandments did Jesus revise?
     
  24. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    None, but Jesus introduced the idea of love being the most powerful connection between both Man & God, as well as between Man & Man--more powerful than the competitive tribalism, racism, anger, greed, jealousy, envy, & anger we all see around us.
     
  25. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    The Jesus character said that people should hate their families, and even themselves. He was a narcissist.
     

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