The Bible - God's Word or Man's? - What Convinces You?

sweet pea

Having believed the whole bible, hook, line and sinker all these years I get the impression many of you have come to the conclusion that we should take it with a pinch of salt and not hold to it so dogmatically. Many of you don't believe in it at all. And some possibly believe in it just as much as you did when you were a Witness.

To save me some time please, lovely people, as I am very lazy - could you share with me why you do or don't believe in it - what evidence there is either way and if there are any particular books that you found helpful in coming to your conclusions?

Many thanks,

(or, if this subject has been done to death and I've missed it, please share a link)

dawg

The Bible is the word of man.... God in the Bible reminds me of a drunken redneck, comes home finds his wife cheating and kills her and all the children and the lover. Why can't he just kill those involved in the crime?

The whole Adam and Eve thing is bull, didn't happen; so if that's a lie so is Jesus and his "sacrifice". The sacrifice od Jeusu is the same thing God says do not do in the OT; he jumps all over those who sacrificed their sons to Baal-yet he sacrifices his son

I could go on all day, Noah's ark-bull.... and so on and so on... Read "mysterious Stranger" By Mark Twain.... Half sums up why I know the Bible isn't the word of God.

R.Crusoe

The absolute knowledge that it was written men! And that it is the thoughts of men from thousands of years ago. And that if an all powerful God wanted to communicate with mankind He would do so to everyone in a fairer way than is being done in reality. The above proves to me that no book on Earth is the unique Word of an all powerful God that He feeds to all mankind. It is illogical to think otherwise - especially if God expects us to think logically. And ill logic is pointless anyhow!

Anti-Christ

Ah! My favorite question. Well there are many many topics about this on the board, I have a few myself.

First what had me questioning the bible was a bunch of verses I did no notice before ex.: Numbers 31:17-18 Deut.21:10-13 Judges 21:10-24 Ex 21:7-11. I could not understand why god would allow all these things. After that I started to read the bible with a new mind set and I found a lot more disturbing things. If you want some god Internet sites I suggest Internet infidels and evilvbible.com. I'll try and post a link to some topics on this subject. For starters you can go check out some of my topics on the mater, there our not the best but it's a good start. My first topic was about this very same question.

sweet pea

Thank you so much Dawg, R.Crusoe and Anti-Christ for your input. It really is appreciated and I will look into your recommendations. I have a sneaky feeling that I'm about to be in for a rude awakening :-)

No-one out there convinced it's bona fide? (and please, no offence meant but I'd rather not hear from Scholar, JCanon, Obves or Rosalee).

Anti-Christ

I hope this link works

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/92759/1.ashx

I don't know how to make a link.

Anti-Christ

Cool it worked. RunningMan has a lot of good info in his topics.

Clam

Like most people here I've been on a journey as far as that question is concerned. I was raised to believe it was the word of God and I then had that reenforced by such pulp as the little book Is the Bible Really the Word of God? The fact that there are so many holy books across the world which claim they are inspired of a creator, and you "believe" the one which is most common in your country or culture makes one wonder. I see them all, for want of a better description as unauthorised biographies, usually written by people pushing very human agendas.

I was once looking at an old Bible in a secondhand bookshop, and in the inside cover someone had written "All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental".

So I went

Sad emo

Hi sweet pea

I'm not sure whether you'd consider my view as 'bona fide'! If by that you mean taking the Bible as the literal word of God and everything in it as literal fact, then I'm not.

I believe parts of it were written by men who were inspired by God, so for example a lot (probably most) of the stories in Genesis aren't literal, but they contain some truth or teaching or wisdom which can be considered to be from God. The writers simply delivered these truths in ways which were relevant to their own time and culture.

Other parts, for example all the conquering of nations and the levitical laws I believe were glossed over as having God behind them - but again in a way this was simply the culture of the time, tribes had to believe that their god was on their side. And who knows, in the case of the Israelites, God might have been behind it all, but I don't see it as critical to my personal 'salvation'.

Leaving iit there for now, may be back to add some more later.

nvrgnbk

Great questions, sweet pea.

What I have found intriguing in conversations with some Christians is that they seem to have no trouble in casting aside words attributed to others, such as the Apostle Paul, when they appear to contradict the teachings of Jesus Christ.

If that can be done so easily, where does that leave us?

Wasn't it Paul that wrote 2 Tim. 3:16, 17?

So maybe it's not inspired of God afterall?

The Bible - God's Word or Man's? - What Convinces You?

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