The Bible, Why not Reliable? (page 8)

littlebird

Sayitisntso How do we know verse 3 means that let light come to be isn't from the perspective from on earth? Couldn't something have been blocking the light during these creative events? Whether on earth or between the sun and the earth?

In Verse 1 it merely says he created light for the earth, it doesnt say where the source was from, light doesn't always come from the sun. The light in your bedroom is from electricity, not the sun. Being a God capable of creating a planet, I'm sure bringing forth light was easy compared to creating a universe.

As far as vegetation goes, we don't know if the earth was created in 6 literal days or not, the bible doesnt say whether or not it was. Vegetation grows in light, whether from the sun or by what we know today as artificial light. Ask anyone who has grown pot in their closet. My point is that the light created by God on the first day doesn't necessarily have to have come from the sun.

not a captive

If following Jesus is about parsing out the Bible, that would be the first sign that he is not from God.

If Jesus is from the living God then I would expect him to say something like this: "My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own."

Jesus' teachings cannot be domesticated into "religious doctrine". That is why he got into trouble. That is how we get into trouble when we who wish to follow Jesus try to convince ourselves and others through the Bible alone. We have to apply what we think we have learned.

It does require faith to trust that some shreds of truth still lie in the Bible's much abused text. But we who have chosen to search out God's will are not bound to going to Hebrew school nor required to decide whether St. Augustine was full of Platonic BS. Apparently we will not find strong support from Jesus if we do too much more than simply invite others to experience his teachings.

Is some faith required? Some small risk? If some germ of his teachings still reside in the gospels, we might be laughed at for trying. But what will we loose?

alfmel

The Bible is as reliable or unreliable as you want it be. It's a pretty flexible book. You can use it to prove or disprove your belief. You can use it to knock sense into your kids (figuretive or literally). So if you want it to be reliable, it's reliable. The problem is convincing others of your ideas. So let's discuss your points and see if you can discover your bias towards the reliability of the Bible.

1. 40 men wrote it and they all have a common theme. The common theme is God. That's what the compilation is about. I can take over 100 books written in the last 200 years on the topic of American History, and they'll all have a common theme! I can do that with science, psychology, etc. Whoever put the Bible together had the idea in his mind that it should contain writings where God was a common theme. If you pick up 100 books on Greek Mythology since the times of Aristotle to the present time, you could find 100 authors over a 3,000 year span and they would all have a common theme too, right?

2. Let me make a quick prophecy, Bible style: in less than 100 years this great country of the United States will cease to be a super power. Is this a real prophecy or just good analytical skills?

3. If everyone lived by my morals, I believe the world would be a better place too. The main values of not kiling, stealing, etc. are universal and not unique to the Bible.

4. The Chinese have long known much about the scientific truths of our universe. So have the mayas, the egyptians, etc. It is our western view of civilization and history that assumes man has only gotten smarter over time and that we are the only ones that have any accurate scientific knowledge. The truth is, knowledge has come in phases, with great periods of enlightenment and great periods of idiocy. We often assume everyone throughout the ages has been as dumb as the primates in the dark ages. But the dark ages only occurred in Europe and people during that time and place were the dubmest in recorded history. So don't assume that because 500 years ago people thought the world was flat that 2,500 years ago they believed the same thing.

5. It's hard to know whether a person is honest when you interact with a living person. So all of the sudden is possible to read 50 pages from a person who lived over 2,000 years ago and know they were completely honest? If that were the case, should we all write our 50 pages to establish our honesty once and for all?

One of the greatest lessons of history that's even included between the lines of the Bible, is the mistake of worshiping the past and irgnoring the present. Few respected Moses during his tenure, but future generations worshiped him as the greatest prophet ever. The same with Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all others in the Old Testament. Even when the Messiah came most people didn't recognize him. They were so caught up in the past and in the details of the law that they completly missed him. So let's take that lesson from the Bible and leave the details and specifics of the past and focus on the present. Let's look for God's miracles all around us today, instead of arguing if biblical miracle #73 is accurate or not.

Just my opinion.

mindmelda

"The notion that if everyone followed the morals of the bible the world would be a better place."

Various mainstream churches been pushing Biblical morality for the last few thousand years in the Western World, and hon, look around....is the world a better place?

No, no one practices it perfectly nor can you totally enforce it, but I imagine that most people in the Western World know that the Bible teaches that adultery, stealing, murder, greed and promiscuity are wrong. DUH!

You're assuming that only Christians know these things are wrong too, but surprise, most Buddhists and Hindus etc believe they are wrong too!

The WTS teaches people that they're the only bastion of morality in the world to demonize the rest of the world, but they're not doing a whole lot better at it. They just banish anyone who doesn't follow their version of Biblical morality, but these people still exist outside of their little world, so is that really making the world follow their version Biblical morality (and they're doing some of that wrong, anyway)?

No, it's not even making their own members practice it. It's making themselves look good to themselves by shunning people who don't conform, that's all. It's not a solution that works even in their own organization, and especially not outside of it.

mindmelda

*still wondering how Alexander wrote an AUTO (self) biography long after his death*

Oh, god, the idiots have truly taken over the world, haven't they? I am so ashamed of our educational system if this is what we're getting out of it. *sigh*

Mad Sweeney

When I grow up, I want to be Leolaia.

I'd be happy just to meet her, shake her hand, and give her a big hug! I've never seen her post anything unhelpful and lacking in insight.

Heaven

I have my own personal issues with religion and the Bible, one of the biggest ones being the whole subjugation of women. But another one of the biggest wacknesses is:

1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good." -- KJV

Why would the Bible ask you to do this when it's impossible to prove the existence of God, the very (supposed) foundation for the Bible in the first place?

To me, the Bible shoots itself right in the foot with this very scripture.

Leolaia

littlebird....I think you have it right; the author of the Priestly creation narrative does not construe the light commencing the First Day as originating from the sun, which is not made until the Fourth Day. It isn't however just light but a cycle of light/darkness that is to be identified with our cycles as day/night (as it was named on the First Day). In short, the author construes this cycle as independent of and anterior to the light shed by the sun. This is quite understandable from naturalistic observations of the sky; the sky brightens prior to the ascent of the sun at dawn and the sky seems to shine brilliantly of its own light in addition to that of the sun. It is thus understandable that the author could have conceived of alternating periods of light and darkness independent of the sun, or even the sky. The sun instead is described as "ruling" the day, not producing day itself.

Psychotic Parrot and mildmelda....I am positive that PSacramento's post above is not representative of the quality of his usual posts so I would personally be much more charitable.

Thanks cyberjesus, Cadellin and Mad Sweeney! *hugs*

metatron

Here's one of my key objections to the Bible: Even if we knew that every miracle reported in the Bible really happened, it still proves nothing about the doctrines contained therein.

Does that sound wild? Well, the problem is that every miracle in the Bible could be the result of contact with an advanced group of ET's.

We have no way to prove or disprove that such Contact happened, although I think the possibility is more credible with each passing year.

I do believe that Christianity and Judaism were inspired by a higher intelligence - but who is a matter of speculation.

metatron

littlebird

Thank you, Leolaia, forgive me if I missed something in your previous post regarding Tyre, but I thought I read somewhere that there were two Tyres, one that Nebecanezzer dealt with and the next was the community rebuilt but down the road. I vaguely remember reading this somewhere and need to research it.

Hey Dave, Bob Dole speaks in third person all the time, lol! It's my belief that he compiled information from Noah and Abraham, & Joshua is said to have written some . It wasn't unheard of for bible writers to use scribes.

The Bible, Why not Reliable?

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