What you believe is NOT an intellectual feat of logic: PURE ACCIDENT

by Terry 9 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Terry

  Let's take a completely fresh approach.

  Take out your eraser and wipe the blackboard clean.

  There!

  Now, start over...

  We can't go outside with a telescope and search the skies for a location for god or heaven.

  There is a SOURCE for god ideas.

  Depending on what your national and racial origin is the SOURCE may be some holy writings.

  In the West, due to accident of birth (on our part) we have the BIBLE or scriptures.

  This is a RECEIVED TEXT, so we are told.

  Take it or leave it---you cannot go around it.

  Can we all agree on one thing? There are possibilities:

  1.Our particular holy writings are THE only true ones.

  2.Our particular holy writings are only part of a group of true ones.

  3.Our particular holy writings are not true ones/or/partially true.

  4.There are no holy writings; all are false.

  Does that not cover it? I think so.

  If we can agree on the above possibilities can we agree on one more thing?

  The more evidence we have about those holy writings, the closer we get to a fair choice ABOUT which of the 4 is true.

  What constitutes genuine evidence?

  a.Comparison to the original autograph documents

  b.Chain of custody (provenance) of said documents

  c. Internal and external harmony of text

  d.A method of distinguishing between competing spurious texts and any actual pristine holy writings

  Can we agree on this, too?

  Okay. Let's stop and face some horrifying FACTS and see what we must honestly conclude without any bullshit, shall we?

  1.Not one original autograph text remains in existence. Nobody preserved them. Nada.

  2.Even 1st generation "copies" no longer exist. None whatsoever.

  3.The only copies, of copies of purported originals exist as postage-stamp sized shreds dug out of rotting landfills.

  4.Such writings as currently exist have internal disharmony calling for apologetic explanations to diffuse contradictions.

  STOP! Can we honestly assert that a Supreme Being PRESERVED such holy writings?

  If your answer is "NO", what remains for us to examine? How confident do we deserve to be that our own holy writings are AUTHENTIC?

  An honesty inquiry into the evidence is not an agenda or an atheistic campaign of destructive apostacy.

  Making false assertions of authority that God "must have" preserved "His holy word" is presumption without a foundational evidence.

  If you were born in another country, another or another culture or another era your CONVICTIONS about these matters would be radically

  different than they are.

  What you BELIEVE is more of an accident than an intellectual feat of logic.
• 

  sizemik

  Hard to argue that logic . . .

  It would appear you've identified two distinct accidents . . . the time and place of our birth . . . and the current form of our holy writings.

  An accident rating of 100% sounds fair.
• 

  designs

  My local Chumash Tribe has the Truth so don't mess with them...
• 

  mindseye

  Right on as usual, Terry. What I find curious is that literalists refuse to except the abundant evidence for evolution, but so easily except the Bible as a complete preserved document passed down from God. They don't apply the same burden of proof to their own assertions as they apply to others.

  And if we were born somewhere else we would possibly be discussing the Pali Canon, the Koran, or some other text.
• 

  thetrueone

  Weren't god's created so that men could absorb that so wanting power for themselves as well to give answer to the many

  diverse unknowns of the ancient era of mankind ?

  Your right though Terry on your thoughts toward couldn't God preserve his all important spoken word better than discarded manuscripts,

  some which were disposed and some kept for man to try to decipher their true meanings.

  People today are not aware of the many things told or written about what many of the select ancient gods were to do for the devoted

  believers and worshipers of those gods. For example the Egyptian gods/Pharaohs were said to protect and offer good things in that ancient

  civilization. As its known today there were many ancient civilizations as well as many diverse gods connected to those civilizations.

  Yahweh was just one .
• 

  designs

  When a god gives you a good idea stick with it. RA inspired the Felluccas, really CoooL looking sailing boats seen on the Nile, I am returning to RA.

  See you all in Khartom Hall KH for short www.touregypt.net
• 

  Terry

  I'm always momentarily stunned when I hear somebody say how God has PRESERVED His word the Bible!

  I want to shout; "Don't you pay attention?"

  I swear that as a Jehovah's Witness I use to talk alot about the "original manuscripts" and nobody ever corrected me by saying: "What original manuscripts?

  Where are they, buddy? Name the location!"

  I just wonder...what in the world would I have replied?
• 

  AGuest

  What you BELIEVE is more of an accident than an intellectual feat of logic.

  Or, for some, a direct, willful, and purposeful act due to holy spirit (which was not included in your choices, dear Terry - peace to you!)

  I'm always momentarily stunned when I hear somebody say how God has PRESERVED His word the Bible!

  Me, too! That it even is His Word (it isn't)... that He wrote/compiled it (He didn't)... and, in light of these first two fallacies, that He preserved it (He didn't). Blows my mind when I hear that from someone who professes to be a "christian," and even more so when they profess to be "anointed." Belief that the Bible is God's Word... that He wrote/compiled it... and that He preserved it... negates one BEING a "christian"... and even more so, "anointed." Which is what the Bible actually shows.

  Again, peace to you!

  A slave of Christ,

  SA
• 

  myelaine

  dear AGuest...

  Jesus was quite sure that His essential message was correctly received AND He had faith in those He had sent out to preach the message. whether He sent out His apostles with His message or whether He sent out 70 (two by two) into every city that He would go...one can be confident that these disciples had been given the teaching in line with that of the Holy Spirit before being BLESSED and sent out...

  Jesus said about those who He Himself had taught for a specific purpose: He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me. luke 10:16.

  with the word of the Lord Jesus in mind...WHY can we reject the authoritive teaching of the apostles that is contained in the bible? WHY can your expressed opinion have more weight than that of Jesus Christ?

  love michelle
• 

  AGuest

  WHY can we reject the authoritive teaching of the apostles that is contained in the bible?

  What "authorative teaching" are you referring to, Michelle?

  WHY can your expressed opinion have more weight than that of Jesus Christ?

  Where do you get that my expressed opinion HAS... or that I BELIEVE it has... more weight than Christ?

  Indeed, where do you even get that I reject any "authorative teaching" of the apostles? To the contrary, EVERYTHING my Lord has told me is in LINE with what the Apostles actually taught. Particularly John:

  "I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him." 1 John 2:26, 27

  Even more so, it's in line with what my Lord HIMSELF is recorded to have said:

  "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." John 5:39, 40

  So, really, just what are you on about this time, Michelle?

  A slave of Christ,

  SA