Nickolas, before the bible ever was, people still believed in God, gods, goddesses, creators, spirits, etc. In every culture. In every time. People need more than just the physically represented world... because there IS more than just the physical.
God just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Our understanding does. On the other hand, though, sometimes our understanding gets smaller, even to the point of being completely false (such as westboro baptists, etc... or in the way that we went from no literal burnign hell, to dante's version of hell... That is a smaller understanding than was had at first, and all because of listening to someone who claimed to know, but did NOT know). So it depends on who or what you're listening to.
But I ask you... why do you listen to the people who have a small view? Obviously, if there is a God, then he IS larger than most of us can even attempt to comprehend. If there IS a creator, then he knows all about protons/neutrons (which are just OUR name for these things). He is the one who created all of those things and the methods that we are just beginning to get a glimpse into.
We are the ones who are small. A creator of the infinite and majestic universe (even just this planet), cannot be as small as people make him out to be.
He just expands magnanimously to fill the space created in the minds of those who believe in Him and who are completely incapable of challenging their beliefs.
Give me something that WOULD challenge my belief then. This stuff - science and the universe, life on other planets, evolution, etc, etc - does not. Not in the least.
Make no mistake. People believe in Yahweh because of the Bible. Belief in Yahweh comes from nowhere else.
Then how did people believe in Yahweh before the bible? Please refer to my opening comments on this thread.
People can dismiss the OT saying it was just the way man understood God at the time or yeah-but about the Apocrypha and how it really tells the untold story or cite the New Covenant of the NT but it all comes down to the same thing.
... or because of translation errors, scribal errors, or someone pushing an agenda...
The limitation you speak of is absolute unquestioning Faith. Faith handed down from generation to generation in the form of the Holy Bible
If you are referring to blind, unquestioning faith in what some other person tells you your faith is supposed to BE, then I can agree. That is very limiting.
But you are mistaken, imo, if you think people do not eXamine their faith, and why they have it, and still come out at the end WITH faith intact and even stronger than before.
I may have misunderstood what you meant here, though. Perhaps you might tell me how or where I am limited in my faith so that I can better understand what you mean. (I am not offended, and you won't offend me by speaking your mind. I am interested in the answer)
I have read the Bible in its entirety. Twice completely plus large chunks of it piecemeal. God does some very human things in the Bible. Some sociopathic and psychopathic things, too. How is he any different from all the other gods humankind has abandoned along the way?
I have read it also in entirety a few times, and a lot of it many times. Sometimes, in some places, he is written as being no different than all the other gods who have been abandoned. Shown through Christ, however, He is different. Christ is the Truth, of God.
God is not limited to the pages of the OT, though, or even the NT. He is Spirit. Something many people cannot grasp, and that many other people cannot help but to seek out.
I have a question though, and this is just a side point... it might not be for you, because you might not have made the comment. But someone said that they were not interested in the Apocryhpa because they had already read all they need to know about Yahweh in the OT. How is that different from me saying, "I don't need to read anything to do with Darwin... I know all I need to know about him through what I've read about social Darwinism"? Now I'm not saying to go and read those things, because the truth does not lie in any of these writings that have been handled, and passed down, etc. The truth lies in Christ. But at least if you read them, you might come to see that so many people held so many different views and that to read just the OT and say THIS represents Yahweh, and nothing else... that is limiting. Same as if I said social Darwinism represents all there is to know about Darwin/ism.
Peace,
Tammy
