Thank you for taking the time to answer me prologos.
I appreciate it!
If you still believe in God, what are your thoughts on the Bible?
by ilikecheese 34 Replies latest jw friends
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prologos
sorry for the spelling, but you got the message.
On the dynamic energy. if there were not movement, from the smallest to the velocity of clusters, The gravity of the mass would have collapsed the universe. so it is the dynmaic energy that makes sure that there continues to exixt an expanding universe. Every movement creates a centrifugal outward force, helps the continued existence.
These co-incidenses with our current understanding do not make the scriptures inspired.
Corelation is not causation.
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FlyingHighNow
Theist here. I have similar views to yours, ilikecheese.
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sparrowdown
I think there are some useful principles to be gained and a few family dramas any soap opera writer would be jealous of.
designs said: the Bible is what happens when you don't raise the minimum wage.
I think the Bible is what happens when you don't have television.
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Paris
I like reading the Psalms and other passages and the book of James and the very mystical things Jesus was reported to say. I also think the Torah, the Law, is important because of it is the basis for contract law, personal property rights and levels of guilt in the justice system, based on intent, and rules on humane treatment of animals and the responsibilty of the community towards the widows and orphans and the law of the Gleaners that provided for the poor in the community.
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cofty
I also think the Torah, the Law, is important ... - Paris
It treats women as possessions of men. They were to be stoned to death if they didn't bleed on their wedding night. They could be divorced on a whim. Women captured in war were to be taken as war booty and forced to marry the man who had killed their husband and family. Kidnap and rape was official god-approved Torah policy.
The Torah advocates beating children and even murdering them for disobedience.
It demanded the total genocide of every man, woman, infant and animal of the previous inhabitants of Caanan.
It required the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals for no reason other than to burn them on the altar so that the smell would please Yahweh and calm his wrath.
The Law approved of slavery of the worse kind. Humans were to be taken as possessions and could be beaten to death for disobedience - as long as they didn't die the same day as the beating.
Yes the Torah is important all right. It stands as a lesson in what happens when a nation bases it's laws on religious superstitions.
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rjharris
I want to preface my response with the following: I am an ex-JW of more than 30 years (disassociated).
I believe in the one Creator of the heavens and the earth. I believe this Creator made a provision to save his creation mankind from perishing (going out of existence) by introducing one of his Sons of God (the first one created) into the world of mankind.
I do not believe that this Creator has revealed his true name to mankind. What we have today is what someone thinks his name is. Based on my many years of reading and studying the Bible, Christ never referred to his Creator and Father by a personal name. It is just not there. Jesus always called him "Father." (Occurences of "Jehovah" in the NWT of the Bible were added. Jesus never used the name. Proof of this can be seen by comparing the Greek translation where those instances occur. There is no name.)
I believe more important than a personal name affixed to God is his "reputation." I believe that God will reveal his name to all of mankind in his own time. I believe God wants us to look to what he will "prove to be" - in other words - to look at his reputation. If God says, "Let there be light" and there is light, then one knows he has the reputation (a good name) to do as he says he will do.
I personally do not "believe in the Bible." Please permit me to clarify. I do not believe in a book as a book is not alive; it is paper. I believe in a "person" and that person is the one The Most High God has sent into the world: His Son.
I DO NOT believe that the Bible is the Word of God. There is ONLY ONE Word of God and it is the Christ. No book should have been elevated to that lofty position to be shared with Christ.
It is God who chose and authorized Christ. It is men who chose and authorized the Bible.
No one can deny that persons other than God and Christ speak in the Bible. The serpent, Adam, Eve, the Devil, demons and others are "speaking" in the Bible. Are their words "The Word of God?" So when one say that the Bible is The Word of God, they are including the sayings of others including God and Christs adversary. This is the trap the world is Christianity is in.
Jesus said (not the Bible says), Jesus says at Matthew 4:4 that "Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every utterance coming forth through God’s mouth." Thus, our lives are not dependent upon "what a book says" but what "comes out of God's mouth." That is, what he says.
Everything in the book that men gave the name to; authorized; made holy; and call the Word of God is not EVERYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF GOD'S MOUTH.
If Jesus [the] Christ is The Word of God, that is, God's spokesman, then everything thing he says comes from God's mouth.
Using 2 Timothy 3:16 as proof text that "The Bible" is the Word of God is a weak one. Why? Because it makes the assumption that "The Bible" is scripture. When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to Timothy there was no Bible containing 66 books. There was no book by that name back then. So how can one posthumously make a book that did not appear on the scene for more than 1000 years after Christs ascension and "it" becomes the Word of God?
God says (not the Bible says) at Luke 9:35:
"This is my Son, the one that has been chosen. Listen to him."
He did not say listen to a book.
It is men who say:
"This is our book, the one that we have chosen (authorized). Listen to it as The Word of God."
I listen very closely to the conversations persons who claim that believe in God and Christ and notice 95% of the time that they ascribe to a book (The Bible) the things that God and Christ themselves say.
For example, they will say something like this: "The Bible says or teaches at John 14:6 that Jesus is the way the truth and the life."
Well that would be an incorrect statement because the Bible does not say that. Jesus says it.
My point here is that the world with regard God and Christ have been duped and misled in a very bad way. The world looks to a book. A book has been given predominance over mankinds Head, Lord and Master - Christ and this book is "being listened to" and that is why there is so much confusion. One cannot reference the utterances of the dead Prophets of old as God did not send them to us and he did not tell us to listen to them. God is clear. He said, "Listen to" his son.
It is a book that men took the liberty to name, include and exclude certain scrolls and then present it to the whole world as holy and the word of God.
The only value the book called the Bible has is the words in it that are utterances of God himself and Christ.
In fact, the ONLY book within this book men gave the name Bible to that should be "standalone" is "The Revelation by Jesus Christ Which God Gave Him." Why? Because we are told explicitly who gave it to Jesus Christ. So all in the Revelation chronicle can be trusted. (Apart from men interpreting it as he sees fit.)
If Christ is not recognized as the ONLY Word of God (Rev 19:13), then it is impossible to understand The Book of Revelation. Why? Because persons will attempt to understand it by referring to the Prophets of old such as Daniel. This is a mistake because now "The Bible" is being used to understand Revelation rather than Christ himself.
It is for that reason there are hundreds of so-called understandings of the Book of Revelation (and about God and Christ) that are in gross error. Not one is correct. No, not even the Watch Towers.
No, the Bible is not holy and it is not the Word of God. Only the one God sent and authorized are those things and we are to listen only to what he says.
R. Jerome Harris
e-Prophetic.com -
punkofnice
I'm out of this one. I see no evidence for a god let alone that the Bible is inspired in any way shape or form. Just believing is no longer enough for me after a life of slavery to the WBT$.
Once bitten, twice shy!
Give me a reason beyond 'god did it' coz there's no other explanaition right now pleeeeze
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Terry
From Professor Bar Ehrman's blog:
" in order to figure out what God revealed to us through the authors of Scripture, we have to engage in textual criticism to get *back* to the originals. In other words, studying the surviving manuscripts of the NT was actually a sacred duty , and of utmost importance .
I realized this already as an 18-year-old. And it is what drove me, initially, to become a biblical scholar. God had inspired the originals, and so we jolly-well better figure out what the originals said so we could know what the inspired words were. This was an exciting venture for me and drove me to delve into manuscript studies – even before I knew Greek!"
"The oldest reasonably full fragmentary manuscript we have of Paul’s writings is called P46 (because it is written on papyrus – hence the P – and it was the 46 th NT papyrus discovered and catalogued). It dates from around the year 200 CE. That means it was produced approximately 150 years after Paul’s original letters. That’s as early as we have a witness to what Paul wrote (and only in the passages that the manuscript contains). Our first complete copy of Paul is not till the mid 4 th century.
That makes it impossible to know for certain what he wrote in every passage (or arguably, in any passage). "
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https://archive.org/stream/Prof.BartEhrman-MisquotingJesus/BartD.Ehrman-MisquotingJesus_djvu.txt
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The above is the full text of Ehrman's MISQUOTING JESUS
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Laika
The bible is like a conversation about God. All the authors of the OT believed Israel had been given a special vocation by their god Yahweh, but they understood that calling in different ways. So for example, Proverbs tells us if we keep god's laws we will be blessed, Job tells us this is not always true, they worship the same god but have contrasting theologies.
The NT tells us Jesus is the final point of the conversation. The purpose of the bible is to point to him and it can then be read back through him, and that is how we understand the conversation and which parts should be affirmed.
Just my 2 pence. :)