The bible is written in such a way

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by bricklayer, Dec 4, 2018.

  1. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    What would you expect from a compilation written by many authors?
     
  2. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    The Bible was written by a committee over the span of a few years. They did an excellent job basing all of the stories on the Ten Commandments. They also made a lot of deliberate errors to show that it was just an elaborate prank. We can easily find those clues today because we can do computer searches. That wasn't possible in the past.
     
  3. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    God's good purpose for His creation is the revelation of Himself to His creatures for His glory to our benefit. God reveals both good and evil. God reveals both what He is and what He is not because anything, even God, is reveled just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.

    So, how can a God who can only do good, who can only create good, also reveal evil? The solution was genius. God revealed evil to man via man's sin. God gave man a law to break, so that when we broke it, we would know both good and evil.

    Sin is the cure that kills you; pride is the ignorance that necessitated sin. God can, and did, take upon Himself the penalty for our sin, but God cannot take upon Himself our ignorance of what He is not. Until man sinned, all man knew was good. Because the devil never sinned, evil remains unrevealed to him; and although he has become the very personification of evil, the devil is left to sincerely believe that he is as good as God.

    Pride is ignorance of one's own subjectivity. The ultimate expression of pride is a sincere belief that one chooses from undetermined possibilities. The belief that one chooses from undetermined possibilities is commonly referred to as 'free-will'.

    'Chance' is what man calls the void where the knowledge of God would be. Because man did not consider the knowledge of God worth retaining, He gave them over to the futility of their thinking. The belief in chance is quite literally a curse. God blesses and curses whoever He chooses according to His good purpose for His creation.

    God does not read minds; He writes them.
    I can author a character that knows that they are a character and that I am their author. I can even create a dialog between myself and my character. However, there is another way by which a author can condescend to his characters. The author can write himself into his novel work as himself. He would be no less the author because he is also a character, and his character would be no less a character than any of his other characters. Jesus Christ is God's character incarnate.
     
  4. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    To start with you last inference first. I sincerely don't see how you can get a contingent God from that verse. I can usually see the other angle, but not this time. Let me rephrase the verse you cited. The author so loved his novel work that he wrote himself into his creation.

    There are myriad implications of necessity, such as: simplicity, immateriality, spirituality and eternality.

    Most people who do believe that the God of the bible is the Creator don't recognize God's sovereignty let alone their own subjectivity. However, if one is looking for a necessary being in the God of the bible, one can be found. The other scriptures are nothing like the bible. They describe nothing like a necessary being. At least, I was unable to infer one; and believe me, I was looking. My observation of material contingency has put me on a life long quest to find necessary being. Believe me; I was looking. I still am.
     
  5. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No. God is good. In fact, good is what God is; evil is what God is not. God reveals both good and evil. God reveals both what He is and what He is not because anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.

    You are revealed just as much by what you are not as you are by what you are.
    Are you a liar? Have you ever lied?
    You are not a liar, but you have lied. We all have, that is, except God.
     
  6. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The bible is exactly what I expect from a compilation written through many hands, over many generations, by one author.
     
  7. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I like SciFi too.

    If God has revealed himself to us, why do we have so many different ideas of God, of what he has said and of what he wants from his creatures. There isn't just the New Testament but the Old Testament and many other books. I separate the two testaments because having studied them, Judaism and their baclground, unlike Christians I see nothing in the Tanakh that references Jesus.

    Your post is not new to me, having been a Christian, preacher, Bible study leader for different groups for many years. Studying beyond the Bible has convinced me that the Bible has many authors - some historians, some poets and some fiction writers. I became an agnostic years ago.
     
  8. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Illogical claptrap!

    In order for evil to exist your god MUST have created it otherwise it would not exist at all.

    You don't get to cherry pick the attributes of your vengeful jealous mass murdering god who has done more evil than all of mankind combined.
     
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  9. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Why can't your "one author" keep his own story straight?

    That is how cops know when criminals are lying because their story keeps on changing.
     
  10. Swensson

    Swensson Devil's advocate

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    God reacting to the world indicates to me a God which changes as a function of the world. A God whose actions are different to what they had been if the world had not existed. I'm happy with your rewrite of the phrase, and I think I would consider such an author contingent on their story.

    This is all well and good, but it still does't allow me to check if I would agree with your conclusions. I still don't know how you interpret the Bible to fit your criteria, or how you have interpreted the other texts to find they don't. And I still don't understand why you turned to scripture to begin with. We know many religions are made up, if you had an understanding of a god, why do you have to match it to some scripture or other? Has scripture in general proven particularly reliable to you?
     
  11. Hawkins

    Hawkins Active Member

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    The question boils down to what do you expect if such a God exists.

    Most so-called contradiction is not contradiction at all, it's rather a matter of perspectives. In the very contrary that it's because most "contradictions" as considered by humans turn out to be not contractions at all that it's more suspected that there's God behind it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
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  12. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    God reveals both good and evil.
    God reveals both what He is and what He is not.
    Because, anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.
     
  13. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is an indispensable distinction, even when there is no difference, between what is implied and what is inferred. You seem to be ignorant of that distinction.
    It is infinitely more likely that your inferences are erroneous than it is that God's implications are in error.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
  14. rahl

    rahl Banned

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    Everything in existence, would have to be a creation of your god. This includes evil. Evil can not exist, if your god didn't create it.
     
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  15. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It is not possible for an author to be contingent upon his novel work. No effect can transcend its cause.
    Religious scriptures are not at all the only place I've looked for necessary being. The balance of creation is just as important, and it contains much more information about God than all scriptures combined.
    I am currently left to believe that the bible is the key to understanding everything else and that the nature of everything else is the key to understanding the bible.
    I have given you many, many examples. You do not recognize them. I just gave you another above, but you did not recognize it either. I concede that many can and do find contingency in the verse you cited, but I am able to find necessity. I make no claim that the bible can only be interpreted in one way. I claim that the bible can be interpreted in a way that is, to date, in my experience so far, unique. To date, I am left to believe that the God of the bible uniquely fulfills the implications of a necessary being.

    Think of the bible as a maze. I make no claim that all paths lead to a necessary being; however, I did find one that did. I have not found that anywhere else.

    I continue to test new and old ideas. I recently reread the Vedas because one of my daughters, and her husband, both make their living teaching yoga. The Vedas offer nothing even close to a necessary being. In fact, I was unable to consider them to even be logical. When I shared that assessment with Samantha, she responded "Great! You've got to get past needing everything to make sense." The poor kids have apparently put their faith in non-sense.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
  16. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My peers consider me a master mason. I build men who build things. One of the lessons I repeat over and over again is taught this way - I hold out my hand so that the other man sees five fingers, a thumb and a palm; meanwhile, I can only see my thumb and one side of my index finger. Then, I ask them, "Are you aware that my hand looks very different to me right now than it does to you? Do you want to argue with me about the shape of my hand, or do you want to learn what I see clearly?"
     
  17. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    You are just abusing the term "reveal" when what you actually should be using is "created".

    Your god CREATED EVIL!

    Why can't you deal with that fact about your own religion?
     
  18. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Projection of shortcomings duly noted for the record.

    Semantic quibbling on your part does not alter the FACT that your god can't keep his own story straight.
     
  19. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    A genuine "master" of anything knows the LIMITATIONS of their chosen trade and is always willing to honestly acknowledge them.

    This does not apply to those who hold religious beliefs because it is a form of self deception where acknowledging limitations would negate their beliefs.

    So it is a fallacy to equate religion to the concept of "masters" of trades.
     
  20. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    God's purpose for His creation is the revelation of Himself to His creatures. God reveals both good and evil. God reveals both what He is and what He is not because anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.

    God can, and did, take upon Himself our penalty for our sin, but God cannot take upon Himself our ignorance of what He is not.
     
  21. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Let's just set the FACTS straight!

    Your god created EVIL!

    Then he maliciously entrapped mankind with own EVIL machinations with full foreknowledge that they would be duped.

    That clearly REVEALED that your god does NOT have honest intentions towards mankind since he effectively condemned mankind for a crime that he was 100% responsible for creating.

    It goes DOWNHILL from there with your god REVEALING himself to being a spiteful, petty and malicious mass murderer.

    So no, he does not get "credit" for allegedly "absolving" anyone for the evil that he, himself is 100% responsible for creating and imposing on mankind.
     
  22. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    It's not even right to think of the bible as a whole. It's just a compendium of individual scrolls from different times and authors. Each one has its own unique issues, background and purpose. Aside from later redaction, what ties them together is a general shared culture and religious tradition, at least when looking just at "Old Testament" and "New Testament" sets, though even in these comparisons some major contradictions and other problems arise for one who would seek to harmonize the whole.

    There is an epistle claiming that many antichrists had come at the time the author was writing, and that this was a sign of the end times. Much of NT literature is of such an apocalyptic nature. Indeed, the entire religion was apocalyptic by nature, clearly having grown from the great crises of the Jewish-Roman wars and the destruction of the temple (and with it, of Judaism as it had existed until that time) and the substantial influence on religious thought from Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and who knows where else.
     
  23. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    [​IMG]
     
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  24. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good is what God is; evil is what God is not.
    God is not created, therefore, neither good or evil are created.
    Good and evil are revealed via God's creation.
    God reveals evil via man's sin, and I thank God that He did.
    God's revelation of evil via sin is as important to us as is our salvation from the penalty for sin.
     
  25. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Confirmation bias in evidence proving the point that this is entirely a religious fallacy that cannot stand up to logic and reason.
     

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