The Code

[devonin]

Re: The Code

Yeh but it was inspired by God, meaning it's perfect

How does being inspired by God to write down stories of what happened necessarily mean that the human wrote a flawless, perfect rendition of the events? People feel "inspired" to do all kinds of things that are niether perfect nor flawless.

There's a difference between "God inspired Noah to build the ark" and "God took control of Noah and used him to build the ark"

[sherbtail]

Re: The Code

It doesn't necessarily, but to be Christian means that it does, well my denomination anyway.
We believe the whole bible, is the perfect word of God, not written by him, but everything he wants is in there, how can anyone base a faith upon a book which may not be true or complete

[devonin]

Re: The Code

how can anyone base a faith upon a book which may not be true or complete

The reason you have faith in the truth of the bible is that you don't think you could have faith if the bible wasn't true? Does anyone else see the issues in that logic?

I mean...the bible actually may not be true or complete...there's no actual direct confirmable proof that it is...but you are going to continue believeing it is anyway, simply because it would call other beliefs into question if it weren't...that's a dangerous place to be.

[sherbtail]

Re: The Code

Yeh it is, I'm not denying that, sorry, trying to explain my faith isn't very easy and I'm probably not doing it very well.

I don't think you could have faith if the bible wasn't true, but I don't receive faith from the bible, I receive that from praying, communicating with God and the like.
However that doesn't mean I don't think you should question whether the bible is true or not, and if it is found that it isn't true then yeh, I would be forced to abandon my faith. I'm constantly questioning my faith, too much in fact, I think.
Sorry, it's a really hard thing to explain, especially late at night, but we have also gone way off topic

[jewpinthethird]

Re: The Code

Yeh it is, I'm not denying that, sorry, trying to explain my faith isn't very easy and I'm probably not doing it very well.

I don't think you could have faith if the bible wasn't true, but I don't receive faith from the bible, I receive that from praying, communicating with God and the like.
However that doesn't mean I don't think you should question whether the bible is true or not, and if it is found that it isn't true then yeh, I would be forced to abandon my faith. I'm constantly questioning my faith, too much in fact, I think.
Sorry, it's a really hard thing to explain, especially late at night, but we have also gone way off topic

There's a difference between taking the Bible literally, and using the Bible as a guide to living a good life. The truths that are presented in the Bible concerning morality are universal and can be found in every religion all around the world. In fact, Jesus figures, flood stories, sacrifice, devious serpents, etc can be found in various religious texts that developed in isolation. There is much truth to the Bible. The teachings of Jesus are laws to live by...whether he existed or not, whether he were the son of God or not, it shouldn't matter.

However, what the Bible says about the natural world is inaccurate. Seriously, the people who wrote the Bible knew nothing about the natural world. These people believed the Earth to be flat, the center of the universe around which all things revolved, and probably hadn't traveled outside of a 20 mile radius from where they were born. The "New World" was unknown to them and the heavens and the Earth were separated. Are you seriously going to let some guy who didn't even know of the existence of bacteria or viruses dictate to you the truths of the natural world?

Seriously, if you brought a laptop to the time of Jesus you would either be 1) Considered a God 2) stoned to death for witchcraft. That's the kind of mentality these people had.

[Sera13]

Re: The Code

I'm biased here because I see the Bible as a work of fiction as well as Dan Brown's novel. So if both are fictional I have nothing to question and have no opinion.

I completely agree with you. Infact i watched a show, i believe on the history channel possibly the disocvery channel, Where they had many People in the buisness of Religous studies on and they were completely tearing apart everything in the bible, Using the bible. They would take diffrent books of the bible, That where telling the same stories but with 100% completely diffrent recolections on the events that took place. Infact they even stated most of the books written in the bible where not even written by people involved in any of this, or even first hand witnesses.

I have another thing to say, Which supports my oppinions but could very well upset many people. On the subject of Jesus and the bible as a whole. I fully believe it is fictional. However i have also given much thought to the idea there could have very well been a guy name jesus in those time who just had alot of smarts and munipulation skills. Its basically the same concept of hitler.. He knew how to munipulate. He convienced so many people he was right, with no proof once so ever. Just his own reasonings. Week people easily buy into things like this. Most people are followers. Say this guy was incredibly smart, and munipulative. He could have made it all up.. Convienced enough people it was all true.. and then boom.. He bible. Like i previously stated they have no proof or even reason to believe any of the books in the bible were even written by first hand witnesses (according to the show) Which means there is no written documentations known that were written by anyone we can prove accutally witnessed any of the events in the bible. It could be alot of munipulation and exagerations.

[Lamoc]

Re: The Code

It was said earlier and I back it up. The bible may be true but being passed down generation after generation, some things are changed or misunderstood. Jesus could have had a wife and such, I believe it is very possible.

[devonin]

Re: The Code

However i have also given much thought to the idea there could have very well been a guy name jesus in those time who just had alot of smarts and munipulation skills.

There is plenty of corroberative evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a real guy who existed at that time, and who actually did travel around teaching, preaching and so on.

The part that is problematic is this: So did hundreds of other people at the time. Being a travelling teacher and theologion was a perfectly valid way to spend your time those days (For a nice comedic take on that, see the preaching scene of Monty Python's Life of Brian, where a stretch of road has a half dozen misc preachers) so just because Jesus was one, doesn't mean he was any more of less genuine than the others.

As for the bible being written afterwards...that one is a tricky criticism. After Jesus' death, his apostles really did think that the second coming would be like..."Any day now" so they had more important things to do than bother recording events when they thought rapture would be within their lifetimes.

It was only much later in their lives, when it became more clear to them that maybe they'd gotten the timeline a little wrong, that they realised it would be a good idea to record all of that for future followers.

So I mean yes...it was generally accepted to have been largely written years after the fact, but they had a better reason than "Lets invent a holy book"