How do you know the Bible is from God?

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Philologos
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11 Jul 2011, 7:28 pm

The unexamined life is not worth living.

There is time.

WrongMan
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11 Jul 2011, 9:17 pm

91 wrote:

As a Catholic, the Bible is not the central component of my faith (though it is certainly very important). I didn't approach the Bible under the assumption is was true and work from there. I agreed that it was mostly true because it was an accurate representation of what I had found to be true through spiritual experience.

Tell us about your spiritual experience. How did it help you find the truth?

Sweetleaf
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11 Jul 2011, 9:29 pm

Religion=placebo effect, that seems to be what it comes down to.....I mean if you believe something it can influence your personal reality.

WrongMan
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11 Jul 2011, 9:33 pm

Philologos wrote:

I have gone over this - guess you missed that class? Let us just start with the most basic and obvious. Prove you exis - or prove I exist, I don't care. If you do not exist - if I do not exist - then all the rest of the world, which rests on our existing in order to poerceive it, let alone have this discussion, falls apart. But the assumption that either of us exists, while it is consistent with my impressions, cannot be proven.

If neither you nor I exist, then how are we having this discussion?

Your existence and my existence can be reasonably assumed due to various factors that clearly show we exist, but the Bible being divinely inspired is a different story. There is no clear evidence for such an idea. In fact, the odds seem to be against what many Christians believe concerning the Bible.

What's reasonable about believing that the Bible collectively came into being because a bunch of Jews (and a select few Gentiles) were supernaturally inspired by God to pen down the books counted as the Bible ... despite the fact that the books in the Bible appear to be as if they were written by mere human beings according to their own human goals and desires?

WrongMan wrote:

Of course it does not help skeptics understand. Similar testimony coming from others did not help me - and I will back my skepticism quotient against yours any day, I was and am a keptic from birth.

I have elsewhere outlined the events which brough the pile of evidence to the tipping point - but why? If you are indeed a skeptic, a fellow follower of Thomas styled the Doubter by those who think they disparage him, though it is a supreme compliment, then devidence I have seen will not convince you.

If you keep your eyes and ears open, you will get closer to Truth, and that is what counts.

I was granted the singular favor of meeting several Christians who were very obviously possessed of knowledge and were very real. Not one of them tried to "convince" me, though some given their background "should" have.

My role likewise is not to convince, just to say - one skeptic to another - there is something to be found that can be found.

I don't get it. In what way are you a skeptic?

Due to you believing that the Bible is divinely inspired, I find it hard to believe that you are a skeptic. But then again, it could be because your definition of "skeptic" is different from mine and many others'.

Philologos
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11 Jul 2011, 9:34 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

Religion=placebo effect, that seems to be what it comes down to.....I mean if you believe something it can influence your personal reality.

Fraid not. Try this - if your personal situation is changed that can consitute evidence which changes the data stack and the conclusion.

Might could happen other way round, for me [and for others documented - it did not..

I trust you do not intend "persoinal reality" to imply different people "have different realities".

Rather reality is, of which notwo have the sae expoerience / perception.

Ilka
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11 Jul 2011, 9:37 pm

God is spirit. He doesnt write. And I refuse to believe he will "inspire" someobe to write some of the despicable information the "Holy" Bible contains. But everyone is free to believe in whatever they want to believe. By the way, the world should be over by now, right?

WrongMan
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11 Jul 2011, 9:37 pm

OddFinn wrote:

WrongMan wrote:

Or do they simply choose to believe what can't be shown to be true?

That. How can you know anything to be true? How do you know that this site was made by Alex Plank? How do you know this post was written by me? You really can't know anything for sure. You just choose what to believe. Good luck!

Are you implying that the odds that you exist are the same as the odds that the Bible is a collection of divinely inspired books?

Sweetleaf
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11 Jul 2011, 9:38 pm

Philologos wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Religion=placebo effect, that seems to be what it comes down to.....I mean if you believe something it can influence your personal reality.

Well lets put it this way I was reading about the placebo effect in my psychology book for school and it reminded me a lot of all that talk of faith in christianity. I mean I have no issue with people following religion if they do not push it on anyone else....but its all based on what the individual believes. There is no absolute proof of god but if one has faith in god existing and that helps them with life then great for them. But it still resembles the placebo effect a great deal.

OddFinn
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12 Jul 2011, 4:10 am

WrongMan wrote:

Are you implying that the odds that you exist are the same as the odds that the Bible is a collection of divinely inspired books?

No. I'm an Aspie, there is nothing written between the lines.

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91
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12 Jul 2011, 4:26 am

WrongMan wrote:

91 wrote:

Tell us about your spiritual experience. How did it help you find the truth?

That is a very private question. Suffice to say I had a significant sense of God, the holy spirit and the truth of Christianity. Enough to deny my natural skepticism and convince me not to be an atheist anymore.

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Last edited by 91 on 12 Jul 2011, 7:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

01001011
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12 Jul 2011, 5:30 am

Fnord wrote:

They believe. That's all that matters to them. I've found that challenging such faith is pointless - it leads only to frustration and a deeper entrenchment on both sides.

Even asking for evidence to support their claims is wasted effort, as there is no such evidence that does not find its roots embedded in faith, which is inherently the belief in unprovable things. Better for critical minds to focus their attention on more practical fields of research, such as gravity control, sustained nuclear fusion, and regeneration of missing organs and lost body parts.

Or they just utter some nonsense and pretend there is something to believe.

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12 Jul 2011, 5:33 am

Philologos wrote:

How do you define 'I'? What if 'I' tell 'you' 'Philologos' doesn't really exist but is just a delusion? (I am an eliminative materialist.)

Philologos
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12 Jul 2011, 8:35 am

01001011 wrote:

Philologos wrote:

How do you define 'I'? What if 'I' tell 'you' 'Philologos' doesn't really exist but is just a delusion? (I am an eliminative materialist.)

As I said, we have gone over this. In fact I am pretty sure I addressed it to you.

I cannot prove to you that I exist. I cannot even prove it to myself. It is a reasonable working hypothesis to explain what appear to be perceptions to assume - until more data come in - that I exist and that there exist other entities outside me. But it cannot be proven. It is simply one of those impossible to prove base assumptions that we all use to ground our explorations and reasonings.

For some reason, some of us feel it necessary for their mental health to reproach others for believing things they have perceived but cannot prove - even though anybody who belierves he exists does precisely that.

Philologos
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12 Jul 2011, 8:39 am

WrongMan wrote:

OddFinn wrote:

WrongMan wrote:

Or do they simply choose to believe what can't be shown to be true?

Are you implying that the odds that you exist are the same as the odds that the Bible is a collection of divinely inspired books?

If I may step in - of course not. Unless I conclude I actually exist, it is pointless even to ask if my chair exists or if the Bible is round or flat. WHETHER the Bible is depends on the answer to the other.

ValentineWiggin
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12 Jul 2011, 3:54 pm

Everyone is entitled to their beliefs.
No one is entitled to their own facts.
No data or empirical concepts are in any way altered when someone starts talkin to the Great Jeebus,
except maybe yet another singular case study of how prone is the human mind to absolute asshattery.

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Philologos
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12 Jul 2011, 4:12 pm

ValentineWiggin wrote:

Now there is a ridiculous statement. Its only redeeming quality is the strange new word "asshattery" - which someone should examine to find out what it is supposed to mean.

No one entitled to his own facts? Please find any two people who know the same inventory of facts, who have access to the same set of data. It is impossible.

Every living human - even bitl, raml, and the herd - has facts unkown to others.

If I tell you that I lay in the grass among the fallen columns watching the eagles soar over Olympia, that is - or was until I shared it with you - my fact.

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