Hopeful Monsters

How reliable is a “foundational source of knowledge�? that requires exegesis, hermeneutics, scholarship?

Whose exegesis, hermeneutics, scholarship is to be relied upon? And why?

Why does the “foundational source of knowledge�? require resorting to the combining of literal translations, multiple other translations (ie. never just one), lexicons and study guides?

Is the “foundational source of knowledge�? reliably identical to the one in French or to the one in Danish or to the one in Mandarin or to the one in Icelandic?

How reliable is a “foundational source of knowledge�? when most of its readers do not read, write or fluently speak all three together of: Hebrew, Ancient Greek and Aramaic?

Why has ‘God’ rendered an overwhelming majority of his created peoples unable to read and speak the language of his ‘Prophet’? - was ‘God’ thereby enhancing or damaging the reliability of this “foundational source of knowledge�??

Is someone who has never read the Bible substantially and materially less knowledgeable than someone who has?

If the “foundational source of knowledge�? is reliable, do different readers of the “foundational source of knowledge�? determine to an identical extent, in comparison to each other, which parts of the reliable “foundational source of knowledge�? are: parable, allegorical, poetical, historical, literal, metaphorical, symbolical?

Will the “foundational source of knowledge�? assist in the answering the 32 questions in This Post by Alf?

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Classical

Now most people could read these questions in these posts and see why I eventually realized the bible was not some divinely inspired or divinely transmitted document.

These questions cannot be intelligently answered! Believing in a divine document as a source of truth is totally limited to viewing the world in its current state with not only printing presses, but the internet, where information and documents abound everywhere. Of course STILL not all of the world has access to bibles or the internet, much less going back in time very far at all. What kind of "source of truth" can be offered through the "scriptures" when their existence and availability evaporates the further back in time we go? :huh:

Not one christian apologist can PROVE the bible or any other document is divinely inspired or transmitted. They cannot and I am positive of this. Some of the more intellectual apologists take hundreds of pages presenting intellectual grounds for believing the bible to be the word of god, but then they eventually take that same HUGE LEAP OF BLIND FAITH, that very simple-minded people take in just willing themselves to believe that the bible is a divinely inspired document with no rational grounds for this belief. Period. There is no such proof, whatsoever, and without any type of proof, who could possibly have the audacity to answer Muidiri's questions, and say that these other documents are not divinely inspired? The bible is far, far from alone in its claim of divine transmission. The entire argument for saying the bible is THE word of god, or the sole source of truth falls flat on its face instantly! It does not take much for this to be apparent to someone who has an open mind.

Of course few christians have an open mind, and if they do they end up no longer christians in many cases. This forum is chock full of people who have deconverted for these reasons.

Why, oh why, can't people think? :huh:

BadBadBad

Does God have something against Asia and the Middle East?

BadBadBad

In other words, we have to buy into it hook, line and sinker before we pick it up.

You've got that backwards. To use the correct hermeneutical approach we have to become naive and guillable.

Hopeful Monsters

Or maybe something against China, South America, Australasia, South East Asia, Mongolia etc.

The distribution of the “foundational source of knowledge�? to 'God's creation' was random and patchy. More hindrance to the 'epistemological ground'.

Perhaps 'God' is a geographically constrained cultural artefact and such oversight and manifest inconsistency is inescapable.

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BadBadBad

Surely that couldn't be it. Are you sure you're not just using the wrong hermeneutical approach.

greyline

And when those fortunate souls who'd been blessed with the True Knowledge finally did reach the far-flung corners of the globe to spread the Word, they brought smallpox with them. Oops!

BadBadBad

And racial genocide.

muidiri

And conversion at the point of a sword... because that's what the loving god of all is really about, isn't he?

Stephen T-B

..and the common cold.


It is not extraordinary that spuleeah is unable to grasp the concept that some people do not "choose" to be agnostic or atheist; he is compelled to believe they choose it because if he were to concede the possibility of someone "innocently" falling into either of these two conditions, he would effectively undermine the foundation of his belief system.
Unbelievers have a certain luxury here: they can sit back with a glass of whisky and amicably discuss the strange phenomenon of why some human beings make no distinction between magic and reality and some do. They can consider if it derives from a psychological trait, or perhaps even a gene; they can speculate and compare experiences of the sort we've seen being shared here. They can ask such questions as: "if there's an all-powerful god which gave his 'Word' so that human beings might know him and understand the reason for their existence and what their responsibilities and duties are, why did he deliver it somewhat late in the day and in a language understood by a few tens of thousands of people at most, so that it had then to be interpreted (and misinterpreted) before it could have any meaningful impact?"
Well, of course it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - unless you happen to be spuleeah. But he HAS to make sense of it. He HAS to make sense of everything in the Bible; he HAS to find ways of explaining why the sun stood still in the sky in a Biblical story, but hasn't been observed to do so since; why God, capable of doing absolutely anything, went to the trouble of creating a planet with an atmosphere (no mention of this in the Creation story, incidentally) and then going to the added trouble of creating a life-form with an intricate cardio-vascular system and rather delicate lungs which make it dependent upon that atmosphere. But this same god can, when he wants, overcome the laws of physics - which he presumably created - in order to make the sun stand still, allow a virgin to give birth to a god/human and perform other quite wonderful tricks.
If spuleeah were to say to himself "well, come to think of it, some of this is a bit difficult to come to terms with," he would know instantly that that very thought had been planted in his head by Satan, and must therefore be rushed out, post haste.
Well, you're doing a good job, spul, in keeping Satan at bay. But I expect you are helped by prayer? And I'm sure it will help you understand why the prayers to believe which have been uttered by many who post here were not answered.
In fact it MUST help you understand (and you do, of course, try your best to help us understand as well) because if you didn't understand, a seed of doubt would have been planted, and a chink in your defences opened through which Satan or one of his more agile agents would get through so as to water that seed of doubt, nourish it and at last harvest it and claim possession of your very soul. As he has gained possession of mine and a few others here.
This matters to you because you think you have a soul; it doesn't matter to me because I don't think I have a soul.
So we're both happy!