DMB

Spurly: you admit to a bias towards the truth of the bible. I would suggest that a bias was evident in your OP. You refer to "God" (with a capital G) and assign the personal pronoun "he" to this entity.

This suggests to me that in your OP you were already entertaining specific ideas about what it was proper to consider.

As has already been pointed out, it is pretty meaningless to discuss the existence of a god unless you have some sort of working definition to start from. You clearly had your own implict definition, even when you were apparently criticising the attributes assigned by atheists to "God".

For me, as an atheist who has never belonged to a religion, the basic EoG question has to be: "What do people mean when they talk about gods?"

And following on from that, "Is there any reason to believe that a single god is any more plausible than multiple gods?"

And then again, "Is it proper to assign human attributes, such as gender, to gods?"

Looking at the spectrum of religious belief from the outside, it is most striking that, before the modern age of mass transport and migration, most people's religious beliefs were solely determined by their geographical location: if you were born in Country A, you would grow up believing in xianity, in Country B, islam, in Country C, Buddhism, etc. So what does that tell you about the "truths" of any particular religion, such as your own xianity?

emur

I want to bump this thread, because spurly hasn't posted on it for a few days and hasn't responded to the posts that I and several others have made.

This isn't an indictment on you spurly. It is easy to get busy and upon returning, forget about a previous thread.

Mel

spurly

I would have to say yes, and no. There are evidences for the existence of God outside of Scripture. A created order, laws of thermodynamics, etc. But yes, a lot of my evidence for the existence of God does come from the Word of God found in the Scripture.

Kevin

spurly

I would have to say yes, and no. There are evidences for the existence of God outside of Scripture. A created order, laws of thermodynamics, etc. But yes, a lot of my evidence for the existence of God does come from the Word of God found in the Scripture.

Kevin

spurly

You are partially correct here. I'm sure if I thought the evidence led to the fact that God did not exist and I walked away, I would break a lot of hearts in my family. But I also know that my family is full of love and acceptance. For example, when people get caught in a sin, we don't shun them, instead we surround them love and encouragement. I think the same would be true if I turned away from the God that we follow.

Quote:

spurly: As i continued my search, I found that the God my family worshipped indeed did exist, though he wasn't exactly what I had always been taught. rw: Would you be willing to further articulate how you found this out? What events or circumstances transpired to solidify your conviction that your faith was grounded in truth?

I guess I came by a lot of this while I was in college studying theology and apologetics. The more I looked into what the God was saying through the vehicle of his word, the more I became convinced that the word contained the truth.

[quote]
spurly: I guess I need to clarify what I meant by that. What I was saying is that often men's interpretations of what the Bible says are faulty. We can not base what we say on men's interpretations (because they are many and varied). We have to go back and search the word of God for the answers. We can read what other people thought, and listen to what other people say, but in the end it comes back to "what does the word of God say", if it really is the word of God, which I believe it to be.

rw: I'm curious as to how you reconcile a difference of interpretation. If someone gives you what they believe a particular text means and you read it but find it doesn't appear to mean that to you, how do you reconcile the fact that you are, in effect, interpreting the text to fulfill your own personal understanding and may actually be mis-leading yourself?

And an extremely cogent philosophical question that follows hard on the heals of this is why a god who sincerely desires a personal relationship with his creatures would attempt to secure such a relationship through the words of a book that have proven to be so easily mis-understood and mis-interpreted? Just look at all the wierd and kooky and dangerous cults and acts men have committed against other men based on faulty or confused interpretations of this book. How do we reconcile that with a loving god desiring a personal relationship?

That is a tough question. And that is why I continue to search out the truth as found in the scripture. I don't want to be following a path that leads in the wrong direction, i.e., away from God.

So when someone has an interpretation of scripture that doesn't jive with mine, I have to search it out to see if what they say is true. If it is, then I must adjust what I have believed. If not, it confirms what I have believed. I try my best not to let presuppositions get in the way, although that is tough to do.

As to why a God would allow his book to be misinterpreted, I don't know. But I do know that God gives us lots of freedom of choice and free will. And I do know that there is an evil force that works against him, even distorting his words so as to decieve people. Maybe that is part of it.

Quote:

spurly:This is a tough one, because some people say he has done that, and others are just as adament (sp?) that he has not. I can see your point though, that within the framework of my faith, I had to adopt a certain bias to believe that God exists. And the major part of that bias is believing that the bible is the word of God. rw: It's hard to say whether people begin with a bias towards believing a god exists and then having that bias re-inforced with the bible or if people start with a bias towards believing the bible is a true account which reinforces their belief that a god exists. I guess it's a complimentary type of procedure. Either way it's a difficult conviction to sustain against the winds of doubt if one begins to look further than just the bible for additional support for their faith. The more critically you examine the foundations the more cracks appear until, if you are committed to intellectual integrity, the entire artifice begins to crumble under the heavy weight of evidence against you. Some compensate by re-defining their god concept and abandoning the traditional views of the church, others retreat into thier private enclave of fellow worshippers never to be heard from again. Only a few ever have the courage to truly follow the evidence to its inevitable conclusion. Maybe you'll be one of those few.

I hope that I will always follow the evidence to the truth.

Quote:

spurly:The Bible does have a human element. Everything we have does. But the question is how does that human element affect the word that we have? rw: Well, one way the human element affects us is in the way it produces many unwanted effects like straw gods and outlandishly dangerous cults. Surely an omniscient god could have foreseen this and taken pains to ensure his words would produce no such undesirable effects...don't you think so?

He could have, but if he did, wouldn't we be more like puppets than people. In my opinion, one of the hardest things an omniscient God ever did was to give us freedom of choice, because he knew that many people would choose not to follow him. He knew many people, blinded by evil, would distort and twist his words. But he didn't want a bunch of cookie cutter followers. He wanted people to walk in a relationship with him. And love is a dangerous thing. It can be spurned instead of returned.

Quote:

spurly: As far as accepting it uncritically, I haven't. I am not sure if certain disputed sections (i.e. Mark 16, John 8:1-11, etc.) were actually part of the orginal manuscript, and I don't give them equal weight when put on a scale with the rest of Scripture. rw: There are degrees of critical analysis my friend and each one depends on your dedication to truth. You can pick and choose your sources and stay safely within a parameter of comfort or you can go all out in search of the truth. If the bible is, indeed, true you have nothing to fear in the effort and everything to gain as your faith will be strengthened by the challenge. If the bible is not so true as to sustain an intense review with a minimum of bias then, again, you profit as you will finally have all the facts you need to make an informed decision based on your own efforts without any undue outside influences. Either way, I wish you well in your quest. If I can be of any further service feel free to pm me. I have traveled that road and it's been well trodden but it is still a difficult journey nonetheless.

Thanks for your kind words.

Kevin

Autonemesis

I think this argument is pretty weak, and doesn't make much sense. What exactly, was wasted? If God made the universe, he is said to have made it out of nothing. Is nothing in short supply? How can it be wasted? If the universe sprang into existence a miniscule fraction of a second after the Big Bang, but produced only one sentient human race, is it still a waste even though it was not deliberately created? Then how could it be a waste if it was deliberately created?

If no humans emerged at all, would the universe be an even bigger waste? Talk to me about ego!

capnkirk

Kind Bud out there in Beverly Hills,

Do you think that god made this whole universe just for man? ...that he populated ONE tiny mote orbiting ONE ordinary star and (presuming that man was his crowning achievement) then he rested? To believe that presumes that there are NO other sentient species out there. That leaves the rest of the universe with no "purpose" (ironic, since most xians argue that it all must have some purpose)...save giving man something to look at in the night sky. THAT IS A WASTE (or if you prefer, ineffiecency of design) unprecedented anywhere on earth. The contrast of Earth with some form of life present in every niche...and the whole rest of the vast universe completely devoid of life is an absurdity. To draw a corollary: If the universe were shrunk to the size of the earth, our solar system would be about the size of ONE hydrogen atom, and the earth itself smaller than the smallest sub atomic particle in its nucleus. To "create" a planet sized structure just to have a place to put one particle inside the nucleus of one atom so as to put life on it can only be described as a ridiculous design.

In my original argument this represented one half of a catch-22. Either one believes that humans are the only sentients in the universe by virtue of being made in "His" image (what could be better than that?) which leaves the rest of the universe with nothing to do, with no use made of it. OR: you believe that there are millions of worlds that do or have harbored sentient life, some of it vastly more evolved than mankind, which sorta takes the hubris out of the "made in his image" claim.

emur

Yes, general revelation and special revelation. Been there. Done that. General revelation can be used to argue for a "generic" God, but is of little use in arguing for a specific deity.

So it does leave you with the bible. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that if you come to reject the bible as the word of God, your view of God will go up in smoke. Do you agree or disagree?
Are you an inerrantist?

Mel

spurly

Mel, I don't think you are wrong. If I ever get to the point where I reject the Bible as the story of God revealing himself to us and establishing a relationship with us then my view of God will for the most part go up in smoke.

I am not an "inerrantist" in the general sense that word is used. I do believe God had his hand in writing the scriptures, but I don't know exactly how he did that. How much human element did he let in? To be honest, we will never know.

If any manuscripts were inspired and inerrant, they were the yoriginals which have long since been lost. What we have today, because of the practices of the Jewish pretty, is probably pretty close to the original, but any time fallen creatures get their hands in the pie, the pie will get a little messed up.

However, that said, I do believe that the Bible is the record of God's revealing himself to us through history, and the story of his chasing after his creation to win them back to himself.

Kevin

emur

Kevin, thank you for your honest comments. As someone who used to believe they way you do about the bible, I understand the emotional attachment and the faith issues involved.

When your God belief is greatly intertwined into your existence, it is difficult to be objective with things which are at the root of that belief, which in your case is the bible. You don't want the whole thing to crumble, so you must maintain your view of the bible, no matter what the contrary evidence or facts are. When contrary facts are presented, you have to fall back on "faith". It is an easy "escape hatch", but has little to do with reality and truth.

I will not make any further comments here on the question of the bible, as they will be better suited in the "Challenge for thebeast" thread in Biblical Criticism.

Mel