The Scriptures were written by God?

Great Debates
21

Been there - experienced that. Just one of the things that convinces me that there is a benevolent God out there who longs to be in relationship with me. It has been a long time since I last heard that voice, and I read Liberatarian’s description (in another GD thread) of his daily experience of Jesus with a great deal of envy, but I know that the fault is mine - it has been a long time since I have made the time to listen for that “still, small voice” amidst the hustle and bustle of my life. I trust that when I do, it will be there for me…

Why haven’t you heard it? I don’t know - but then I also don’t know when the last time you really listened was… :slight_smile:

Grim

22

The quiet message, okay, but the feeling of utmost calm and peace, why? Aren’t you presuming that people will automatically love God? Why not a feeling of repulsion and loathing? Why not a feeling of uneasiness and guilt? Or why not a feeling of shoulder shrugging apathy?

23

If God exists, why do we have multiple interpretations of his word? E.g. Old Testament, New Testament, the Koran, the Rig Vedas, etc.

Surely he’s cocked up somewhere along the line with this free will thing? But isn’t he perfect, so presumably he tolerates the multiple interpretations, despite the wars resulting from them. So if he tolerates the suffering committed in his (many) name(s), does that mean his doesn’t care a great deal about us?

Will someone explain to me God’s reasoning here? And I would appreciate an answer not along the lines of “God’s mind/purpose/whatever is unknowable to mere mortals”.

24

Dude - you are assuming the existance of God in this question who, by His very nature (as revealed in the Bible at least) is unknowable by us mortals. Consider the following:

or

How then can I answer your question unless with “God’s mind/purpose/whatever is unknowable to mere mortals”? Anything else is pure guesswork/anthropomorphisation…

Grim

25

Oh, well. I guess those Cubists never existed.

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Ah, but the Cubists never claimed that theirs was the Only True Form [sup]TM[/sup].

::d&r::

27

[Grumble, grumble.]

I’m trying. At least, to the best of my knowledge I am. How do I find out if I am not “really” listening?

I’m no dummy, and I presume this “really listening” technique has to be available to the lowest common denominator of humanity. If it is that stupid simple, why can’t this concept be communicated to me?

28

Right? I mean not just a general feeling, but the same exact message in the head of all who are alive. For example: If everyone all of the sudden heard in their head that we would find a book in a cave in a specific location, that would be good. A testable fact which we all instantly new that we did not know before. And then we found a book in that cave which contained a message which confirmed some of these old religious texts, I would be forced to rethink.

As it stands, personal religious experiences are likely to be no more than tricks of light and shadow, so to speak. Wishful thinking and brain mechanics can easily explain these experiences. The God Module, as it were.

Also, the whole “My father told me” breaks down if the people who wrote it originally lied. A lie passed on as truth for thousands of years is still a lie. It seems reasonable to require evidence before you believe any statment. Of course I get the response “We are taught to have faith” in regards to religion (and only religion), which is extremely convienient considering there is no proof. Looks suspicious to me, especially considering the fact that most (if not all) of the religious people I have met would jump at the chance to tell the world if they had some proof that their version of things was correct. Faith and dogmatic virtue are the defense mechanisms of lies and the enemy of truth, as best as I can tell.

IMBW.

DaLovin’ Dj

29

OK, get rid of the emotional manipulation. I was just trying to address the concern for panic that was the last reason I heard to justify indirect, confusing communication from God.

I suppose my post was really out of frustration for my lack of understanding…as opposed to my normally well thought out posts. :wink:

And I guess I am assuming, for the sake of this discussion, that we are talking about a God worthy of worship and love. I really am trying to be receptive to the Christian God (I know, some are wondering why), so I think I at least need to make this assumption. If he is not so worthy, then these discussions will turn out to have been a waste of time, but such is life.

But why do I suspect that I missed your point?

30

Andros

Care to bet on that? :wink:

Topo

Merely because God is worthy of worship does not mean that men are necessarily willing to worship Him. Case in point — you. If you are assuming that God is worthy of worship, then why don’t you worship Him?

What do you mean by “receptive”?

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” — Jesus

31

**

Granted, a lie passed down father to son is still a lie.

The classic Jewish answer to that is that, of course, it is not a lie. The original claim comes down to millions of people standing at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. The Jews of that generation told their children about it. And so on and so forth. Had someone introduced a lie about it, say, five hundred years down the line, the people would have (rightly) objected and said “when did this happen? My parents never mentioned this ‘Mount Sinai’ thing before! I’ve never heard of this before…”

Is this proof in the empirical sense? Of course not. But it’s more than simply a leap of faith as well…

**

Reasonable. But not always practical.

Would you agree with the statement that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health? If so (as I do), have you examined the data yourself? If not, how do you know? You rely on scientific expertise of others, no doubt. But how do you know that they are scientific experts? By their degrees? They could have bribed thier professors, or fraudulently obtained their credentials in other manners. Ultimately, you choose to accept the evidence that they are experts and qualified to make decisions such as that cigarette smoke is dangerous. So, for practical reasons, you rely upon others for vital information. This applies to government officials, economists, etc.

Of course, I don’t ask you to believe what I believe. I’m just explaining my POV.

Zev Steinhardt

32

A. IF: God exists, and
B. IF: He is worthy of worship, and
C. IF: a man knows that this is so,
THEN: how could a man ignore God or otherwise deny God his due?

Only through some means of self-deception of which I want no part.

Because I’m not sure he exists yet. See C above. I don’t yet know A is true, but I’m willing to assume B is true to simplify things pending knowledge of A.

I used to want a totally logical reason or physical evidence to believe. After all these years, I’ve discarded that as unrealistic. Why is it unrealistic? Because I have failed to find it. Normally, I would stop there, and say, “See, haven’t found it. Might as well stop wasting my time.” But, I’m trying to be receptive, so I’ve tried to lower my standard from the criminal “beyond a reasonable doubt” to the civil “preponderance of the evidence.”

OK, so a faith leap is apparently required to get there from here. I’m just looking for some evidence that I should leap in the direction of Christianity (or anything else, for that matter). If a leap is required, surely there is something in this world that might indicate where to jump. Actually, a lot of thing indicate where to jump, they just indicate in different directions. Surely there is some way to choose between them in a reasoned manner, no?

I’m also trying to discard any hubris that my agnosticism might have built up in me. I realize this is as much as an emotional decision as it is an intellectual decision, so I’m trying to “purify” or prepare my emotions for receptiveness.

It doesn’t look like He gave a time frame. I suppose it goes without saying that I’m asking of Him for myself, but the real urgency is for my children. An answer sooner rather than later would be helpful for their benefit.

33

OK, correct me where I’m wrong here. The Torah came from Moses after he came down from Mt. Sinai. The people you refer to as witnesses stayed at the bottom of the mountain and saw a big storm cloud take the mountain. They assumed this was their god. This could have been an earthquake or just a really bad storm (if it ever really happened), and primitive peoples without an understanding of tectonics or weather systems could easily have been superstitiously mistaken about the origin of such natural events. Either way, Moses supposedly goes up to the Mountain and comes back down with the Torah. Part of it. Now here is the tricky part. The Torah consists of alot more than just what Moses came down with, it is also a big oral tradition and Moses got other laws at other times, no? Where did this oral tradition come from? Where did the additional parts of the written Torah not taken from Sinai come from? You are not saying that the god in that story directly gave the oral tradition to the people at the bottom of that mountain, are you? When were the oral laws established and by whom? As best as I can tell the multitudes of people only saw the mountain and storm where this god was, they didn’t actually see the big cheese himself.

It’s not looking like too good of a source. A big storm hits and one guy sees this as his opprtunity to sell his new power scheme. He goes up to the top of the mountain in a huge storm (a dangerous play) and chisels away some rules. He goes down, the people buy it, and then he gets together a few ringleaders to help him. They come up with a code of behaivior that would seem to support their goals and desires. No one will listen if they don’t claim some supernatural knowledge, so they do and then build in the requirement of faith so everyone will just shut up and tell their kids already. Seems like an obvious con to me.

I don’t see how. Basing your thinking on second-hand oral testimony thousands of generations removed (telephone game from hell) seems like a pretty big leap. What other subject matter would such standards for proof hold up?

Your logic is faulty. I could check all of these things and ultimately, if I were thoroughly interested, I could find out for myself whether tests done in reports work out independently when run again. You offer nothing of the sort. Choosing not to investigate something is alot diferent then not being able to investigate it even if you wanted to. Granted, both involve taking other people at their word, but in only one of these cases can the person’s word be tested. So the comparison is useless to you here. It’s just a bait and switch. Apples and Oranges. An argument that just doesn’t hold up. I would forget this particular avenue of attack (using the word attack lightly - this is all friendly). It isn’t very effective.

DaLovin’ Dj

34

DJ, you’re putting too many eggs in one basket there.

What Moses supposedly brought down from the mountain were the Ten Commandments, written, so it’s said in Exodus, by the finger of God Himself. A bit more of the laws in Exodus were dictated by Him to Moses at that point.

The rest of the Torah, Genesis, all the laws in the other four books, were supposedly put together by Moses. On this view, God dictated the laws that comprise the majority of the Torah to him. Having “torah” mean both the Law and the five books that contain the Law kind of confuses the issue.

Moses supposedly wrote the narrative accounts accompanying the law collections, that comprise the rest of Exodus-Deuteronomy, except for the account of his death that closes out Deuteronomy, which Joshua wrote afterwards.

Modern scholarship believes it has identified four distinct traditions in the five-book collection, called the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), Deuteronomic (D), and Priestly §. As may be expected, the most of Deuteronomy is D in origin. The parallel stories that occur throughout the Torah appear to be variants on traditional stories from the four sources, so that J tells of Yahweh parting the waters of the Red Sea, and E of God (Elohim) sending a strong wind that parted the waters.

Characteristics:
J = Great storyteller. Likes miracles. Calls God Yahweh throughout.
E = Also a good storyteller but not as good as J. Likes natural explanations of events. Calls God Elohim until Sinai, and then sporadically the rest of the way.
P = Hangup on genealogy and other detail, and on ritual aspects of the law. Provides the “frame story” for the other three traditions. Tends to call God Elohim until Sinai, Yahweh afterwards, nearly always the writer when “the Lord God” (Yahweh Elohim) is the describer for God.
D = Intensely moral focus, interest in Davidic history (shows up in Torah through focus on origins of Davidic line).

Oral tradition was supposedly collected and written down in Talmud. Not held as authoritative as Torah.

Yeah, I can see the potential for a big scam behind all this. But by accounts Yahweh tended to make himself obvious to people on and off throughout the history of Israel, not just to Moses. So the potential for a scam artist using the people’s gullibility to take over power is minimized.

Of course, you can throw out a lot of the theophanies and other stuff supportive of Moses telling the truth – but you’re left with a con artist with no scam backing him. If I tell you, send me $10,000 and I’ll intercede with God to make sure the (natural disaster of your choice) that hits your area doesn’t harm you, I’d better be darn sure that that natural disaster does in fact happen, or you’ll catch on awfully fast.)

35

Sly commentary on Pat Robinson, eh Poly? I likes.

My take on this, Go alien, is that religion is always a human invention; an attempt to codify what a culture believes is the correct way to please God, find Truth or to follow the Tao. Because humans are not perfect, we always add something frivolous, meaningless, and often contradictory. That doesn’t entirely negate the utility of the religion to point in the right direction. But it does necessitate that we interpret for ourselves and not follow blindly what others tell us.

Religion is corporate. Spirituality is personal.

Truth is not found by examining individual verses, nor is it contained exclusively in the Bible. Truth is found by searching and thinking and exploring, not only the Bible, but the words of the Buddha, the wisdom of the Wiccan, the spirituality of the Muslim, the logic of the Humanist and on and on and on …

I think (and thus this is valid only for me, although I hope there is some element of Truth) contradictions enter when people mistake piousness for spirituality. The Old Testament Laws were the method the ancient Jewish culture developed to try to follow what they understood to be Truth. According to their texts, when they followed the letter of the law, but forgot the spirit, they got a smack-down. It doesn’t matter if the stories are literally true or metaphor. They serve the purpose of illuminating Truth.

I also don’t think it matters which God if any you believe in. From my understanding, all of the major faiths of the world agree on the basic tenets of “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”, in other words “Love Your Neighbor”.

In doing this we become agents of God, of Love and of Truth, regardless of whether we believe in a God or not. Whereever Love is, God is too. God is not vain, does not need our praise, or worship nor even our acknowledgment. However, in carrying out the “Love Your Neighbor” commandment we become more attuned to the spark of the divine within ourselves and it grows stronger. Just by showing Love, we come closer to God and it becomes more real to us, even if you never come to call it God; but instead think of it as the interconnectedness of humanity or the universe.

36

Topo

My sainted mother used to say, “You never know what’s around the corner.”

It looks like we’re carrying on this discussion across two threads, but that’s okay. You’re the most refreshing new person I’ve seen on the boards in quite some time. You’re candid, honest, and sincere. What more could anyone ask?

Nevermind Christianity. Just leap toward Love. He’ll be there.

37

Homebrew

What an inspiration you are! Thank you.

38

dalovindj:

Ooh, an open invitation! OK, here’s where you’re wrong in your above statement:

Wrong. They did not merely see a big storm cloud and assume it was G-d. They heard the words of the Ten Commandments spoken in a divine voice, beginning with “I am G-d who took you out of Egypt.”

First of all, you are assuming the antecedent - you assume that the Sinai story is untrue, and therefore are thinking of what people might have mistaken for such an event. Second of all, the words that they claim to have heard are pretty darned odd to have inferred from a raging thunderstorm or earthquake. Third of all, you are making a rather insulting assumption about the ability of these ancients to understand the world around them. Granted, they didn’t understand much of what we understand today about science, but that doesn’t mean they could easily mistake thunder for a set of spoken commandments.

First of all, one thing should be pointed out about Moses: according to the story in the Torah, he was appointed by the people as their trusted representative to transmit to them G-d’s word after they found the experience of direct divine communication too intense for them at the giving of the ten commandments. So when we say things were written and transmitted by Moses after the Sinai incident (which involved the entire people), it was by their own choice.

Now, as you seem to surmise, the oral stuff did come from Moses. It was he who taught these details - which, I should add, are all merely interpretations of that which is present in the written text of the Torah, not stuff which cannot be found in the Torah - to the entire people. This knowledge was passed down through the academies of the leading scholars of their generations - Moses’s primary disciple, Joshua being the first of them - each educating the people.

No one could “see the big cheese himself”…not even Moses. But they did all hear the Ten Commandments spoken by him.

39

Cite.

40

**

As cmkeller already pointed out to you, it was not a “storm” or “earthquake.” The people actually heard the voice of God from the mountain. (Duet. 4). And, as cmkeller pointed out, the people appointed Moses as an agent to hear the rest of the Torah (including) the oral tradition from God, because they were unable to withstand the Godly voice. (Ex. 20:16)

**

It came from Moses at Mt. Sinai (Avos 1:1). It was orally transmitted from God to Moses. He transmitted it to the people.

**

It might have been, had not millions heard the voice of God.

**

But, what evidence could you present that the test were done independently? Ultimately, you have to trust someone, somewhere. And while you may be able to get advance degrees in biology, physiology and chemistry to determine the truth for yourself, it is simply not practical for everyone to do so.

**

Well, yes, in the end, it does come down to faith. I never denied that. I never told you that I had empirical proof that God existed, I simply told you that to my reasoning (and yes, I have given the matter thought, I did not simply follow like a sheep), it is more likely that God exists and that the Torah is true. You, sir, are certainly free to disagree. I am in no way trying to persuade you that my way is the right way or the only way. I am simply defending my beliefs.

Zev Steinhardt