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It simply was to show peoples concepts of God has changed over time. but I take your point, being a christian you see everything one writes about God as being divinely inspired. Not everything is as it seems though my friend.
Yes. If I get your point gorrectly, yes, the Christian will take scripture as divinely inspired, and that you appear to have conceded is not the case because they were working it out for themselves, and of course they just put what they thought and there was no debate never mind validation.
You may alternatively mean (less likely) that a christian will see see everything they write (or type and post ) as divinely inspired. Ny themselves, but not others, as we see here, where they are kicking each other's countenances in with a gusto that would leave them too shagged out to so much as breathe bad breath into Dawkins' face if they got their hands on him.
That would appear to wrap the point up in my favour, but if there is anything relevant and pertinent you think hasn't been covered, feel free to put it to me, while I go and get some Baklava.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-02-2017 at 12:34 PM..
Reason: no matter how many corrections I make...there's always another
Yes. If I get your point gorrectly, yes, the Christian will take scripture as divinely inspired, and that you appear to have conceded is not the case because they were working it out for themselves, and of ciurse they just put what they thought and there was no debate never mind validation.
You may alternatively mean (less likely) that a christian will see see everything they write (or type and post ) as divinely inspired. Themselves. But other not as we see here where they are kicking each other's countenances in with a gusto that would leave thme too shagged out to so much as breathe bad breath into Dawkins' face if they got their hands on him.
That would appear to wrap the point up in my favour, but if there is anything relevant and pertinent you think hasn't been covered feel free to put it to me, while I go and get some Baklava.
I think it depends on ones view of what it means to be divinely inspired. taken literally much of the OT imo simply cannot be taken as divinely inspired, however if as I believe much of scripture was written in mythos....whose to say unless they take the time to look at it from that point of view.
You have the wrong Idea of faith trans, faith is an action word that tells us to but into action what we believe. in other words prove what you believe by your actions. Love others as yourself would be a good example of faith in action. easy to say, hard to do, but humankind would be a lot better off if we that which we believe into action.
Faith is a blunderbuss word. You use it here in a rather uncommon way to denote putting into practice what one believes. But if what one believes in not based on valid foundations, then it is in itself believed on faith and thus the actions based on it are merely faith -based, even if they coincidentally happen to be good - and I already did a discussion on people doing good actions on the basis of humanist morality while claiming they were acting on Religious morality.
Now, the thing about putting beliefs into action is that atheist do that, too. Theist apologists sometimes mistake what we do for 'atheism' but it isn't, really. It is actions that we do on the basis of what we believe. And what we believe in that there is no valid reason to believe the god claim and some pretty good reasons to disbelieve the personal god claims; and we can say with a fair degree of confidence that the Bible and Bible -Jesus are Not True. And you have had some of my reasons why. And even if you don't agree, I doubt that you would deny that I have at least some arguable reasons.
But what is the basis for the beliefs on which a Christian or any other theist bases their actions? (Remember that one could say that humanist morality - arguably -is the basis for doing the good, and not the Bible). The apologetics have been debated at length and I have never seen a single Theistic claim validated or even made probable. Thus believing the god -claim, Gospel Jesus and Christianity is reliably credible is really not a valid claim; and to believe that it is True, life -changingly reliably true - is ..well It is based on Faith, not on fact.
Note, this is Faith in the basics - or some of them. Some of you bods don't even seem to accept the Bible - or not some bits of it. And others don't even seem to believe in Jesus, or the Church, or Christian dogma. Or they disagree vehemently about what it is.
What then do they have faith in? It seem they have faith in what they believe, and if they are pleased to call it "Christianity" and stick onto it like a collage scraps of Bible or Christianity, suitably amended to fit, it is I would argue, as much faith in their own imagination as much as if they invented a new religion altogether.
Which I rather think Mystic has done. At least the Mormons didn't fillet the Bible, but they take it as it is.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-02-2017 at 12:25 PM..
I think it depends on ones view of what it means to be divinely inspired. taken literally much of the OT imo simply cannot be taken as divinely inspired, however if as I believe much of scripture was written in mythos....whose to say unless they take the time to look at it from that point of view.
Quite. Well what I mean by it in the context of this discussion is the beliefs that you have, whether they just popped into your head or read it somewhere or worked it out in reasoning or reading, whether taking it as literal historical fact or mythologically - framed symoblic Truths, is endorsed as correct by God. And you know this by mental conviction of your own rightness.
In Old Testament times, God revealed Himself through the prophets. Then when the time according to God's plan was right God revealed Himself through Jesus who Himself is God, the second Person of the Trinity. Then Jesus appointed apostles and pastors to teach His word. The apostles, and those closely associated with the apostles wrote letters which were copied and recopied and thus preserved for the church down to our time.
God is not today personally appearing to or talking to anyone and teaching them new things and new beliefs and which contradict what the apostles taught. What God has to say to the church has been preserved in the New Testament documents. The believer is to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord by means of studying the Bible under the filling of the Holy Spirit and preferably under the teaching ministry of a qualified pastor who has academically prepared himself to teach.
God attempts, without coercing the volition, to convict a person of their need for Him. When the gospel message is presented the Holy Spirit will make the gospel message understandable to them. Even before ever hearing the gospel message God will bring about circumstances in a persons life which will most conducive for that person.
What God does not do is to introduce Himself to a person and say, ''Hi there. I'm God and I have some things to tell you.'' Nor will God ever lead a person away from the faith which was once for all handed down by Jesus and by the apostles who are His representatives.
This thread has exploded and it is difficult to know where to begin responding. I have no desire to try to change anyone's views because they are so comprehensive and conditioned to see God in a specific context. The typical context is the polar opposite of the context I use to interpret the same scripture that others use. The context we use produces vastly different interpretations of the same text.
Mike's post here is an example of those differences. The use of inspired Scripture as used by Mike and so many others is driven by the belief that the receivers of those inspirations were perfect (infallible) interpreters of those inspirations. In addition, it is presumed that those who gathered and compiled the writings were similarly perfect. It is not possible to know anything about our human failings and actually expect that to be true. The farther back in time the inspirations were received the less reliable the interpreters were and the greater the impact of their lack of knowledge and understanding of the world.
But the main problem is the context of God under which the received inspirations are translated to meaning for us today. The dominant context of God from the OT is a wrathful God who needed to be appeased by blood sacrifices. The dominant NT context of God from Jesus is a God who IS Agape love and who is not counting our sins against us anymore because Jesus saved us by achieving what we could not. The NT context is ignored and the OT context of God is imposed on Christ's revelations of God corrupting the interpretations of His significance.
This is the result of the stagnation of understanding of God imposed on believers as a sign of their faith in God. This directly contradicts what Jesus instituted with the New Covenant. God did not abandon us to the words "written in ink" and stone. We DO have Jesus with us as the Comforter within our consciousness to guide us to the truth God has "written in our hearts" in Agape love. If we continue to ignore what is in our hearts, we are ignoring Jesus and God
My experience is that there is greater wisdom found in looking to the sages in a tradition (whatever that tradition is) than in claiming to know more than the sages.
Litmus test example. What is your gut response when you hear "ancient"
Ancient wisdom; wisdom of the ages; hidden mysteries, secret treasures
Or
Ancient primitive superstitious we are smarter and more advanced than they are barbaric.
I don't want to go off topic or derail this thread so perhaps this needs to go in a thread of its own.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 07-02-2017 at 01:44 PM..
My experience is that there is greater wisdom found when people look to the sages in their tradition (whatever their tradition is) than when they claim to know more than the sages.
For instance what is your gut response when you hear "ancient"
Ancient wisdom; wisdom of the ages; hidden mysteries
Or
Ancient primitive superstitious we are smarter And more advanced than they are barbaric.
I do not have ANY blanket expectations about ancient OR modern writings. Wisdom is found in both and primitive superstitions and barbarity can also be found in both. I evaluate what is there independently. That is what intellectual's do and this thread is about that.
My experience is that there is greater wisdom found in looking to the sages in a tradition (whatever that tradition is) than in claiming to know more than the sages.
Litmus test example. What is your gut response when you hear "ancient"
Ancient wisdom; wisdom of the ages; hidden mysteries, secret treasures
Or
Ancient primitive superstitious we are smarter and more advanced than they are barbaric.
I don't want to go off topic or derail this thread so perhaps this needs to go in a thread of its own.
A very valid point. Peace
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) as divinely inspired. Ny themselves, but not others, as we see here, where they are kicking each other's countenances in with a gusto that would leave them too shagged out to so much as breathe bad breath into Dawkins' face if they got their hands on him.
