Without citing the bible, what marks the bible as the one book with God's message?

[Whateverist]

I've heard of lots of scholarship being done to establish the existence of persons with the right names inhabiting the right places at the right times. But lets cut to the chase. Suppose there was a Mary and a Jesus and a Paul and Sneezy and Rudolph and whoever else the bibles says is part of its story. Lets go ahead and grant you that the stuff the bible says happened is right too - within reason. I can't grant you a talking snake, God speaking from a burning bush, a man living in a whale, a resurrection, a flood covering Mt. Everest, the story of creation or anything else that suggests the supernatural. But I will grant, for the sake of argument, that every natural event described in the bible is historically accurate.

Given that, why should anyone believe the bible is the word of a supernatural god? Why should anyone think its god exists at all?

Okay Christians, again only for the sake of argument, lets suppose that god does exist and the bible records an attempt on its part to communicate with mankind. How do you justify a literal reading of the bible? Perhaps a poetic reading was intended, not by the scribes, but by your god. If this god of yours is as ineffable and other worldly as is claimed, why would you think that such a being could communicate with beings as limited as ourselves in any way other than parables and poetry. You may really be missing the whole message by concretizing the poetic.

Remember Christians, the challenge is to justify 1) that the bible is the special book and 2) that a literal interpretation is the one intended by your god .. without (for obvious reasons) citing the bible itself. I await your guidance.

[Dee Dee Ramone]

Because if not, a lot of christian's will lose their mind?

For muslims, jews and all other followers of some fairytale, this is ofcourse not the case since they were born in the wrong culture and therefor indoctrinated with the wrong faith anyway.

[Minimalist]

I await your guidance.

Don't hold your breath.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

Remember Christians, the challenge is to justify 1) that the bible is the special book and

Because if we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy, would it? ...oh, sorry, that was the answer to a different question.

Because if The Holy Bible wasn't, they wouldn't call it "Holy" now would they? Duh!

2) that a literal interpretation is the one intended by your god .. without (for obvious reasons) citing the bible itself. I await your guidance.

Sissy Christians like to use the "metaphor" excuse to effectively rewrite the Word of our Lord, in some cases reading what's not there and in others ignoring what is there. With such license, you can't nail them down on anything. Debating with them is like fighting guerrilla insurgents; they are everywhere and nowhere. And just when you think you have pinned them down, they slip away like a greased pig.

To refuse to read the Bible with strict discipline to stick to what's actually there is to be at sea, allowed to make it into anything you like. To them I ask, "are you God?" How else can they claim to know what is divine and what's human insertion? How else can they know what's a literal message and what's just a metaphor?

Since we are not God, all we can do is say the Bible IS the Word or it is NOT the Word. There is no "sorta kinda" option.

Additionally, if we are willing to accept that God is sending us a message, a written book of revelation, why would this being cloud the message in confusing poetry? One critical part of good communication is clarity, is it not? Why should we believe the very being that gave us sense, reason and the very capacity to communicate would be such a poor communicator?

[Whateverist]

Additionally, if we are willing to accept that God is sending us a message, a written book of revelation, why would this being cloud the message in confusing poetry? One critical part of good communication is clarity, is it not? Why should we believe the very being that gave us sense, reason and the very capacity to communicate would be such a poor communicator?

Perhaps the answer to your question is caught up in the answer to the question "if god really wanted to communicate with us at all and really had something important to say to us, why would he make this a one time event - and pick a time and place when the written word was not likely to last many generations. That this god really wanted to, or even could, communicate with us at all is highly suspect. It may be that we find ourselves more special than this god does.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

Perhaps the answer to your question is caught up in the answer to the question "if god really wanted to communicate with us at all and really had something important to say to us, why would he make this a one time event - and pick a time and place when the written word was not likely to last many generations. That this god really wanted to, or even could, communicate with us at all is highly suspect. It may be that we find ourselves more special than this god does.

Now that you mention it, it is kind of strange that Yahweh used to be so hands-on, even giving a public speech to the entire nation of Judea.

Source: The Brick Testament, reference Judges chapter 1


At other points, our Lord spoke directly to people, often without the need of a pyrotechnic display from a burning bush:

Source: The Brick Testament, reference to Exodus 33


Strange all the communication these days seems to be one-way. I'm going to have to pray on that...

[Minimalist]

Hey, yhwh,

http://apnews.excite.com/article/2013010...0H5G3.html

Angolan media say 10 people, including four children, have died in a stampede during a religious gathering at a sports stadium in Luanda, the Angolan capital.

Why did you allow these people of yours to be trampled to death for your glory? Did they fuck up somehow? Were the children as guilty as the adults? Why do you have to be such a prick all the time?

[Whateverist]

Oh come on! Where are the god botherers when you want them? Let me try to sleep in the daytime when I've worked graveyard and without fail, Witnesses would be at my door trying to convert me.

Here I've been willing to concede lots of things about the bible and the Christian god AND I've invited you to guide me to recognize the bible as the true word of God - and not so much as a peep! Damn, do you or don't you want to save me? I'm like a voice crying in the wilderness and not one of God's children will show me the way. Pity .. I could sense a change coming too.

[Brian37]

I await your guidance.

Don't hold your breath.

Amun Ra(Amen)

To hold your breath for any theistic evidence, is like expecting the sun to rise in the west. You can only entertain the inane superfluous rantings of the claimants of fictional beings for entertainment reasons relegated to the same stature of betting on Superman vs Kriptonite.

[Cyberman]

Because if not, a lot of christian's will lose their mind?

You're using the wrong tense.