Why do Christians trust the Bible?

[vorlon13]

A BJ in Libya apparently can be existentially more significant than the plain old kind here

[DramaQueen]

You want some of my holy spirit

I assure you, it's not a ripoff

[Minimalist]

again we know the bible is valid because it is a map that puts a believer before God.
The Holy Spirit legitimizes the bible.

Evidence for this holy spirit, shit? Or are you just being a gullible fool again.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

I wonder why Christians trust the Bible as a valid source of information for what happened. I'm not talking about the obviousness of all the unsubstantiated accounts of magic happening. I don't mean how their apologetics show YHWH is untrustworthy (I already touched on that). I just mean the overall account of things:

• Stories being told by authors who had no witnesses to the events.
  
• Books being written by people who had "divine revelations".
  
• Satan as "the Deceiver".
  

The first two bullet points show how the story is written by people with no accountability for their fantastic claims. Hell, people have analyzed the texts and know for sure that Paul didn't write all the epistles. The exact number of them is in dispute, but we know that people claiming to be someone who had a divine revelation from God got their books inserted into biblical canon, and that doesn't even speak to whether or not Paul actually did have any revelation. How do people know this? How would they even be able to check to see if he's telling the truth? They are warned about false teacher and prophets and to not listen to them, but they have no way to be able to check the veracity of the author's claims. They could be false teacher poisoning the well against dissenting points of view.

And on the topic of poisoning the well, what about poor Satan? We are told flat-out that he is wrong, he is a liar, and to never trust him. This is a one-sided story where we are told to never talk to the other side to try and figure out what really happened. In any other situation, this would be highly suspicious and it would look like someone is trying to hide something. Put it in the context of religion, and suddenly everything is fine and it gets a free pass.

Shouldn't this alone be enough to put doubt into any adherent? Ignoring the absurdity of all the claims, the total lack of evidence, and the demonstrable wrongness of parts of the Bible, the book itself looks sketchy as hell.

God has a gang of evil angels that he sends to stir the pot and to keep humanity messed up. Satan isn't necessarily one of those evil angels. In Revelation Satan, the beast, and the false prophet are on the side of humanity as they try to keep Jesus and his murdering angels from destroying the Earth and killing everyone.

---

the demonstrable wrongness of parts of the Bible, the book itself looks sketchy as hell.

This part confuses me. Why would the idiots that put the Bable together allow such conflicting things to be put in it. I guess they had shitty editors back then. If I was gonna write a holy book I would have made sure it was consistent.

The English writers wrote it to include all of those discrepancies to show that it was just a prank. They were reacting to the Christian assault on their own indigenous religion. It's very cleverly done.

[Chas]

Some other cultures describe the location of consciousness as originating from the heart.

There are many mythconceptions in many cultures. So what?

The human heart has the second highest concentration of neurons in the human body. If, as you say, according to your own philosophy of mind, that thought is an emergent property of the human brain, then you have no basis by which to object that other concentrations of neurons can support qualitative experiences.

Why, yes we do. It's a question of the functions of the neurons and their interconnectedness.
And please provide a citation for your assertion.

Experienced meditators, who have learned specific techniques, can and do unite these centers of consciousness into a unified whole. In folk psychology it is described as learning to think with your heart.

Please show any evidence (not anecdotes) for that; there is none that I can find.

[Drich]

And can you legitimize the holy spirit without the bible?

Men like Mohamad and Joseph Smith thought they could, and have failed.

Great. Get his ass to court. Let's hear from him.

Be patient, there is a great judgement comming.

Now all you have to do is prove you have a direct line of communication.

For what reason? We have all been given this oppertunity. If you want a direct line then go through the step yourself. Because no matter what I say or do it will be explained away. There is no better proof of God than God Himself.

Not much of a benefit.

Maybe you simply do not understand the meaning or depths of the gifts being offered.

You can find all that and more without your god. Buddhists have those qualities in much more abundance than your Christians. You, on the other hand, don't seem to have much in the way of goodness or gentleness or self-control.

I grew up in a buddhist household and I can most assuredly tell you that buddhist have thier share of the self righteous in abundance. This is not limited to Christianity.

Wisdom? Really? I haven't seen any from you yet.

How would a fool identify wisdom? If a fool sourrounds himself with foolishness, then foolishness becomes wisdom, and wisdom foolishness. So again what methods or steps have you taken to ensure that you are not blinded by the potential foolishness you have sourrounded yourself by?

What about grammar? Why won't your holy spirit help you overcome that impossible obstacle?

Actually I have people who I employ who manage (among other things) my grammer in any formal written work I do. What I do here is not considered 'formal.'

[DramaQueen]

How do you know who is a fool?

[Chad32]

Oh I'm sure Mohamed and other spiritual leaders had just as many spiritual experiences as any other group, Frodo.

The idea that there's this time limit on forgiveness that runs out when you die seems very suspicious. Almost like some Human is trying to control people, and since they can't control your life when you die they tell you that you have to convert before death. Even though there's an eternity waiting for you after death, you have to make your decision in the few decades you have on this world. I'm happy to wait until he shows up. We have much to talk about.

There is no direct line to Yahweh, judging from all the groups of jews, muslims, and christians that claim that theirs is the true faith, and everyone else is false.

All we can do is explore reality and find the truth ourselves. Unfortunately for religion, the truths we find don't speak well for the bible and other holy books.

[Drich]

How do you know who is a fool?

fool
/fo͞ol/
noun
noun: fool; plural noun: fools
1.a person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a silly person.

[DramaQueen]

What is wisdom?