Most personally convincing reasons you don't believe.

[emjay]

[quote='Drich' pid='1272993' dateline='1463056040']

...And if nothing/no one in the bible never claimed to be infallible? The closest thing we have is "All Scripture is ·inspired by God [breathed out by God; L God-breathed] and is useful for teaching, for ·showing people what is wrong in their lives [refuting error; rebuking], for correcting faults, and for ·teaching how to live right [training in righteousness]." from 1 Tim 3:16

The idea of biblical infallibility was to counter the authority of Papal Infallibility in the reformation movement. Meaning it is a foolish doctrine of man, and not a decree from God.

I say that because Paul seems to understand that the bible does not have to be perfect as 'prefection' is not required from us. We have been given the bible not as a item to worship or revere as holy, but as a tool so that we may seek the Holy Spirit/God which is perfect, and to use as a standard to 'proof' that what we sought and found was indeed the Holy Spirit.

People who 'need' the bible to be infallible do not understand what Basic Christianity is. Nor how it was intended to be established or maintained.

Well at least one Christian admits it's fallible.

I didn't say it was fallible. I have been studying for 20+ years and yet to find a critical error or contradiction.
I simply relayed the bible does not claim infallibility, and I told you where the mythos of infallibility came from.

Sorry, my mistake... no claim to infallibility then. But in practical terms it's still the same to me.

But a fallible Bible could never be enough for me...

That's the point!!! The bible Fallible or not is not supposed to be enough. This isn't some man made religious nonsense. The bible is the key to give you direct access to God. It is also the tool we use to verify it is God who we are speaking with.

For instance in my first encounter I was judged and sent to Hell. Long before I knew the specifics of what the bible said about judgement, Hell, or the nature of any of it. My understanding was based on the Roman catholic model of St.Peter standing at the gates, levels of a hell where Satan ruled. Everything as far as i knew of the Judgement and Hell was completely Wrong. Yet slowly and over very long periods of study I have found my experience to reflect exactly what the bible says about our judgement. Again the bible was the tool I use to vet my experience. It was also the tool I used to Find God. It is not the center of my experience of God.

I think I need to explain what I mean by bias. Bias is not so much a feature of the brain but a core principle of its operation... it's in everything we do and in a general sense it can't be avoided but by understanding it we can at least see how much influence it does have and guard against it. I'll try and keep this short. In neural terms bias comes from the fact that our ideas and representations are interconnected - associated - with each other... when you 'activate' one idea it sends out activation to everything it's associated with. That in turn primes/biases those related ideas making them easier to activate than they would be on their own... it is what allows such illusions as seeing Jesus on a piece of toast because you think about Jesus all the time   Not you... people. Any time you think about something... anything...  this process happens... it's an ongoing and never ending dynamic of how the brain works.

So, putting it into context, if you've spent twenty years of your life in some sort of quest to find God, even if you've come to dead ends along the way, it's still clear that the idea of God is a huge influence in your life which primes everything related to it. And if you're using the Bible to constantly 'vet' your experience then to be blunt I'm not surprised you're getting the answers you want. I don't mean that in a mean way, I just mean I'm not surprised given how the brain works.

if I'd known that when I was growing up I might not have been a Christian at all, who knows. If I'm gonna believe in a supernatural deity I need to be damn sure I know when I'm talking to him and hearing from him but with a fallible Bible that's impossible.

But again, fallibility by what measure? What how can you determine something fallible if in fact you can not vet the claims being made?

Only God can verify the claims and full fill the promises in the bible. Therefore 'infallibility' is to be sought in and through God, not the directions used to find Him. If your looking for the 'perfect' set of direction, you haved missed the whole point of the bible to begin with, as you will not know if you found them unless you are where you want to be (with God)

Again, this is part of the problem with bias. If you have no 'failure standards' for prayer or prophecy then you are almost guaranteed to perceive an answer to prayer or a fulfilment of prophecy sometime down the line. That's the problem with having open-ended prayers and prophecies, but if you want anything more specific - which in essence does have failure standards - you're chastised for testing god or whatever... so basically, and conveniently, only open-ended prayer is allowed.

All it can be in that case is what I think/feel to be inspired in it... but that's how you've got a million different flavors of Christianity...

Actually no. We have "a million different flavors" because God wanted it that way. We have been given only 2 Great commands to follow, with the freedom to allow those two commands to manifest anyway we need them to in order to follow them. Even in the first century church there was freedom to be different. Why else do you think we have a book or letter to the Romans which was different than the letter to the corinthians which again is complete different than the letter to the Galatians or the Ephesians? Why would God speak to individual congregations allowing them to manifest beliefs and establish traditions around their very different cultures, rather than send one set of rules as he did with the Jews?

Our diversity is our greatest strength, even if most of us do not understand it.

I'll tell you what... allow the diversity of a gay church and then we'll talk   JK.

each one thinking it knows the inspired part. Can you at least acknowledge that problem?

No because again Paul points to the church as being like the physical Body of Christ. Each one of us has a different role, function, as a member of the body. and we are shaped and tailored for our intended use. Which makes us all a little different. So for a congregation of "hands" they will seek out 'work' that hands do, and for them this is what the whole word of God is about. For a congregation of 'eyes' they will seek out work that eyes do, and so on.

Now if the whole body of believers were hands or eyes then yes all that is needed is one church one doctrine. However as it has been explained to us in several places in scripture, we are all different and our roles in the body of believers are different, and therefore it is not a hand's or an eye's place to judge how a 'foot' or ear serves the body.

Okay thanks for sharing your perspective on that. I don't know what to make of it yet but thanks for sharing anyway.

Maybe we can agree to disagree on the value of A/S/K but being very interested in psychology and neuroscience I personally can't ignore that it is perfect example of confirmation bias.

It depends on what you find. I found information I was never exposed to and had to fight my way to the truth over years and years of empty traditional teaching to what the bible actually says.

If God upon you A/S/K-ing send someone to stand in front of you if for only a few mins and confirm who you are, who He is and your roll in how all of "this" works... How would that confirm a bias, especially if it has you change what you think is true?

Perhaps confirmation bias wasn't the clearest term to use in this case. I see all bias as confirmation bias because in neural network terms that's exactly what it is... it biases towards confirmation of ideas related to the one that was first activated... it makes them statistically more likely to be activated than other non-biased ideas and in fact there's even an effect that can actively inhibit competing ideas, thus making the bias even stronger. So that's what I mean by it. The more traditional use of the term is very obvious in the mafia case... you hypothesise that x,y,and z are a scum team and are more likely to notice things related to that that confirm that hypothesis than not, and each one you notice increases the bias in leaps and bounds until you (can) experience a full blown paranoid delusion. But in your case I'd still see it as confirmation bias because ultimately the hypothesis is 'god exists' and that's where the bias comes from.

So it may be enough to convince you but it could never be enough to convince me...

That is the wonderful thing about God. He does not paint with broad brush strokes. He tailor fits experiences to individuals. Look at doubting Thomas. Thomas said he could not believe unless he could put his fingers into the holes the nails and spear left. What did God do? He commended those who have sheer strength of faith to believe and sustain their belief, but did he punish Thomas or demand that he just poop the faith needed to first believe? No, He told Thomas to 'meet Him half way' to be in an upper room of a house in the middle of a city where they were being hunted and he was there. Then Jesus did what Thomas needed to establish and maintain his belief to a martyrs Death!

That is What A/S/K does It is God's command that we meet Him 1/2 way. to Humble ourselves enough to earnestly seek out the truth whatever it takes. Why? because the harder your heart the longer the journey. God has to take you to a place to where all else/possible answers or doubt is stripped away, so that you nothing but God could have given you whatever it you received.

What would be the point of giving you what he gave me if you never took the 20 years (A/S/K) i took to vet out all the details of Hell? What would you have after that experience? some new sheets? A/S/K is a continuing way of life. the more/longer you are faith to Him the more you will be given.

The problem is that the investment that you're requiring there... the meeting half way... is exactly the part I don't trust because of all these mechanisms of bias. That's the part that's asking you to get emotionally invested so that the bias will be more effective.

no judgement there, just personally it could never convince me because of what I know about psychology... and psychology is my life. I've seen it in action too many times to ever trust it... particularly playing mafia... how you can believe to the core of your being that you're right when you're completely wrong. Maybe you should have a game some time, see for yourself what I'm talking about? You'd be perfectly welcome down there - it's one place on the forum where religion doesn't come into it in the slightest... plenty of theists play and we all get on like a house on fire.

I'd love to play but time is something I find myself running out of alot more lately. Maybe when things slow down in the winter months remind me again.

Cool. Hope to see you there sometime.