RE: Without citing the bible, what marks the bible as the one book with God's message?
January 3, 2013 at 1:11 am
(This post was last modified: January 3, 2013 at 1:13 am by Whateverist.)
(January 3, 2013 at 12:27 am)Lion IRC Wrote: Lets get rid of 7.089 billion people on earth.
Now theres just you and me and a handful of folk - relatives.
We all, bar 1 or 2 (who trust their friends, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, have no motive to lie,) experience a supernatural event which we think indicates that we are not alone.
We write that event in a book because it was so numinous and so strongly believed that it must be captured in a historic record. The event doesnt involve anything that commands or requires us to write it down. We just DO because we want to remember it accurately and tell our kids.
Now, the book, therefore, is special not in and of itself but because the event that it records has meaning.
Now take the scenario and factor in a modified supernatural event which involves a requirement for witnesses to be sure not to ever forget the event and to be sure to keep the recording of the event as a sacred and useful text. Now you have an additional incentive to preserve the text - obedience out of enlightened self-interest.
Of course over time more people are born and some may become skeptics, but the book is still ''special'' for the original reasons given no matter how many people later disbelieve it happened.
Thank you for considering the question. I think I get your drift and I can see how that might motivate those involved. But what if it turns out that the tribes in the next valley have had their own revelation which they too have been passing down, generation by generation. Lets say that part of each revelation involved a claim to exclusivity. Should the two tribes each interpret the other's claim as blasphemy? Should either of them insist on exclusivity? In the interest of living together in the area, shouldn't they adopt a policy of tolerance and perhaps even respect for each other's claims? Recognizing how important their revelation is to them, why shouldn't they empathize with the feelings of the other group in this regard.
