(May 29, 2015 at 9:56 pm)Exian Wrote: Lately, I've been very disinterested in anything to do with religion, which is probably why I've been so inactive with a majority of the discussions here. I just have a hard time taking it seriously. For me, the problem starts with man writing the bible; I can't get past that fact to lend myself to any other argument for the existence of a biblical god. Things only get slightly more fun with discussions on non-personal, I.D style gods, but not by much.
Now, I know that most Abrahamic theists believe that the authors were divinely inspired, but that's so fucking weak, so here are a few questions I'd like answered (yeah, this shit again):
1. What are your reasons for believing the authors were divinely inspired? (I'm not looking for definitive proof or anything, just your reason, so "because the bible says" is perfectly acceptable to me.)
2. What do you make of the fact that written language is a human invention?
3. Is there anybody that you know of who you would believe if they told you some stuff they wrote was the word of god, or divinely inspired? Why or why not?
4. What role does time play in the believability of a claim that some written words are the word of god?
5. Do you think religion would exist if writing was never invented?
I guess that's it for now. Again, I don't care what your reasons are, I'm not even really looking to argue, so "I just do believe" is fine. Just curious. Although, I may have comment or follow-up questions depending on the answers.
I am pretty on the fence about what I truly believe, but these are some answers that I would say from my point of view
1. I have read the bible several times, I found several things striking to me why it may be inspired. Some of these reasons will get ridiculed, but here we go... I do appreciate that the bible has many good principles on living your life. Some of them are archaic but we don't need a mosaic law anymore. That was not a perfect system but rather a system that the best possible system for the world of that time. Even when I read Leviticus 19, I really love the commandments in that chapter because it begins with saying that these are things that make you holy, or clean. Its less about rules and regulations and more about how you should treat people.
I also think a lot about how the god of the bible is constantly reminding his followers that he is invisible and doesn't want anything made of wood or stone worshiped in place of him. I find that interesting since most gods have some kind of image that was worshiped too. It seems like the human inclination is to worship things that we can see.
2. I don't really understand the point of the question. If the judeo christian god exists then whatever mode got us here doesn't matter. If humans evolved the skill of writing or if god gifted man with the ability it doesn't make a difference to me.
3. For me there is not someone that I could say would write inspired scriptures today. Mostly based off Hebrews 1:1,2 where it says that god use to speak by means of prophets but now through his son Jesus
4. If the bible has been unchanged for thousands of years then it does make a difference to me. The only text that we can really compare are the dead sea scrolls and the masoretic texts that are hundreds of years apart with very minor differences. To me, that would seem less likely for humans to resist the urge to change the text in their favor over the years.
5. I think this question is almost circular. If religion was invented then I don't think that any one single factor could have stopped it.]
Not a single thing I am saying is proof of god or the divinity of the scriptures. They're all just things, among others, that I ponder
