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Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 10:12 am
Bart asks a question: if God wanted us to have his words (Bible) why did he allow people to change them so that we don't know which are his and which are made up by humans?
God made a stupid plan when he expected people to know him only by the Bible because he also let this huge mishap to happen, so now we don't have his words.
Even believers in historical Jesus don't know which words are his and which were added later. Some are known to be later additions, like the story of an adulterous woman, but none can be said with certainty to be said by Jesus.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 1:33 pm
(August 7, 2021 at 10:12 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Bart asks a question: if God wanted us to have his words (Bible) why did he allow people to change them so that we don't know which are his and which are made up by humans?
God made a stupid plan when he expected people to know him only by the Bible because he also let this huge mishap to happen, so now we don't have his words.
Even believers in historical Jesus don't know which words are his and which were added later. Some are known to be later additions, like the story of an adulterous woman, but none can be said with certainty to be said by Jesus.
This is not really different from the questions of why God allows evil, why God allows unbelief, etc.
A standard response would be that the recipients of Jesus's sayings have free will, and are capable of altering it. Although God could of course protect the Bible from any corruption, allowing it doesn't seem to be a threat to theism.
Qur'anic revelation is the sole path to ultimate reality. All argumentation and philosophy is an expression of arrogance and an overestimation of human cognitive ability.
"But believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural feeling that a well-disposed mind will have on this occasion is a longing desire and expectation that God will be pleased to remove or at least to lessen this profound ignorance, by giving mankind some particular revelation, revealing the nature, attributes, and operations of the divine object of our faith." (Hume's Dialogues)
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 1:51 pm
(August 7, 2021 at 1:33 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: This is not really different from the questions of why God allows evil, why God allows unbelief, etc.
No it isn't. It's a completely different question.
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 2:16 pm
Also, no theist even successfully answers the former question. They just make excuses that don't resolve anything.
“The sun from far gives life. But get close to it and it burns anything down to ashes”
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 2:27 pm
God HAD to let his words be changed, in order to get the thing published.
‘You have to give an editor something to change. After he pees in it, he like the flavor better.’ - Robert Heinlein
Boru
‘Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 2:43 pm
(This post was last modified: August 7, 2021 at 3:17 pm by no one.
Edit Reason: keyboard gnomes
)
As the garden of eden shows, the all powerful grand master isn't much of a planner, so when it comes to the written word, it's no doubt that the magic sky pixie would have editors.
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 3:15 pm
(August 7, 2021 at 10:12 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Bart asks a question: if God wanted us to have his words (Bible) why did he allow people to change them so that we don't know which are his and which are made up by humans?
God made a stupid plan when he expected people to know him only by the Bible because he also let this huge mishap to happen, so now we don't have his words.
Even believers in historical Jesus don't know which words are his and which were added later. Some are known to be later additions, like the story of an adulterous woman, but none can be said with certainty to be said by Jesus.
Why would an all loving "God" condone an allegedly global flood? Why would this same "God" allow the genocide of WW2? Why? Because there is no super magical cognition controlling anything. There is just nature, and tribal humans fighting over resources.
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 4:35 pm
(This post was last modified: August 7, 2021 at 4:35 pm by Klorophyll.)
(August 7, 2021 at 3:15 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Why would an all loving "God" condone an allegedly global flood? Why would this same "God" allow the genocide of WW2? Why? Because there is no super magical cognition controlling anything. There is just nature, and tribal humans fighting over resources.
Argument from incredulity; you just can't think of why would a deity allow evil.
Qur'anic revelation is the sole path to ultimate reality. All argumentation and philosophy is an expression of arrogance and an overestimation of human cognitive ability.
"But believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural feeling that a well-disposed mind will have on this occasion is a longing desire and expectation that God will be pleased to remove or at least to lessen this profound ignorance, by giving mankind some particular revelation, revealing the nature, attributes, and operations of the divine object of our faith." (Hume's Dialogues)
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 4:47 pm
(This post was last modified: August 7, 2021 at 4:56 pm by vulcanlogician.)
(August 7, 2021 at 10:12 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Bart asks a question: if God wanted us to have his words (Bible) why did he allow people to change them so that we don't know which are his and which are made up by humans?
God made a stupid plan when he expected people to know him only by the Bible because he also let this huge mishap to happen, so now we don't have his words.
Even believers in historical Jesus don't know which words are his and which were added later. Some are known to be later additions, like the story of an adulterous woman, but none can be said with certainty to be said by Jesus.
Yeah. I always wondered that.
Is God some kind of a fuck up?
Why did he regret the flood? He is supposed to be perfect and omni-benevolent being, and yet, Oops.-- "maybe I shouldn't have just drowned everybody my bad. I won't do that again."
And then he's like, "Oops. All these laws I've made need serious revision. They are horrible an violent. I guess I'll have to incarnate myself on earth as a carpenter and walk around insisting that people revise them. That'll fix the problem."
Cool story bro.
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RE: Why did God allow his words to be changed?
August 7, 2021 at 8:14 pm
One of the most persistent features of the religious tradition, in my observation, is the insistence that not only do we know everything we need to know, but also have all of the information we'll ever need because it was bestowed by the celestial master.
Yet the master (only) source text is rife with cruelties, contradictions, supernatural intervention stories, and promises of eternal bliss and reward for the incessantly credulous.
I believe the question should run more along the line of, "Why are the rest of us still even listening to believers who try to square the circle regarding a holy book's divine provenance?"
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