the need for a bible

[zoegirl]

doesnt that fact open the possiblity GOD could inspire other men as well? for other religions? and other sacred texts? the Torah and the Qua'ran both say "this is the word of God and is absolute truth" same as the bible. does that make it so?

YOu say that you don't consider yourself completly "strictly" Christian. May I ask what you understand Christianity to be? How does a person become a Christian? HOw does one become saved? (I know this may seem off topic, humor me)

[Gman]

here's how i see it: if ANY parts of the bible can be considered 'iffy' or 'dubious' or in any way questionable as infallible truth, then that opens the door for ALL of it to be questioned. now, i'm not looking at this from a strictly christian perspective. personally i cannot consider myself strictly christian due to the fact i dont believe all islamic or judaic people are doomed to hell. western american prodistantism maintains they simply go to hell, no matter how much they worship or live for God, simply because of the jesus issue.

I believe this article may help: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... heard.html

I really believe it is God who will be the judge. I tend to shy away from labeling people myself... Who can know who God sees faithful in his eyes?

i see judaism as the old testament, christianity as the new testament, and islam is the NEW new testament. all are abrahamic. all derived from the same starting point. semantically different but fundamentally the same. how can one be 'righter' than the others?

Ah, not really... You may need to study them in depth to get the picture. Christ is claiming that he died for mankind, much like pushing you away from a racing car that is about to hit you. And in turn takes the hit for you.. We are also commanded to love others as ourself. What do the other faiths believe?

a few posts have said the book is flawed but the message is valid--God is great. that's not in debate, GOD is real, God is wonderful, but that doesnt mean any religion is right. the simple fact remains the bible says do not have faith in man, that men ARE intrinsically evil in their hearts, but also insists upon its man-written self as being infallible. that's a massive contradiction.

It's not claiming that it is man-written. It is claiming that their prophets were moved by the spirit as they spake. 2 Peter 1:21

i dont care how inspired someone is by God, they are still men and still prone to mistakes. furthermore, english bibles are so waterd down that a lot of value is lost. how can you reconcile what 'truths' are dubious and which are vitally important? you can say "ok that whole meat on the sabbath thing is negligible but you HAVE to worship a trinity or else you're doomed to hell."

Can you show us in the Bible where it claims that you are doomed to hell if you don't follow beliefs like this? I'm not sure if I understand...

it's a conflict for me. it's a conflict that that science of the bible is impossible, and it's a conflict that we dont have any way to confirm these things.

What science are you addressing here? Please elaborate...

my point is i just simply do not know how else to believe in ANYTHING, at all, unless GOD is real and GOD is love, and LOVES everyone, and is transcendent of ALL

He is...

MAN
MADE
RELIGIONS
including that juggernaut we call christianity. for anything to make sense to me, GOD has to transend that simple book, christians simple ideas. YES jesus was real, he served as a passion play, a manifestation of God's love. i believe that--but does a fundamental acceptance of THIS story and ONLY this story get you to heaven?

Now that's a good question... I believe the answer is no... It's more than just accepting it as a story, it's also a way to live your life. Something changed in your heart...

i cant say it does. i cant see how a loving God would willfully seperate our languages and cultures if in the end we dang well better learn christian english ideas or we're doomed to hell. that's unfair to pre-columbian indians, that's unfair to somalians or turks. and if some kind of 'ingnorance loophole' exists for them that will save their mortal soul, then the rules cant be applied in any standard way across humanity. can they?

It kind of get's back to this article again: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... heard.html

i dont feel like i'm making sense so i'm gonna stop rambling...
but i will reiderate: ALL religions were outlined by men. men wrote rules, and my goodness christianity has been so convoluted by time and politics. the inquisition, the crusades. it's been such a tool of social control that it's nearly impossible for me to have faith in it.

Well as for politics you may have a point there.. I think many will be surprised to find out that they are not doing God's will..

so, for the sake of this conversation, lets assume God DID inspire the words of the bible, we'll accept that as truth, and God DID inspire the outline of christianty when paul made the rules.

doesnt that fact open the possiblity GOD could inspire other men as well? for other religions? and other sacred texts? the Torah and the Qua'ran both say "this is the word of God and is absolute truth" same as the bible. does that make it so?

I believe that God can inspire men in other faiths, but not the doctrine or texts.. If love is the pinnacle of it's faith, then anything that doesn't conform to love needs to be either examined or dropped. Including Christianity...

i'm to the placei believe it's personal, it HAS to be personal, between everyone and their maker. all of this is me trying to find peace in that assumption.

God is very personal. I have no clue how God interacts with others... To me it is very personal, no one will ever understand you the way God does... Including ourselves...

[the sleep of reason]

YOu say that you don't consider yourself completly "strictly" Christian. May I ask what you understand Christianity to be? How does a person become a Christian? HOw does one become saved? (I know this may seem off topic, humor me)

i understand christianity to be an absolute acceptance that the ONLY way to salvation/heaven is to accept that jesus IS God and worship Jesus, NOT God as a singular entity but ONLY as a trinity. likewise you have to believe that this is the singular path, thereby denying any validity in any other forms of abrahamic religions. you ask jesus to be your guiding force. it's jesus-centric.

a person becomes a christian by asking Jesus into your heart, which theoretically means you will spend the rest of your life past that point attempting to not sin, while accepting you WILL sin, and asking for forgiveness when you do. from jesus.

salvation, via christianty, comes in this asking for jesus guidance. while works are not specifically the path to righteousness, there's a comingling for sure of works and salvation because again, in theory, you will be a righteous person because you are saved, thereby trying not to sin, trying to love one another and be a godly person.

[the sleep of reason]

Ah, not really... You may need to study them in depth to get the picture. Christ is claiming that he died for mankind, much like pushing you away from a racing car that is about to hit you. And in turn takes the hit for you.. We are also commanded to love others as ourself. What do the other faiths believe?

why did God do this, tho? by doing this, is that the final action of our salvation? or does it's purpose serve to inspire man to follow this loving God?
i believe the point of jesus' death is to inspire men to follow this selfless loving God. now, what does it mean to follow God? i maintain it means to strive to be godly, to be more like Him, to be loving, charitable, caring, understanding, and try to live a good life, to be a good person. i cant sum it up any more concisely than to say we are to be godly.

do you disagree that the point of jesus was to inspire us to follow God? or was it in and of itself the final action, thereby requiring no further action from us?

It's not claiming that it is man-written. It is claiming that their prophets were moved by the spirit as they spake. 2 Peter 1:21

i'm confused as to what you are aguing here. are you saying the bible was NOT written by men?
was job, peter, mathew, mark and the rest of them not men? i guess the bible doesnt CLAIM to be man-written. it simply IS man-written.

iCan you show us in the Bible where it claims that you are doomed to hell if you don't follow beliefs like this? I'm not sure if I understand...

the bible says, well, the new testament says, the only way to heaven is to accept christ as your lord and saviour. that means any non-jesus-centric religions are therefore doomed to hell. if there's only ONE way in, every other way leads NOT in. no?

What science are you addressing here? Please elaborate...

the age of the earth, dinosaurs, evolution, noah's ark, etc. these all are taken to be face-value and historically accurate. some christians may interpret these into more scientifically plausible terms, but at face value ALL the animals that have ever existed were on noah's ark. which is physically and dimensionally impossible.

Now that's a good question... I believe the answer is no... It's more than just accepting it as a story, it's also a way to live your life. Something changed in your heart...

i agree--this goes back to my first questions up in this post--what purpose does all this stuff serve? is it inandofitself THE path or is it an inspiration for a spiritual rebirth in our hearths? a parallax shift in ideals that brings us closer and more in communion with God? is it possible to find this spiritual grown outside the biblical path?
can a person who has no knowledge of the bible still love the one true God and commune with Him, be godly, and still find salvation?
if so, why should anyone adhear to strict christian gnostic ideas? doesnt thins conflict with the fundamental christian idea that jesus is the ONLY way?

Well as for politics you may have a point there.. I think many will be surprised to find out that they are not doing God's will..

indeed they are not--but this convolution has occured in the text of the bible itself, such as the kind james standardisation of the bible. doesnt that in some way corrupt the message?

I believe that God can inspire men in other faiths, but not the doctrine or texts.. If love is the pinnacle of it's faith, then anything that doesn't conform to love needs to be either examined or dropped. Including Christianity...

why not? why is God cappable of saying "ok, it's time for a NEW testament, things arent going well on earth..." but not cappable of a NEW new testament?
that seems like an arbitrary line to draw. how can you accept God can ammend the torah but not ammend the whole book?
likewise, how can you say God can inspire ONLY these guys? not muhammed? not john smith?
what is this based on?

[zoegirl]

YOu say that you don't consider yourself completly "strictly" Christian. May I ask what you understand Christianity to be? How does a person become a Christian? HOw does one become saved? (I know this may seem off topic, humor me)

i understand christianity to be an absolute acceptance that the ONLY way to salvation/heaven is to accept that jesus IS God and worship Jesus, NOT God as a singular entity but ONLY as a trinity. likewise you have to believe that this is the singular path, thereby denying any validity in any other forms of abrahamic religions. you ask jesus to be your guiding force. it's jesus-centric.

a person becomes a christian by asking Jesus into your heart, which theoretically means you will spend the rest of your life past that point attempting to not sin, while accepting you WILL sin, and asking for forgiveness when you do. from jesus.

salvation, via christianty, comes in this asking for jesus guidance. while works are not specifically the path to righteousness, there's a comingling for sure of works and salvation because again, in theory, you will be a righteous person because you are saved, thereby trying not to sin, trying to love one another and be a godly person.

See, in your description, I hear absolutely no joy in what it means to be a Christian. There is no sense of being freed from sin, or have one's sin paid for, or having a relationship with Christ. I agree that in order to realize who Christ is one must agree that He is God incarnate, but it isn't this head knowledge that saves, but a foundational trust and belief in Christ and what He did on the cross.

Why do we need to be saved? What are we saved from? Why is this "passion-play" from Jesus so significant? Jesus dies for us! Salvation doesn't come n asking for guidance, Salvation comes in accepting Christ's work on the cross for our sin. AND in this acceptance we are "new creations". It is a relationship with Christ that changes us. Certainly Christ guides us, but it isn't this guidance which saves.

As Gman pointed out, the different "holy" texts have VERY different world views. They cannot all be inspired by God becuase they establish different reasons and methods for salvation. I think you must examine the message of each of these texts to understand why they are so different. SCripture IS very clear that Christ is the only way to be reconciled to God. Why God would then inspire another holy text that instructs humans that to saved one must only pray five times a day, directly contradicting this other holy text. They are mutually exclusive, they cannot both be true, foundationally they teach different worldviews.

[frankbaginski]

sleep,

The Old testament was written mostly in Hebrew, the New Testament written mostly in Greek. In both of these languages the letters can also be numbers. If I did not point this out I made a mistake.

The codes in the Bible are real and are seen in the original form of the written text. Here is something you may find interesting:

1Ki 7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

This describes a large bowl. If the diameter is 10 cubits then the length to compass it round about should be 31.4 cubits. Anyone who is aware of pi should know this. Now is this an error in the Bible? It appears so on first look.

Now as it turns out one of the words in the original text was misspelled. For centuries the misspelled word was copied and a note was added to the margin of the paper noting the error. The scribes were forbidden to change anything in scripture. A number was placed on the bottom of each sheet. This was a sum of all of the letters on the sheet. If they did not add up then they were to start over. Being a scribe was a sacred duty. Now some would think that copying an error would make no sense, but they were told this was God's Word. What would you do in this situation? I know I would be tempted to fix the error so that future generations would not see this as a stumbling block. After many centuries someone added up the numeric value of the misspelled word. It was the value of the circumference to within 15 thousanths of an inch. Now you could say what a coincidence, but if you were a Jew you would say there is no such thing as a coincidence.

[the sleep of reason]

See, in your description, I hear absolutely no joy in what it means to be a Christian.

i was just answering as straight forward as i could. i didnt know you were looking for exhuberance. but i dont really know if i consider myself a christian--i dont know it makes any kind of sense that there used to be a single God we worshipped but then he changed into three Gods BUT it's still ONE God but you have to not worship the ONE God, you have to worship the THIRD God. if three are one, then ONE is one. no? that doesnt make sense to me.

also, i just for the life of me cant accept my God is loving, caring, and understanding while i embrace a doctrine that claims more people will go to hell than will not--even if they are godly people. simply because of the jesus factor. two identical people can live their life the same godly way and both love God equally and both aspire to achieve only God's will but if one lives in turkey and is muslim he is hellbound while the other is sanctified, if only because he adheared to his major local religion? luckily he was from Green Bay, WIS, so God has more mercy on his christian soul? i cant believe that.
so i dont have joy for christianity. sorry. it's not that i think it's wrong or you're wrong or anything, i'm just not sure how i feel about it all anymore.

There is no sense of being freed from sin, or have one's sin paid for, or having a relationship with Christ.

there is no such thing as being free from sin. being saved doesnt mean we no longer sin nor does it mean we are free to sin as much as we like because we are coverd by the blood of the lamb. being saved means we are empirically changed, soulful and unwilling to sin, more mindful of what IS sin and more mindful to stay away from the things that ARE sin. you

Why do we need to be saved? What are we saved from? Why is this "passion-play" from Jesus so significant? Jesus dies for us! Salvation doesn't come n asking for guidance, Salvation comes in accepting Christ's work on the cross for our sin. AND in this acceptance we are "new creations". It is a relationship with Christ that changes us. Certainly Christ guides us, but it isn't this guidance which saves.

this is hard to discuss because we're both right, here. you dont just have to accept christ and that's that--go about your life doing anything else you want, just so long as you accept christ. to accept christ is more than "ok you died for me. ok." it's a change of heart and a change of perception where you want ONLY what GOD wants for you, it's a means to an end, and i think that end is to be a godly, righteous person. do you disagree?

As Gman pointed out, the different "holy" texts have VERY different world views. They cannot all be inspired by God becuase they establish different reasons and methods for salvation. I think you must examine the message of each of these texts to understand why they are so different. SCripture IS very clear that Christ is the only way to be reconciled to God. Why God would then inspire another holy text that instructs humans that to saved one must only pray five times a day, directly contradicting this other holy text. They are mutually exclusive, they cannot both be true, foundationally they teach different worldviews.

so how do you determine which one is absolute truth?

[Gman]

why did God do this, tho? by doing this, is that the final action of our salvation? or does it's purpose serve to inspire man to follow this loving God?
i believe the point of jesus' death is to inspire men to follow this selfless loving God. now, what does it mean to follow God? i maintain it means to strive to be godly, to be more like Him, to be loving, charitable, caring, understanding, and try to live a good life, to be a good person. i cant sum it up any more concisely than to say we are to be godly.

do you disagree that the point of jesus was to inspire us to follow God? or was it in and of itself the final action, thereby requiring no further action from us?

I think you summed it up ok.... I think Christ's life was an example of the best way to live our lives. To care for one another, being charitable, etc.. I believe there is still action for us to do as long as we don't record it on a report card. I think we as humans can be too concerned how our good works (if any) look to others instead of God.

i'm confused as to what you are aguing here. are you saying the bible was NOT written by men? was job, peter, mathew, mark and the rest of them not men? i guess the bible doesnt CLAIM to be man-written. it simply IS man-written.

No, I would say that it was written by men, but that these person's were inspired by God to write it out with His guidance... That's all.

the bible says, well, the new testament says, the only way to heaven is to accept christ as your lord and saviour. that means any non-jesus-centric religions are therefore doomed to hell. if there's only ONE way in, every other way leads NOT in. no?

It depends.... What does it mean to accept Christ as your lord and Saviour?

the age of the earth, dinosaurs, evolution, noah's ark, etc. these all are taken to be face-value and historically accurate. some christians may interpret these into more scientifically plausible terms, but at face value ALL the animals that have ever existed were on noah's ark. which is physically and dimensionally impossible.

We are in total agreement with you that Noah's flood was not a global flood but a local flood..

Also this website seeks to explain how the age of the earth, dinosaurs and evolution can work with our understanding of the Bible...

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/mortenson.html

i agree--this goes back to my first questions up in this post--what purpose does all this stuff serve? is it inandofitself THE path or is it an inspiration for a spiritual rebirth in our hearths? a parallax shift in ideals that brings us closer and more in communion with God? is it possible to find this spiritual grown outside the biblical path?

I guess it depends on what we believe the Biblical path is...

can a person who has no knowledge of the bible still love the one true God and commune with Him, be godly, and still find salvation?

I don't see why not... It is only God who knows what we have sown into our hearts, not man... No labels here...

Source: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... heard.html

if so, why should anyone adhear to strict christian gnostic ideas? doesnt thins conflict with the fundamental christian idea that jesus is the ONLY way?

Again, I would say we would need to define what Jesus is to us first...

indeed they are not--but this convolution has occured in the text of the bible itself, such as the kind james standardisation of the bible. doesnt that in some way corrupt the message?

No I don't think so... Some of that is addressed here..

why not? why is God cappable of saying "ok, it's time for a NEW testament, things arent going well on earth..." but not cappable of a NEW new testament?

I think God is capable of doing whatever he wants... As long as it conforms to his love and salvation I don't see a problem with it..

that seems like an arbitrary line to draw. how can you accept God can ammend the torah but not ammend the whole book?
likewise, how can you say God can inspire ONLY these guys? not muhammed? not john smith?
what is this based on?

Because I have read them.... I would accept the torah however...

[the sleep of reason]

sleep,

The Old testament was written mostly in Hebrew, the New Testament written mostly in Greek. In both of these languages the letters can also be numbers. If I did not point this out I made a mistake.

The codes in the Bible are real and are seen in the original form of the written text. Here is something you may find interesting:

1Ki 7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

This describes a large bowl. If the diameter is 10 cubits then the length to compass it round about should be 31.4 cubits. Anyone who is aware of pi should know this. Now is this an error in the Bible? It appears so on first look.

Now as it turns out one of the words in the original text was misspelled. For centuries the misspelled word was copied and a note was added to the margin of the paper noting the error. The scribes were forbidden to change anything in scripture. A number was placed on the bottom of each sheet. This was a sum of all of the letters on the sheet. If they did not add up then they were to start over. Being a scribe was a sacred duty. Now some would think that copying an error would make no sense, but they were told this was God's Word. What would you do in this situation? I know I would be tempted to fix the error so that future generations would not see this as a stumbling block. After many centuries someone added up the numeric value of the misspelled word. It was the value of the circumference to within 15 thousanths of an inch. Now you could say what a coincidence, but if you were a Jew you would say there is no such thing as a coincidence.

i believe in mathmaticall patterns emerging in the hebrew text. however hebrew was created as a mathmatically symmetrical alphabet--so was greek. so mathmatical truths can be found in ANY hebrew or greek texts.

furthermore, man is cappable of very very complex mathmatical patterns an sequences--look at Newton's principia mathmatica or better yet look at what archamedes came up with. it's as complex and amazing as the codes you find in the bible. are they too divine?

[frankbaginski]

Sleep,

I did not get a wave of wonderful feelings when I became a Christian. I came in through science and a study of prophesy and codes. This lead me to trust scripture. Over time I have more faith in the Word of God than I do of my own existance. I think everyone has their own path to God but once on that path there is but one way to salvation. This is clearly laid out in the Bible.

I am sorry to say that most people who declare themselves Christians are not. The prison population has a faith based percentage that matches the general population. What a sad record the churches have. Do not be discouraged by any of this. What you are on is a personal journey and your future is at stake. Put the blinders on and follow what you know in your heart to be true.

[frankbaginski]

Sleep,

I have read Newton and most ancient text that deal with a continuing line of science. Although these are great to read they are clearly not scripture. One must wonder if you have indeed read them? So what did Newton consider his greatest accomplishment?

[the sleep of reason]

gman,

i think we are on the same page about most things, but my conflict is something you seemed to have resolve for yourself.

you agree that a God is both cappable absolving a non-christian as well as divining wisdom on anyone else for their text. but you choose to be a christian and choose the bible as the infallible word.

this is correct?

assuming it is, i want to ask how you reconcile the contradiction that says Christ is the ONLY way? my problem is if chris is the ONLY way, that means biblically i'd have to believe all else will not achieve absolution. that's my primary conflict.

so i seek to determine if the bible is one cog is a giant machine of salvation, or if the bible IS the machine of salvation. see what i mean, see the different?

i believe the bible is God's word, but the bible doesnt say "have no faith in men, well--except for the ones that wrote this, they were divinely protected and perfect while they wrote this.' it just says they were inspired--that doesnt mean perfect or flawless--as flaws are found everywhere in the bible. that, to me, connotes the bible IS holy but is not the be-all-end-all, singular method of salvation. it makes it seem more like a single cog in a larger machine. full of value and importance but not the final word on the matter of salvation.

i dont see how ANY docturines could say anything but "this and no other." humans are inclined to press their luck.
q-tip boxes tell you not to put them in your ear on the back of the box--because we're dumb and would stab our brains. but that's what they are for, to put in our ears. so i believe there's no other way for a bible to be except to say "JUST DO THIS, DONT ASK." but that could just be an over simplification.

just like the bible simply says "DONT KILL." it doesnt say "dont kill unless someone killed your sister, then you can electrocute them." or "dont kill unless it's war." it's black and white and doesnt address the grey.
and i understand why--because we'd press our human luck. we'd rationalize sin. but i dont think this automatically means things really ARE so black and white in reality, i dont know that God is so black and white.

[frankbaginski]

Sleep,

Maybe a clue would help you in answering the question I am asking about Newton. He was a very religious man who wrote more about scripture than he did about science.

[the sleep of reason]

Sleep,

What you are on is a personal journey and your future is at stake. Put the blinders on and follow what you know in your heart to be true.

i agree, i agree, i agree. but as i've stated i'm trying to figure out more, for myself. i can be certain in my heart what's between God and i, but i still want to seek out what truth there is in the bible.

[frankbaginski]

Sleep,

If you are truly on a quest to know the true God. Let me know what you have read so far on your quest so I can recommend some additional references for you. Many of the popular books are not complete or accurate.