Bible not from god?

[PaulSacramento]

Some people will never believe, people saw jesus perform impossible miracles bu yet they still did not have faith, the isrealites were guarded protected and watched over by god yet they made a false idol to worship instead of him.

Heck, jesus could pop in front of richard dawkins wave his hands and scream "here I am" and richard would probably just convince himself he was seeing things.

Some people do not want to find/believe god; as this saying that I saw somewhere on this site goes "the atheist cannot find god for the same reason a theif cannot find a police man"

There is much truth in this.
Truly of Christ himself didn't convince those that saw Him and heard Him...well...
We must certaibly NOT paint all atheists with the same "militant" brush.
Many are agnostic atheists that have the wrong/incorrect/incomplete idea of what Christianity is, while some have been "burned" by certain cultic and fringe elements in Christianity, while others are truly seeking but have not yet learned to listen and have not yet found what they are searching for.

[Murray]

The Bible does utter the phrase, "Thus says the Lord" over 400 times in the Old Testament.

The opening determiner of a sentence containing the words "God said" occurs 42 times in the Old Testament and 4 times in the New.

The words "God spoke" occurs 9 times in the Old Testament and 3 times in the New.

The phrase the "Spirit of the Lord" which spoke through people occurs 4 times in the Old Testament.

how could you possibly know for sure that God directly went up to them and told them to write word for word what to write,

It claims that a number of times in the Old Testament.

Exo 24:3 (KJV) And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath said will we do.

Exo 24:3 (KJV) And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Exo 24:7 (KJV) And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.

Exo 24:12 (KJV) And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.

If you notice in verse 12 the law and commandments were written by God, not Moses. Moses read them aloud in verse 3 and copied them in verse 4.

The same can also be said for Exo 34:1 and 34:7. In Deut 17:18, the king was also supposed to write out a copy of the law.

God (the Word of the Lord) tells Isaiah and Jeremiah and the minor prophet Habakkuk to write in Isa 8:1 and Jer 30:2 and 36:2 and Hab 2:2.

Granted, the Bible does not tell us everything for as John says in the last line of his Gospel:

John 21:25 (KJV) And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Ah, I stand corrected. But then if getting God's exaact words are so important, then why are there so many different version of the Bible? Is there a right or wrong version?

you misunderstand the reasoning for different versions. The different versions are to help people understand it better.Try to read KJB and then read a GNB, you would mostlikely find that the GNB(generally a childrens bibile) is much easier to read.

[Murray]

The way most bibles are translated go like this, First origonal version in hebrew, then translated into greek, then translated into english, now all bibles have the same message if you compare them, but some are just simply translated to try to 1)better/improve the translation 2) help the reader of it better understand it.

The translators are not changing the word of god, simply trying to better fit it to it's hebrew better, or in some cases like the GNB, trying to help certain readers understand it better with simpler language. It is kind of like in stead of saying " he despised" they would change it into "he disliked"

[DannyM]

Actually, yes, I have and so have others. Not militant atheists that have made up their mind ( trying to convince them is like trying to convert a fundamentalist muslim to atheisim, lol)

Oh yes well I have non-militant atheist friends whom I have given the good news and it had been taken with some grace. Can’t say they’ve converted, but they have been willing to accept their misconceptions about certain things. One largely disinterested atheist friend of mine actually thought that Jesus had married Magdalene! I had to tell him that The Da Vinci Code was fiction. I kid you not. But he had no dogmatic view of this and was happy to know the truth.

but those that are "agnostic" atheists.

[PaulSacramento]

Not sure what the silly "head aginst brick wall" icon is for.
The fact that there are degrees of atheisim is something that even the most ardent of atheists acknowledges.
An "agnostic" atheists is someone that doesn't believe in God because he has no evidence for it, but is open to the possibility.

[Murray]

[DannyM]

The fact that there are degrees of atheisim is something that even the most ardent of atheists acknowledges

Yes there is the militant atheist and the non-militant atheist. They both subscribe to the same worldview

An "agnostic" atheists is someone that doesn't believe in God because he has no evidence for it, but is open to the possibility.

Yep. This would be an agnostic

Atheism has for time immemorial been the belief that there in no god

[Murray]

I'm with danny on this one, I'm pretty sure the term atheist and agnostic are mutally exclusive. Atheism refers to disbelief in god while the definition of agnosticism is open to the possibiliy/concept of god.

[PaulSacramento]

I'm with danny on this one, I'm pretty sure the term atheist and agnostic are mutally exclusive. Atheism refers to disbelief in god while the definition of agnosticism is open to the possibiliy/concept of god.

Hey, I didn't coin the term ( hence the quotation marks on agnostic), I;ve heard it used a few times and it seemed just fine for me.
Heck even Dawkins says there are degrees of atheism:
On Page 50 in Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion", Dawkins sets up a Theist-Atheist Scale. The levels:

1.00: Strong theist. 100 percent possibility of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, 'I do not believe, I know.'

2.00: Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. 'I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there

3.00: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. 'I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.'

4.00: Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. 'God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.'

5.00: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. 'I don't know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be sceptical.'

6.00: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'

7:00: Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung 'knows' there is one.'




One view for example:

Strong atheists hold a positive belief that no gods exist, weak atheists do not. They're both atheism, there is no grey area in that respect, but it's a useful distinction to make in some instances. They are not degrees of atheism in the sense of one being more atheistic than the other, they're just different perspectives.

Weak atheism is different from agnosticism. It's true that all weak atheists are agnostics (of some sort) but not all agnostics are weak atheists. Some people think that a god does exist but are unsure and consider positive knowledge of that god's existence to be unobtainable; those people are agnostics but not atheists.
Theism/atheism is about whether someone believes in gods, gnosticism/agnosticism is about whether someone is certain in that belief. They're different things.


and:
A strong atheist is one who makes the assertion that there are no gods, whereas a weak atheists simply claims not to believe in any, based on a lack of evidence.
Source(s):
Weak atheist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

and more:
http://ravingatheists.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7758

[DannyM]

What a load of garbage. Dawkins. Wikipedia. Strong. Weak.

Unbelievable.

[PaulSacramento]

What a load of garbage. Dawkins. Wikipedia. Strong. Weak.

Unbelievable.

Now you are being narrow minded.
Sorry.
You are trying to pain ALL atheists how YOU want them to be, much like some atheists try to pain all believers as THEY want them to be.
The world is not so neatly packaged.
While I may not agree with these "levels" and such, but if atheists choose to describe themselves as such, I can respect that.
Like I said, on a few forums I have heard the term "agnostic atheists" describes as someone that doesn't believe in God becuase they have found no evidence or reason to, but they are open to the possibility if evidence is presented.

[DannyM]

Now you are being narrow minded

How so? You want me to apply a pretty distinct term more broadly? Are you saying I’m being narrow minded because I’m applying the definition correctly? That would be ludicrous so I am not being narrow minded.

You are trying to pain ALL atheists how YOU want them to be, much like some atheists try to pain all believers as THEY want them to be

No I’m not. What can the atheist call me? I’m a Christian. An atheist believes there is no god. What don’t you understand about this? You are affronted because I don’t accept the nonsensical ‘agnostic atheist.’

The world is not so neatly packaged

Language has its boundaries I’m afraid.

While I may not agree with these "levels" and such, but if atheists choose to describe themselves as such, I can respect that

They can do what they like, and so can you. But I’ll exercise my own liberty by saying it’s a nonsense term.

Like I said, on a few forums I have heard the term "agnostic atheists" describes as someone that doesn't believe in God becuase they have found no evidence or reason to, but they are open to the possibility if evidence is presented.

Can you see that you are merely describing an agnostic. “Doesn’t believe in God” is a neutral expression of agnosticism. The agnostic “doesn’t believe.” Atheism is a ’belief’ in the non existence of God. Agnosticism says that whether God exists or does not exist is unknowable and therefore does not believe one way or the other. An agnostic cannot apply any definition of the word ‘believe’ to the existence or non existence of God. Freedom of speech dictates you can say anything non offensive you wish. But I’d rather not see ‘agnostic atheist’ used in a semi-serious discussion. We might as well talk about married bachelors.

[PaulSacramento]

SO I take it you have the same issues with "strong" atheist and "weak" atheist and with Dawkins "levels" of Atheism?

[DannyM]

SO I take it you have the same issues with "strong" atheist and "weak" atheist and with Dawkins "levels" of Atheism?

Paul, you mean that 1-7 list above? All I see here is Dawkins off on one of his long winded opinions and passing it off as fact. What do you think I should think of this?

[PaulSacramento]

SO I take it you have the same issues with "strong" atheist and "weak" atheist and with Dawkins "levels" of Atheism?

Paul, you mean that 1-7 list above? All I see here is Dawkins off on one of his long winded opinions and passing it off as fact. What do you think I should think of this?

Whatever you want to think of it, just curious.
I see your point about the "agnostic atheists" and was curious if you felt the same about Dawkins list and the views of other atheists that believe there are "Strong" and "weak" Atheists.