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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Tension of Faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Stile writes: Unless God has an "undecided" pile? The Catholics got round this problem by inventing purgatory. Even to them it seemed unfair that god would condemn someone forever that hadn't done something truly evil, so they graded sins into venial and mortal. Mortals went straight to everlasting hell but venials got a lighter sentence. So pretty much everyone had to spend a bit of time in purgatory before getting into heaven. Of course the concept of time is a bit tricky here but never mind. There were/are all sorts of ways to limit this purgatory time - buying indulgencies, performing odd rituals and so on. The very best was confessing your sins to a priest, receiving absolution and dying immediately afterwards. That got you straight into heaven. They must have such a lot of fun making this shit up.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I understand the term "questioning" to be used in the sense of doubting that the Bible is telling the truth. Not understanding it or having problems with some of its concepts are perfectly normal attitudes everybody goes through.
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
Faith writes: I understand the term "questioning" to be used in the sense of doubting that the Bible is telling the truth. Not understanding it or having problems with some of its concepts are perfectly normal attitudes everybody goes through. Do you think it's possible that you think someone is "doubting" the Bible when they're actually just trying to understand it? Because... that's what it looks like you're doing.Pretty much all the time.
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined:
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Tangle writes: They must have such a lot of fun making this shit up. Heh... no kidding. Actually, in all fairness, I believe it's nerve-wracking for them.So nerve-wracking that they generally end up labeling pretty much anything as "a sign" that things should be the way they describe so that the responsibility isn't on them. For two reasons:1 - They don't want such responsibility. 2 - The responsibility is supposed to be God's. Not theirs. Therefore, it has to not be theirs. They are only a "conduit." And then there's the politics of it all... sometimes they describe things in such a way that goes against their own best interests (followers included)... because if everything always went their way, it would obviously not be "inspiration from God." And then the whole thing ends up exactly as we see it... a writhing mess of patchwork, too convoluted for anyone to actually adhere to and so contradictory that any questioning/examining would clearly show it's certainly not the work of any "higher intelligence." But, it must all be accepted and supported by the "officials" because without it... the good parts of faith simply disappear. Ironically, the good parts of faith wouldn't disappear... they only think such would be the case. And they end up straining... screaming... to uphold an un-uphold-able position because if they don't... "all is lost" as it would show that what they say is required, really isn't. Like the poor, panicking toddler that drowns in 1 foot of water simply because they didn't believe they could reach the bottom and stand up where they were. Such a waste of time and energy for something that, really, is incredibly simple and accessible at it's core because it's just a part of being human.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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Sure it's possible.
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined:
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Faith writes: Sure it's possible. I apologize. It seems I have misunderstood you. I'll try to read your comments in another light now.Thanks for being honest.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Faith writes:
How can you know whether the Bible is true or not if you don't understand it? You can't look at anything honestly without doubting that it's true.
I understand the term "questioning" to be used in the sense of doubting that the Bible is telling the truth. Not understanding it or having problems with some of its concepts are perfectly normal attitudes everybody goes through.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Starting from the premise that the Bible is God's word, we may not understand a lot of it, or may be very uncomfortable with some of the things it says, and yet not doubt that it is the truth. We recognize that the problem is in us rather than in the Bible, a very different perspective than the attitude here that our own judgments are true and the Bible is at fault.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Faith writes:
Why would you start from that premise?
Starting from the premise that the Bible is God's word.... Faith writes:
But you are starting from the attitude that your own judgement is true. You've judged a priori that the Bible is God's word - and you've gone in circles from there.
... a very different perspective than the attitude here that our own judgments are true and the Bible is at fault.
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Faith writes: Starting from the premise that the Bible is God's word,... But you can't substantiate your premise that the Bible is God's word. You can't even substantiate your premise that God exists.
...and yet not doubt that it is the truth. If by this you mean inerrancy, the Bible contains its own evidence that it is not inerrant by its internal and external errors and contradictions.
We recognize that the problem is in us rather than in the Bible, a very different perspective than the attitude here that our own judgments are true and the Bible is at fault. If you have a fallen mind, how can you know whether any judgment you make is true, including the judgment that the Bible is inerrant? --Percy
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Faith writes: Starting from the premise that the Bible is God's word,... But you can't substantiate your premise that the Bible is God's word. You can't even substantiate your premise that God exists. I gave you the premise held by "Bible believers," and how we draw from that premise the conclusions we do. It is a sufficient answer to the point I was answering. Substantiating it to unbelievers is not possible; if it were you'd be a believer. Just acknowledge the logic as given.
...and yet not doubt that it is the truth. If by this you mean inerrancy, the Bible contains its own evidence that it is not inerrant by its internal and external errors and contradictions. I was answering the usual claim that the Bible is like any other book and therefore subject to all the usual questionings we apply to any other book, by pointing out that Bible-believers regard it as God's word and therefore not subject to those questionings like any other book, and that it is quite possible not to understand parts of it or even to have natural objections to parts of it, without doubting its truthfulness as we might any other book as a result. That is all I was saying and it is true. Now you want me to prove my premise, which changes the subject. First you should acknowledge the logic of what I said: we don't have to doubt the truth of the Bible just because we don't understand some of it, or even because some of it contradicts our usual assumptions, because we regard it as God's word. Inerrant, sure, and we know you don't see it that way, and you think you have airtight reasons for your opinion, but we don't share your opinion, we regard it as God's word, and taking that as our premise we can regard it as inerrant truth despite having problems understanding it or accepting some of what it says. And as I said, that is because we subordinate our understanding to the Bible's and not the other way around as unbelievers do. It's perfectly logical just as stated. You are changing the subject.
We recognize that the problem is in us rather than in the Bible, a very different perspective than the attitude here that our own judgments are true and the Bible is at fault. If you have a fallen mind, No, I have a regenerated mind, or what is sometimes called a "sanctified" mind, which is given to believers by God and permits us through the Holy Spirit to ascertain divine truths. "Faith is the evidence of things unseen." Believers are also subject to following the old fallen mind if we are not careful to relyl on God's guidance, but on the basics we can see that we are different than we used to be because we now believe and understand things we couldn't believe or understand before we believed the basics, basic things such as that Jesus died for our sins and that the Bible is God's word. It is something I just KNEW when I became a believer. This is not something that can be proved to anyone and I wasn't trying to prove it, I merely stated the fact that we believe the Bible is God's word which means that we do not treat it the way we would treat any other book, the way you and other unbelievers do, and the way we used to before we became believers. Again, it was a simple logical point.
how can you know whether any judgment you make is true, including the judgment that the Bible is inerrant? See above. The simple fact is that we make this judgment and the consequences of that judgment are that we accept it as true whether we like it or understand it. It's a simple logical point. F Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : improve clarity Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2162 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined:
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Percy and Ringo,
You are asking good questions about biblical authority, inerrancy, etc. These are excellent questions for the "The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy" section of the "Science" forums. But I believe they are out of place in the "Bible Study" forums, where we discuss "What does the Bible really mean?" I suggest that, in this forum, we just "agree to disagree" about inerrancy, and discuss meaning. Whether or not we accept inerrancy, we can still all discuss what the Bible is trying to say and what it means. I believe inerrancy is somewhat of an epistemological question. These are important questions, but they can hinder us from making progress about meaning. In science, for example, we can ask important epistemological questions, such as "why should I trust experiment?" or "why should I believe that nature is repeatable?". We cannot PROVE that experiment is trustworthy or that nature is repeatable. But if we allow this to stop us, we will never discuss the RESULTS of the scientific experiments or what they mean. Likewise here. Neither Faith nor I can PROVE to a skeptic that the Bible is inerrant. But we shouldn't need to do so in this forum. We should still be able to discuss what the Bible MEANS. Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given."Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Thanks for the backup, but even if evidence for inerrancy were a legitimate topic for this forum, which as you point out it isn't, that doesn't change the fact that my point was quite logical: given the premise the conclusions follow, and questioning inerrancy is a change of subject.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
OK Faith, the prophecy of Isaiah 7 - with a little historical information, which may be found elsewhere in the Bible, indicates that the child mentioned has to be born during the reign of Ahaz.
Why do you reject that ? Is it just that your mind has fallen to far to understand the text ?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Since the word "almah" is translated by all traditional Christians to mean "virgin" it must refer to the Messiah, and the New Testament affirms that. If it referred to the time of Ahaz it would refer to an adulterous (unmarried) woman, which would not be possible in the context of a prophecy since a "young woman" which usually means an unmarried woman, could not have conceived a child that would be recognized as legitimate. That in fact is the clue to readers of the OT that it IS a messianic prophecy and does not refer to the present time. Although there may be messianic prophecies that that have a double reference, both to the present time and to the Messiah to come later, in this case because it is about a virgin that is not probable.
And this is off topic. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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