A question for believers - why the Bible?

Recently, I had a discussion which got me to thinking about why the Bible itself is accepted as one of the forms through which God spoke to humanity... So I have a relatively simple question for all of the Christians on the site (whether or not you believe the Bible is inerrant/meant to be taken literally):Why do you, personally, believe that the Bible is divinely inspired? (not necessarily as compared to any other religious text - even simply on its own, what makes you believe that the Bible was God's form of teaching us what we needed to know about Him?)

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I saw a film called The Elegant Universe. If you have not seen it make sure you do. That film cemented my belief in God. Is the bible 100% accurate, I don't know and I don't care. All I know is I believe in God.

I think a reasonable answer must include the genre.The Bible was written, edited, compiled, revised and promoted as a religious text. It is, like the Koran, the Talmud, the Sayings of Confucious or those of the Buddha, designed to be a religious text.It's not a Math Book, or a Chemistry Text. It's not a Romance Novel, Western or Spy Novel. It is of the Genre, Religious Texts.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I'm gonna have some fun with this. I'm not a Christian, but I'd wager I can respond to this inquiry along with the best of them.The Bible is God's word because:- It is the oldest book known to man.
- It has statistically improbable numerical patterns throughout it that testify to it's divine origins (Bible Numerics/Bible Codes)
- It has scientific insights that could not have been known to man at the time (food hygiene, circulation of weather, the earth being a sphere, importance of blood to life, number of stars in the sky, etc.)
- It is full of fulfilled prophecy.
- It contains the best lessons and rules for living a complete moral life.
- The Son of God confirmed it's authority.
- Despite the fact that it is made up of many books written by many authors of hundreds of years, in is internally consistent and inerrant.
- It contains the only truly accurate account of creation of the universe and life.How am I doing? That's eight straight lies in a row. That's is much as I can muster without feeling compelled to pluck out my own tongue.This message has been edited by Gilgamesh, 12-23-2004 12:01 AM

Not true. If you refer to the bible as 1 book, then it is not the oldest known book by a long shot. If you were talking about the oldest book in the bible, which is a collection of books, then noone can claim that it's the oldest book because noone knows how old it is. Haha. Ya. Even most YEC's discourage their fellow creos from using this argument. (Common sense, win generally go east and west not north and south, a circle is not a sphere, common sense, again common sense, etc.) You forgot the words "vague and obscure". The sentence should have been "It is full of vague and obscure but fulfilled prophecies." Yup, including a guidance to how to sale your daughters into slavery to pay off debts. Ya, this is true. I mean, how can you argue with "the bible is true because god says so and we know that god exists because the bible says so"? Haha. My computer programming prof once said, "if you input a several piles of garbage, the output will be a big pile of garbage." Yup, I believe there's no argument against this one. It's fool proof.

Lam writes:

quote:

---

My computer programming prof once said, "if you input a several piles of garbage, the output will be a big pile of garbage."

---

I used to write accounting software years ago and we had an acronym for it: GIGO - Garbage In Garbage Out.

---

Keep America Safe AND Free!

Questions about life or God? See EveryStudent.com
Can You Prove God Exists? by Peter Kreeftcheck em out

I did. What`s your point?

Hi,Well he trots out the 'design argument', which isn't really an argument at all, irrefutable proof that there is a God.Irrefutable if you are ten years old of course Brian.

Hi, Markcus. You have a link to Peter Kreeft! The man is no slouch and he presents some decent arguments! Norman Geisler is another good one to check out! Of course, if one is prone to believe in logic and dismis the validity of the Bible based on atheism.orgs list of reasons or some other such drivel, they will never read the links to begin with! By this I mean: Check out the credentials of the wisdom and the ones behind it. Who started the "list of theist stumpers" for example? What type of moral fiber and character is shown in the author? I am not suggesting that the supporters of the Bible are any better than others, but I DO respect good sermons and passionate speeches as much if not more than dry assertions and vindicative attempts at attacking a solid ancient book. Merry Christmas,EvC!This message has been edited by Phatboy, 12-23-2004 05:20 AM

Too funny Gilgamesh. You got them down as well as the best Carney Barker. LOL

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

His logic falls apart well before he gets to that point. He starts off by defining what it is to "know" then promptly forgets all that and claims to "know" that God exists.This statement really says it all. How's that for a contradiction in terms?
If you "know" something but have no concrete proof then you don't, in point of fact, "know" it at all. You "believe" it and that is a completely different thing.PY

quote:

---

check em out

---

I did - I read a couple of articles, but all of them seemed to have to do with the existence of God, not relating God to the Bible. Could you link to the specific articles that you feel are relevant?(And on a side note, the Pascal's Wager link in the second one seems to entirely ignore the existence of other religions in its argument.)

http:///WebPages/ForumRules.htmlYou will notice that rule #5 requests that you don't use bare links. Could you summarize what is said at either of these sites?Thanks