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Author | Topic: Human Lies or Gods Word (Books making claims) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
yzend1 Inactive Member |
If I stumble across a book that claims to be the word of God, how do I know if it really is God's Word or Human Lies?
{Topic moved from "Great Debate" to "Faith and Beliefs" forum - Adminnemooseus} [This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 01-06-2003]
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mark24 Member (Idle past 5195 days) Posts: 3857 From: UK Joined: |
Perhaps God handed you the book.....?
Other than that, you can't verify the claim. Mark
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Karl Inactive Member |
What book do you have in mind?
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: You cannot know the difference, unless one makessome assumptions about what form a book written by God would take as opposed to one written by man. One might be that since God is all-knowing (an assumption)that all details within a book written by him would be accurate, and not found to be false by later investigations of man. On the other hand one would expect a book written by man tocontain interpretations consistent with beliefs & knowledge contempory with the time of writing. Similarly one would expect to find prejudices of man reflectedin the treatment of events and peoples in a book written by man. Such prejudices should not be found in a book written by God since God would put forward only the truth (assumption). However, it largely depends on which God is supposed to havewritten the work which assumptions will hold to help make that decision. A work written by Ares (or any other Greek God) may well be riddled with the same sorts of prejudices and mis-representations as a book written by man since the Greek gods were notoriously fickle.
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yzend1 Inactive Member |
Quote : Which book had you in mind.
It was really a general question about any book claiming to be the word of God, eg Bible, Koran, The Jewish Bible, The Morman Bible, etc etc. There must be quite a few alternatives to choose from.
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NeoPagan Inactive Member |
I say you can tell by the "content" of ALL books that they are not God's word. God would have to be a lunatic to take credit for the things attributed to him in all of these books.
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yzend1 Inactive Member |
So, if the book foretold some 'supernatural' event (in written words) that could at a later date be verified, since humans should not naturally be able to possess this ability, one could then assume the book contains the word of God.
(It is assumed that anything verified 'in the past' could be 'doctored' as a trick to proving the book contains the word of God unless it could be shown that that which was written preceeded that what happened.) So, does anyone know of a book that fortells a future event that has yet to happen (hopfully in the not too distant future), and that also claims to be the word of God (plus page number if it's an exceedingly long book)? Or does anybody know of a book that fortold a future event which definetly proved correct and also claims to be the word of God (plus page number if it's an exceedingly long book)? Also, what kind of an future event should be classed as being fortold? Should location and time and description of event all be stated rather than a more general fortelling? (Note, one problem with fortelling something. It doesn't stop someone reading the prediction and then fullfilling the 'destiny' of the prediction - Example, someone might fortell in writing that I will go and live in Washington DC. So I might read the prediction and go and live there just to fullfill the prediction. This is no good. As I think about it, it seems to me that the only type of prediction that will count is the prediction of a specific natural disaster that's against the stastical norm. So, until it has been proven that God fortells in a book should we accept the position of being agnostic, since to believe in God or to believe in atheism seems pointless unless you know for sure? yzend1
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yzend1 Inactive Member |
Lets try to make this more specific:-
Apart from foretelling specific natural disasters what else would give it away that a book contained the word of God as opposed to human lies claiming to be the word of God. LIST OF WHAT WOULD GIVE IT AWAY 1. Fortelling specific natural disasters Why would God tell us about a specific natural disaster and do nothing about it? It doesn't make alot of sense to me. 2. Help, I've run out of ideas.
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Primordial Egg Inactive Member |
quote: Would foretelling specific natural disasters give it away? After all, the technology of a sufficiently advanced extra-terrestrial intelligence would be indistinguishable to magic to us earthlings, so we'd have to discount this possibility first. (There is a corollary to this advanced by Michael Shermer, in that any sufficiently advanced intelligence (SAI) would be indistinguishable from God, which, if it holds (I think it does), implies that there is no way of telling whether any book is from God or from a potentially mischievious SAI). And in any event, I don't think that being able to predict, say, a hurricane is any indication of Godhood, else we'd all be meteorologists If we leave aside the SAI / God dilemma and aim for a book that could not possibly be written by a human being (including a future time traveller - but this might fall under SAI), then at the very least I would expect it to provide, in very clear terms, new technologies and ways of understanding the universe, which both agrees with and extends significantly the total sum of our existing knowledge. But thats just a first stab - it may flex upon cross-examination. PE eduted to add: PS At a very minimum, I would expect the book to be coherent and internally consistent. [This message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 01-08-2003]
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yzend1 Inactive Member |
If someone wrote in 1000AD that on Friday 13th January 2004AD a comet was going to crash into Mars and blow it to bits, and it proved true, then, if this person also claimed to communicate directly with God, well, he'd probably have been right and this could be regarded as proof of GOD.
THE LIST GROWS 2. Godly insight into advanced technological devices. 3. Godly insight into understanding of how the universe works. Come on ladies and gentlemen, get your thinking caps on. yzend1
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Primordial Egg Inactive Member |
quote: Well no - you've missed my point completely. It could well be either: 1) a sufficiently advanced extra-terrestrial, lying about their relationship with God2) a lucky guess 3) a future time traveller gone back to 1000. You probably need to read my post again - how do you distinguish SAI from God? PE
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
No. Prediction isn't sufficient ... even an incredibly
unambiguous, specifically detailed prediction (and I've never seen one of those). Primordial Egg pointed out potential alternate explanationsfor most 'God definitely did that.' interpretations. It would be easier to focuss on things that would indicatethe hand of man ... since we are much better acquainted (sp?) with man and his workings. The biggest indicators to this would be:: i) Bias toward one culture over anotherii)Explanations of events consistent with knowledge contempory with the date of writing.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Coherence and internal consistency are also present
in good fiction.
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Primordial Egg Inactive Member |
quote: Agreed. Coherence and internal consistency would both be necessary for any book claiming to be from the G (as a minimum), but certainly not sufficient. And thats before having to develop some way (which I can't think of) of distinguishing God from a sufficiently advanced intelligence. PE
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yzend1 Inactive Member |
Do you think my Roman Catholic Bible was written by/via an advanced alien or future-time travelling Human or is it Human Lies or is it the Word of God?
The mind Boggles Will it be St peter at the marble gates or some alien or advanced human when I die? The Mind Boggles I suppose the question might be what good is faith in God which might only delay us on our road of using science to achieve immortality? Hence, It possible ain't some future human but a naughty rascal of an alien getting further and further ahead of us? How do we inform the world to wake up?.......Before it's too late to catch up? yzend1
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