Is the Bible the Word of God?

Actually the bottom line is this, do you believe God would preserve and protect HIS book,
so it could be distributed in multiple languages during this period of time foretold in Matthew 24:14

All during this time, the good news—the Message of the kingdom—will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.

I do.

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


I believe that neither truth nor any god was responsible for the ubiquity of the Bible. And there is far more evidence for my opinion of the matter than there is for yours. Your opinion is your opinion, but do not pretend it is easily defended nor well-founded. When a horse shows off its speed, you can bet a predator will kill it in the dead of night as it sleeps soundly.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


And the issue is faith, not opinion, and some have it in this area.
Those that don't believe the bible is the word of God have that as their opinion, which co-exists with no faith in God for whatever reason they feel that way. If they are justified, is for another discussion.

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


Sometimes, faith isn't enough. Because then you have to have faith that faith is enough, and faith that having faith in faith is enough, and faith that having faith in having faith in having faith is enough...

I'm talking about irrational faith. Something you shouldn't need to have faith for. Something that the fact you NEED to have faith for it just stands as testament that perhaps you shouldn't put your faith in it.

reply to post by jhill76


No. If it was the word of the God, that would require either that God wrote it or that God dictated whilst someone else wrote.

The Bible is the word of man, setting down rules by which to live "properly". It is yet another example of Priests doing anything to control religion and hold sway over the masses.

More importantly, it is also a recycling and repackaging of various stories from various religions. So, if i turn out to be wrong and it is the word of God, it is the word of a God that has hedged his / her bets to garner as many people to him / her as possible.

By the way, this post isn't an attack on religion. It is an attack on organised religion!

reply to post by Flavian


Spirituality is a personal path. There is no recipe for spirituality. When religion becomes organized, it becomes a tool, and spirituality becomes politics. Politics are so much more fulfilling than all that spiritual fluff while we're on earth. Warm fuzzy unity and harmony is awesome, but it just doesn't fill your stomach and sate your fleshly desires the way gold can. The body is much more distinct that the soul.

Edit: I am very supportive of spirituality. But I despise spirituality being used as a tool of politics and manipulation. We have enough politicians without priests and false spiritualists joining that game.

Originally posted by Blue_Jay33
Actually the bottom line is this, do you believe God would preserve and protect HIS book, I do.

So does Jesus...

This is an interview with someone who had a face to face encounter with Jesus when Jesus explained to her that we MUST believe God and trust Him to protect His written word.

This quote is the key point (10 min. 30 sec.):

"You don't believe my word the Bible."

"It's My responsibility as God to protect My word for you."

A powerful testimony from a woman being interviewed by Nathan Leal. She tells of how she continued living her life in religious and self deception until she had a face to face encounter with the risen Lord, Jesus, who rebuked her and made it clear to her in no uncertain terms that it's either she was going to surrender all or nothing at all. On his terms, and not on hers. Her testimony will really challenge you to want to make sure your heart is in the right place and that you're not detracted by idols.

Like blue jay said, the answer to this question depends on faith.
And I agree with what afterInfinity said.

I share with you my experience (I don't do this for encouraging you to follow my path. The choice is yours)

Honestly, when I was a kid I used to believe that bible was the words of god. I read them like novel from OT to NT (except those boring books like Psalms, Eclesiastes, etc).

Then one day I visited evil bible website, and I found a lot of disturbing things that I didn't know before, because of the censorships in the bible printed in my country. I felt ashamed of myself for being a fan of those 'bible heroes'

My faith slowly reduced after discovering that alot of things in bible were just myths and plagiarisms.

During this time I became a deist. At this point, I still visited some sermons, but I noticed the conmen who disguised themselves as pastors, loved to use passages and verses in bible (mainly about Offerings and Punishment in Hell) to scare and encourage the followers to contribute more for tithes. This really helped me in reducing my faith into 0.

This month, I stopped being a deist once I learnt so many things here.

But for me, bible is not entirely a bad book. There are some useful wisdom teachings in it.

reply to post by dodol


What scared you away from deism?

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by dodol

 

What scared you away from deism?

I experienced three times of Out of Body experience for several seconds each within the last 4-5 years (The feeling was like watching my life through a TV Screen, I can't describe this well, because it was so fast when it happened)
And the last time it happened was last December, after watching the YouTube video about "Our life is Simulation"

After that, I started to experience conflicts in my minds, mostly because of believing too much in gnostic myths.
(I purposely read gnostic myths, just to collect materials for writing a sci-fi story, but slowly, the myths started to poison my thoughts)

Then I found the answer that miraculously and completely removed the idea of 'the creator' from my faith. I realized that all disturbing thoughts appeared because I took gnostic myths literally.

Being a deist, I always had a feeling of the creator watching over me.
And being a deist, I also had this kind of negative thinkings:
"God, the creator, created me better than some people around me"
I don't want the kind of thinkings that put myself above other people because we are all equal. I also realize that it's just that these human bodies that we possess, that make us feel that we are greater or lower than others.

After doing a couple of meditations and reading wisdom teachings from Lotus Sutra, Gospel of Thomas, and some posts in ATS, I begin to see the truth in Buddhism, mysticisms, etc,
I begin to treat people around me nicer than when I was an ignorant person (I feel like there is a force inside me that push me to do that)

I love the way I live now