Why does God need a book?

[OnceConvinced]

The bible tells us about the Book of Life, which contains the names of those who have been saved and are going to Heaven. If your name does not appear you go to Hell. (Chick Tracts even have God asking the chief Angel "Does his name appear in the book of life?")

There are two issues I have with this (and topics for discussion):

1) If God is all knowing and he knows each of us personally, then why does he need a book to record our names? Santa doesn't need a book to know who's naughty and nice. He just knows. But God needs a book. Why does he need a book when he is all knowing?

2) Why a book? Wouldn't they have really amazing technology in Heaven? You'd think they'd have computers, perhaps even something superior to computers. If the bible had described some kind of metal box that contained all the names... or perhaps a flat round disk, that would go a long way to showing that the bible was divine and not just ancient man's ignorance. Imagine how huge the book would have to be! It would be mammoth. So why use a book rather than some other form of data storage?

Feel free to speculate, even if you have nothing solid.

[Regens Küchl]

Do we know Gods judgement of another persons soul?

It is a major point of christian doctrine that christians say they do, yes:

Wasnt it a sin of Judas to turm traitor to Christ ? Dont sinners go to hell ? According to christianity they do!

Do not only true christians enter heaven ? According to christianity they do!

So christians say that they do know Gods judgement of another persons soul!

They cant have it both ways and chicken out of this prestenses when faced by an uncomfortable question!

[DefenderofTruth]

Do we know Gods judgement of another persons soul?

It is a major point of christian doctrine that christians say they do, yes:

I don't think that is a correct statement.. It is a different matter knowing what sin is, and what faith is, then to claim you know what Gods judgement is on another person... I don't even know what Gods judgement will be on myself...

Wasnt it a sin of Judas to turm traitor to Christ ? Dont sinners go to hell ? According to christianity they do!

everyone is a sinner

Do not only true christians enter heaven ? According to christianity they do!

ok, so who is a "true christian"... are you the judge of that? do you have an answer?

So christians say that they do know Gods judgement of another persons soul!

thats nonsense dude... No one is all knowing except God... I can't believe we are debating this... You really think someone can know Gods judgement of their soul?

Thats a bit different then knowing what is sin and what is faith, if thats what you are suggesting... which I'm not even sure what you are suggesting because you don't make sense.

They cant have it both ways and chicken out of this prestenses when faced by an uncomfortable question!

uncomfortable question? You could ask me the exact same question about anyones judgement and id tell you the exact same thing i did just now.

[Blastcat]

The bible tells us about the Book of Life, which contains the names of those who have been saved and are going to Heaven. If your name does not appear you go to Hell. (Chick Tracts even have God asking the chief Angel "Does his name appear in the book of life?")

There are two issues I have with this (and topics for discussion):

1) If God is all knowing and he knows each of us personally, then why does he need a book to record our names? Santa doesn't need a book to know who's naughty and nice. He just knows. But God needs a book. Why does he need a book when he is all knowing?

2) Why a book? Wouldn't they have really amazing technology in Heaven? You'd think they'd have computers, perhaps even something superior to computers. If the bible had described some kind of metal box that contained all the names... or perhaps a flat round disk, that would go a long way to showing that the bible was divine and not just ancient man's ignorance. Imagine how huge the book would have to be! It would be mammoth. So why use a book rather than some other form of data storage?

Feel free to speculate, even if you have nothing solid.

I don't think its a question of "needs", thats a strong word that you are assuming and "needs" is not used in the scripture either... right?

and this question has kind of a literal since to it. You talk about it like its a literal book, but it is not a literal statement. In fact, I believe that is talked about in Revelations, right? Revelations is a book that was a vision... There is not a lot of literal content in revelations. The entire book is full of symbolic metaphors, and such...

I have to agree. Something that does not exist but in a metaphoric or figurative sense has NO LITERAL need of anything, including books.

Something that does not exist but in a figurative sense MIGHT use a figurative book to write figurative words with metaphoric meanings concerning a metaphoric heaven.

We know that the story might not be literal in any sense.
Not the book, not the words in the book and not the people reading this book, not the heaven, not the hell nor the god.

All of the above are

NOT LITERAL ACTUAL TRUE OR REAL

[arian]

Good question, and if you read some of my "Undeniable Scientific Evidence of The Creator", where I describe our Creator God as the 'Infinite, Eternal Creative Mind "I Am Who I Am", you would understand why just by observing your own mind!

Look, we dream up things before we 'create them', correct?
In our mind it is pretty clear what it is we dreamed-up, right? But because our mind is 'Infinite', we can dream up so many other things, so it is a good idea to write the one we are working on at the moment down, .. or record it some finite way on something finite/created, because anything that's created is created by laws, permanent, so whatever is placed on/in it stays that way until the Creator decides to change it.

So if you read the Bible, particularly John 1:1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

You noticed that in the Beginning of all creation, the first thing God did was create 'The Word'. Now what does books contain? Words of course, right?
God the Infinite Eternal Mind/Spirit wanted to start recording things He was dreaming/thinking to make it more permanent.

Now watch what is next here:

3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

See how it all fits together? "Through him all things were made", but how?
Like an engineer, he dreams up a bridge, once he comes up with something he likes, he writes it all down, drafts it all out and so on, now it's on a source that is more permanent, and he can go on thinking, planning dreaming up the next thing. The same with God, He plans it all out 'before creation', then writes it, or records it in something permanent that He created, in this case it is His Son Word. Once there, He, .. or 'they' can start creating it; "Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness" .. and so on.

It seems to me you are kind of putting God into a very human box that he needs to write down stuff. I can believe that a God would plan things out in his head because there's nothing intelligent or brilliant about just speaking things into being and it all just happening. However, I would not see him as a fallible human who would need actual written plans or documents to go along with it. He's a God not some human builder or programmer.

Thank you my friend for your response.

It is not I, but religion, like all the Christian religions that put God in their tiny box and tell their followers that they have to 'just believe' their version of God, no proof, no evidence, just take our word for it, right?

There is nothing fallible about 'writing things down', why do you think we do it? That's right, because our 'Father does it', and we who were created in His image do it also.

You read in the Bible all those references of books in Heaven, also how God commanded His Prophets to write things in books so later they could refer back to it, .. right? Why do you think that after the Great Flood of Noah God placed a rainbow in the sky, .. remember that? Because God is an Infinite, Eternal Creative Mind/Spirit, just as I have described our minds, .. and our mind can jump from one plan to another, why wouldn't Mind/Spirit God? Besides, if we need to jot things down so we don't loose it, it's because our Father does. And every bit of creation, from the first design of the atoms (or whatever the atoms are made of) were written in His Son 'Word'. And how much information does the 'Word' contain?
"I am the Beginning and the End, .. all things were made through Him and for Him, .. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" so it is very obvious who the Word, the Son of God is!? Besides, a human builder and programmer is in the image of his creator, not the other way around, .. right?

2) Why a book? Wouldn't they have really amazing technology in Heaven? You'd think they'd have computers, perhaps even something superior to computers. If the bible had described some kind of metal box that contained all the names... or perhaps a flat round disk, that would go a long way to showing that the bible was divine and not just ancient man's ignorance. Imagine how huge the book would have to be! It would be mammoth. So why use a book rather than some other form of data storage?

Feel free to speculate, even if you have nothing solid.

Remember this was written when CD was unheard of, so it's not what Heaven can do, but what simple man here on earth could understand. Even just a 100 years ago, anything other then a 'book' would not have made any sense.

But hold on these were visions of future events. If they were visions of future events he would see the wonderful new technology being used.

Why would God reveal something that would have only made sense in the last hundred years of human physical existence? The message had to be clearly understood right then. Besides, even though Newspapers and books are turning completely digital, I believe we will always refer to digital books as 'books', .. don't you think?

"I've seen a shiny disk that was put in a slot, and a window opened up with words on it" now I know this would of been cool in the last 100 years, but what about all them people who died before the invention of the CD?
The important thing was to get the message across so everyone could understand. But yeas, I can't wait for the coming technology God prepared for those who love Him!?

1 Corinthians 2:9
But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.�

But let's use our imagination as to what recording equipment (books) could look like in Heaven? I myself could imagine a beautiful big golden scroll, as it unrolls (like those bendable screens coming out), words appear.

If I was the writer of the book of Revelations and I was seeing visions of 2015 or somewhere around now, I would be imagining a little black box or something like that. A metallic gleaming slate. Or if it's in our future I might imagine holographic images or maybe something even more futuristic that humans haven't even thought of yet. The fact that the writer of Revelations is seeing only his current day technology is proof he was simply dreaming it all up from his own primitive imagination.

There are a lot of that in Revelations, and it is just starting to make sense, like helicopters with faces of men, hair of a woman etc. I am not going to speculate, since there are so many out there that do that, yet miss the whole point of the message.

And for security where God doesn't want any Angel or any Heavenly Creature reading something before its time, there would be a seal (password) to keep any unauthorized person access to it. I could imagine some awesome futuristic book where no present technology could even come close to it, and yet the outside, the cover of the book would be very classical in design. And for a better feel to the book, it would grow in size as more information was added into it. Not that a tiny chip sized book couldn't contain all the names of everyone that has ever lived, including a total recording of every second of their lives!? That classic old book-look would be just for preference.

He would be seeing similar. He would be seeing future technology for events that were a long way off. Not a book.

If he was seeing this stuff, it would be proof that the bible was divine. Giving accurate descriptions of futuristic technology. Instead we get a plain old book, something that rarely ever gets used any more to store data on. Evidence that the writer of the story was not seeing future events.

You wouldn't be saying that if we were living in the 1,800's right now!?
Besides, what he seen was a book, not a plain old book. It may have been the most awesome book that it would take us another 1,000 years to design. Not digital, but something indescribable, yet look like a book.

Believe me, no matter what he described or seen, even if it was an Apple Computer, the world would still deny their Creator. You sound like so many others here; "If God would tell me my favorite number and color, .. THEN, .. yes THEN I will bow down and worship Him, .. ohuh, yep I would too, .. I swear on a stack of Bibles (which I don't believe a word from)" Lol.

But that's just my imagination, I'm sure Heaven has some awesome 'books' that far, far surpasses anything we could ever imagine in a million years. Where todays CD and computer technology would pale in comparison.

Indeed and the writer of the book of Revelations, describing events happening over 2000 years into the future would see this stuff as well. Instead or he sees is primitive things from his own time. Things like riders on horses, chariots, books, archaic weapons/armour.

You mean like" "Then I saw an Angel which I was told was just a holographic image riding on a flagmack, which was ragriden by plumpuff engines that slimdwarfed different colors of quarks that the Higgs boson brought into reality through shmignikules alternating at very high frequencies flying through worm holes sucking up dark and white matter like no ones business, as it came up to me, but didn't come up to me because of the zmigue colorastions, it teleported the message by the old frrrrmm sytem as music" (remember, this is how it would of sound to billions and billions of people before the invention of the CD or your black-box.) but yes, maybe THEN you would have believed, .. and why is it that I don't believe you?

Oh, .. because people rather choose billion year old religious stories as their Creator over God whom I described in whose image we were created in. And that they are evolving apes, animals for Petesake.

This is what I was trying to point out in my OP. The writer of revelations was witnessing future events so should have been seeing futuristic things.

So no books, horses, people but futuristic things, .. like, .. like what, Terminator robots, CHAPPiE robots with claimed human souls residing in them?

Take care.

[DefenderofTruth]

The bible tells us about the Book of Life, which contains the names of those who have been saved and are going to Heaven. If your name does not appear you go to Hell. (Chick Tracts even have God asking the chief Angel "Does his name appear in the book of life?")

There are two issues I have with this (and topics for discussion):

1) If God is all knowing and he knows each of us personally, then why does he need a book to record our names? Santa doesn't need a book to know who's naughty and nice. He just knows. But God needs a book. Why does he need a book when he is all knowing?

2) Why a book? Wouldn't they have really amazing technology in Heaven? You'd think they'd have computers, perhaps even something superior to computers. If the bible had described some kind of metal box that contained all the names... or perhaps a flat round disk, that would go a long way to showing that the bible was divine and not just ancient man's ignorance. Imagine how huge the book would have to be! It would be mammoth. So why use a book rather than some other form of data storage?

Feel free to speculate, even if you have nothing solid.

I don't think its a question of "needs", thats a strong word that you are assuming and "needs" is not used in the scripture either... right?

and this question has kind of a literal since to it. You talk about it like its a literal book, but it is not a literal statement. In fact, I believe that is talked about in Revelations, right? Revelations is a book that was a vision... There is not a lot of literal content in revelations. The entire book is full of symbolic metaphors, and such...

I have to agree. Something that does not exist but in a metaphoric or figurative sense has NO LITERAL need of anything, including books.

Something that does not exist but in a figurative sense MIGHT use a figurative book to write figurative words with metaphoric meanings concerning a metaphoric heaven.

We know that the story might not be literal in any sense.
Not the book, not the words in the book and not the people reading this book, not the heaven, not the hell nor the god.

All of the above are

NOT LITERAL ACTUAL TRUE OR REAL

wow, so metaphoric of figurative speech has no literal need? Do you really think about this stuff before you say it... Philosophers in the enlightenment era, if they talked about things that are metaphors and figurative speech, are you really saying that has no academic value?


or maybe i am misinterpreting what you said. It looks like you have some kind of problem if something is described in vision or something? Is that what you are saying?

[DefenderofTruth]

[Replying to post 62 by Blastcat]

but in a metaphoric or figurative sense has NO LITERAL need of anything, including books.

WOW, can someone argue for how this is not an irrational statement!?

Who thinks this statement is a rational thing to declare?

[Zzyzx]

.

but in a metaphoric or figurative sense has NO LITERAL need of anything, including books.

WOW, can someone argue for how this is not an irrational statement!?

Who thinks this statement is a rational thing to declare?

I consider it quite rational to state that an imaginary character (or metaphoric or figurative) has no literal (real world) need of anything.

I consider it irrational to think that imaginary (metaphoric / figurative) fairies need literal food. Do you disagree?

[DefenderofTruth]

.

but in a metaphoric or figurative sense has NO LITERAL need of anything, including books.

WOW, can someone argue for how this is not an irrational statement!?

Who thinks this statement is a rational thing to declare?

I consider it quite rational to state that an imaginary character (or metaphoric or figurative) has no literal (real world) need of anything.

I consider it irrational to think that imaginary (metaphoric / figurative) fairies need literal food. Do you disagree?

I kind of do disagree, because Christ is not a fairy tell.. Have you ever wrote an abstract for an undergraduate research paper?

If you told them the metaphors and figurative had no literal value... You would be laughed at...

[arian]

From Post 42:

Oh man, .. that's Joey for you, .. lol. So God needs a book not only to record things in, but to talk to us too, like the Bible right? But did you know that; "Words CAN hurt you!?" Really, .. I've seen this commercial where a word knocked Jessy right off his horse, .. so imagine on that Last Day when the Lord throws the entire book at ya? Ouch!

That reminds me of how Jesus doesn't seem like he's so much for the "by the book" stuff, but does seem to express the idea that love for fellow humans should temper our actions t'wards 'em when they goof.

Exactly, that's why the Jewish Religious leaders hated him so. Picking wheat, then smashing it in their hands and eating it ON THE SABBATH (OMG) while the Pharisees were watching in horror (lol) then He went on freeing a woman caught in adultery spoiling a perfectly good reason to stone somebody, then calling himself the Son of God, .. the list just goes on and on.

Romans 13:9
For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,� “You shall not murder,� “You shall not steal,� “You shall not bear false witness,� “You shall not covet,� and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.�

Mathew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Too bad those of the Christian Religion don't adhere to that, rather they turn the others cheek, they sue each other, and so on, only it's too bad that people don't see this and instead blame God and the Bible. People don't see that there is a huge difference between being a militant member of the Christian Religion, and those whose mostly unnoticed honest deeds are Christ-like? I don't mean the tax-deductible Christian either.

Matthew 6:3
But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, .. like that.

Love you Joey!

You too friend, here's hopin' ya ain't never met a biscuit ya couldn't whoop.

LOL, .. yeah, I guess I've been whooping biscuits since I could walk, .. made it so far, .. you too buddy!

[arian]

Woe, I just posted Mathew 7:7 on page 7 of 7 on this OP, any numerologists out there?

I wonder what it could mean, .. snow in the middle of June in Phoenix? Maybe the Pope is coming from the city of 7 hills on July 7th at 7AM?

Sorry, but I just seen some numerologists predictions and couldn't help myself. Back to the OP then.