Non-Circular reasons for believing in the Bible.

[help3434]

I often see people quote Bible verses about scripture when asked why they believe in the Bible. Of course arguing that the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true is circular. Are there any non-circular reasons for believing in the Bible?

[dianaiad]

Now, several former Mormons have alluded to this. I am not a 'former' Mormon. I'm a TBM. But it seems to me that this 'number 11' reason for believing/finding an outside source of confirmation for the divine nature of the bible is the only possible way of dealing with the circular nature of all the other 'proofs' put forward for it, and it also seems to me that the only possible outside confirmation for the divine/scriptural nature of it can be God--through the 'holy spirit' or the 'Holy Ghost' or answer to direct prayer.

Is it subjective? Of course. But then it would have to be, wouldn't it?

crickets. I hear crickets.

Literally. It's 2AM and the only sound here is crickets chirping. That's not unusual; one expects that. However, I'm having a surreal experience with this thread...a couple of posters (who no longer believe) and I, who do, have all mentioned the only logical way to confirm the divine nature of the bible....

and crickets chirp.

As if the syllables we write are miraculously invisible.

The thing is, there are events and people in the bible which can be independently verified as having existed, or occurred. Finding those does not prove the bible to be scripture (divinely inspired). There is quite a bit of mythology in the bible (mythology in the formal sense, meaning, 'cultural and religious creation stories,' not 'mythology' as 'impossible and untrue stories') , but mythology isn't always UNtrue...however, it cannot be proven true or untrue as a divine lesson empirically. Parables are generally 'true,' in terms of the lessons taught by them.

There is only one way to find out if the bible is divine/scripture. Only one possible way. The 'author' has to confirm it. One has to ask Him. Yes, that raises a couple of other questions, but those questions are independent of whether or not the bible is scripture.

So why is this obvious point being completely ignored, here?

[marketandchurch]

[Replying to post 18 by Dantalion]

Come on, be fair Dantalion. MarketandChurch offered a more detailed argument that anyone else. The Bible believers are in a much harder position on this thread.

My responses require a depth that is not often reciprocated, and if anything, dismissed by a one line brush off by a person who is biblically-illiterate or whose knowledge on what it is they are dismissing is very primitive. Which is fine... I'm primitive in my knowledge of a great number of things. It's neither here nor there to be biblically illiterate or primitive in knowledge of the bible.

But it's so easy to quote-mine google, without ever having to look up any scholarship. If some person decided to take a few lines out of context from Othello or King Lear and paint Shakespeare to be a clueless idiot who has no idea over what he's talking about, it would be my response, and correctly so, to ask who the heck are you to misquote something you have never studied? Where is your advanced studies in Shakespeare? Where is your PHD in English Literature... But any know-nothing is free to take a dump on the bible, never having looked into it with any depth.

I'll try and make a case for the argument I brought in this thread next week. I have some hwk to do, so my free time when spent here will just be on things I can reply quickly to, without having to resort to pulling out the books, and writing out a decent interpretation or argument.

[help3434]

[Replying to post 31 by dianaiad]

The thing is, Dianaiad, is that people have felt the some way about conflicting beliefs, like the teachings of the Koran. Doesn't that suggests that such feelings aren't a reliable way to find truth?

[Dantalion]

[Replying to post 18 by Dantalion]

Come on, be fair Dantalion. MarketandChurch offered a more detailed argument that anyone else. The Bible believers are in a much harder position on this thread.

That's true yes. He did offer argumentation, which is commendable , but he didn't answer our criticisms with arguments, only with the subjective 'it seems to have no equal'.
However, my argument against his position was that you can't say people at that time couldn't relate to the concepts of the OT, therefore you believe in it's validity.
Even if we grant that the first bible texts were radically 'new' (I don't grant that) that still is not a good reason to believe in something.
It isn't circular, so it answers the OP, but 'answering the OP' doesn't make it beyond criticism now does it ?
Lots of fiction introduced us to new concepts, why would you believe in one particular piece of fiction above all others?

[McCulloch]

Prayer. Ask God if He inspired it [the Bible].

I did. Still waiting for a response. :sleep:

[McCulloch]

[Replying to post 3 by marketandchurch]

Can you go into more detail about what is so brilliant about the Bible? What makes it so much better than any other book?

It's radical concepts, for example, are quite extraordinary for human reasoning, 3000 years ago.


Genesis 1:1 is an example of a revolution in human thinking. The Mayans, the Hindu's, the Egyptians, and all ancient made sense out of the Universe by framing it as cycle of death & rebirth. Reality was cyclical to the pagans, not linear, in that nature always existed, and was just continuing this eternal dance of birth and renewal, followed by death, and on and on and on. Genesis 1:1 broke with that tradition, and said that life is on the linear trajectory of history, because there is progress to be made in this existence. God created for 6 days, in a progressive manner, and then rested on the 7th, but we are to continue the act of creation going forward, also in a progressive manner.

One doesn't realize how radical an assertion Genesis 1:1 is. Prior to our body of theories on optics, and the theory of general relativity, there is no way one could have looked at the natural world in those days, and said that it all had a beginning, this all came from nothing, in-existence into existence, by a creator that is outside of the confines of nature. Normative human thinking in those days assumed a Universe that had no beginning or end, no origin, and spread from everlasting to everlasting.


Genesis 9:20 is another example of a revolution in human thinking. In every epic you read, from the Greeks to the Egyptians, to the Chinese, the Gods gave us everything. They were responsible for our narcissism, our anger, our war-waging capabilities, our lust. They were responsible for having given us wine, fire, plaque, famine, agriculture, mathematics, etc.

But following the flood, noah plants a vineyard. This was deliberate attack on traditional Sumer and Babylonian, and even ancient-thinking and reasoning, the world over. God created the heavens and earth in 7 days, but he has rested, and it is now our job as humans to take part in creation.

The message being: We create the world we live in, not the Gods. It is a human-centered text and was a radical humanistic departure from anything that preceded it. How could this have come about, given the primitive state of human reasoning everywhere else in the world. This wasn't passed down from generations upon generations, of keeping myths alive. This was an entirely new approach, one that a person of those times could not relate to.

This is trivial to us, but was a monumental challenge to pagans, 3000 years ago. The attempt on the bible to De-mythologize God & the natural world, and to frame it as an entirely natural physical world, wherein we are mostly responsible for what goes on in life, is not only foreign, but exceptional, found only to have been entertained by one group on earth, and nowhere else.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 31 by dianaiad]

The thing is, Dianaiad, is that people have felt the some way about conflicting beliefs, like the teachings of the Koran. Doesn't that suggests that such feelings aren't a reliable way to find truth?

Really?

Here's a question for you....and it's serious. In actuality, I have come across this issue in Christianity as a whole, never mind other religions.

Have you EVER seen anybody but a Mormon tell you to go ask God if something (esp. the bible) is true? As in...actually ask God for confirmation?

Because I haven't.

Ever.

[dianaiad]

Prayer. Ask God if He inspired it [the Bible].

I did. Still waiting for a response. :sleep:

OK.

I'm not going to tell you that you 'did it wrong,' or anything else. I'm just saying that this is the only way one CAN find out. Think about it a bit.

Now I could get snarky and use a radio metaphor here. You know the one....in order to broadcast and receive information, there must be both a working broadcast AND a working receiver....and the guy listening to the radio needs to understand what he's listening to?

I could do that, and I could let you know that this is, I suspect, the cause of many a misunderstanding in this area. However, I could be wrong about that, so let that go.

I'm simply making a logical argument here; if the only way to authenticate a writing attributable to a living author is to ASK the suspected author, (and in fact, it is....) then why wouldn't the only way to authenticate a book supposedly divinely inspired be to ask the Guy Who is supposed to have inspired it?

Yes, that does mean that the existence of deity is a 'given,' of sorts, but then we aren't talking here about whether one exists. We are talking about whether Deity is responsible, in any way, for the bible.

[Iam]

Prayer. Ask God if He inspired it [the Bible].

I did. Still waiting for a response. :sleep:

OK.

I'm not going to tell you that you 'did it wrong,' or anything else. I'm just saying that this is the only way one CAN find out. Think about it a bit.

Now I could get snarky and use a radio metaphor here. You know the one....in order to broadcast and receive information, there must be both a working broadcast AND a working receiver....and the guy listening to the radio needs to understand what he's listening to?

I could do that, and I could let you know that this is, I suspect, the cause of many a misunderstanding in this area. However, I could be wrong about that, so let that go.

I'm simply making a logical argument here; if the only way to authenticate a writing attributable to a living author is to ASK the suspected author, (and in fact, it is....) then why wouldn't the only way to authenticate a book supposedly divinely inspired be to ask the Guy Who is supposed to have inspired it?

Yes, that does mean that the existence of deity is a 'given,' of sorts, but then we aren't talking here about whether one exists. We are talking about whether Deity is responsible, in any way, for the bible.

And Occam says no. There we go, end of religious beliefs. Well done D

[1213]

And, those people who point otu the contradictions therefore 'don't understand the bible correctly??

Yes.

You know, like 'how did Judas die', and the geneology of Jesus, and what year did Jesus get born... and the contradictory accounts of the birth narrative?

But, you understand it correctly.

I can understand it without contradictions.

Most contradictions are because people fill the stories with their own interpretations, prejudices and ideas how things must have gone, even when they have no real support for their contradictory interpretations.