Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: boulder!tramp!hassell@ncar.ucar.edu (Christopher Hassell) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Is the Bible God's Word? (greek logic attack coming) Message-ID: Date: 16 Oct 89 04:23:06 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: (Let's see, I'm positive .. I've got ... ) Lines: 219 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article BAE101@psuvm.psu.edu (Lemming) writes: # In article , # bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) says: # > # >apparent logical contradictions. He has, however, written it in such a # >way that those who read it with the understanding that it is the Word # >of God and, therefore, cannot contain any contradictions whatsoever, # >will find a harmony throughout the Scriptures that is so remarkably # >pure and perfect that it can be nothing other than the work of someone # >with infinitely more wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and # >organizational capabilities than any man (except Jesus) has ever had. The above is an interesting theory. I have seen many things in the Bible and now even some statistical "miracles" that come only from the Bible's text. I could repost if anyone wants to see their evidence (they are words that appear in the old testament by taking every nth character... rather unlikely in the volume of words and names that appear there). # I find it amazing that so many of the people who do read the Bible with # the assumption that it is the word of God can come up with vastly different # interpretations. If all of these people had the God-given ability to I wish everyone who so easily considers this a valid sentence would note first the adjectives that exist in it... and thus note it provides an interpretation about interpretations. <"so many","vastly different"> Secondly, I wish everyone would note that the ability of people to generate arcane interpretations has never in history been restrained in any manner whatsoever. The ability of people to see things in texts that have been translated from another time and another language exists and is not disputed, what is considered is that rigorous analysis and contextual consideration make the interpretation-varieties much much smaller... (unless you believe it's all a Christian and/or Power Structure plot of Domination, but that is a fun theory to prove on its own :-) Marveling at how much and in what manner this happens would tell me more about the whole problems in Quickly and Easily acquiring an interpretation of any text than it would give me Quick and Easy conclusions about the Bible itself. # understand the Bible, all religions would be the same. We can draw two # possible conclusions from this: This includes an unwarranted assumption that the complete structure of a "religion" is percievable in the Bible.. letter for letter. It is not... much with our Thanks to God Himself. :-D yay # 1. Only one religion is right. (My, how bigoted!) Let's do a textual substitution here... for the sake of expanding our minds with logic. The substituted text becomes (this must be either a step of logic or a leap into falsehood. I think the semantics are still the same as they were in the above text) 1. one is . (My, how !) Yes... I have stripped the slightly indignant bias from the words.. in order to leave the real assertion provided by the author. Given the above ... let us assume further things about truth: A. Truth is the precise and eternally repeatible qualities of the Universe. B. It can be further considered to mean (if the Universe continues to show itself as it has always up to now) that, out of our comprehensive reach, these qualities define the entire Universe and all its actions. C. Without Truth in an aspect of the Universe, we are powerless to comprehend or act upon it (it being totally random... in theory) Okidokey. Given the above as groundwork, we have a problem with the worries over "discriminating against other belief systems". We can ditch the assumption "B", (that there is a whole Truth at all) and we are left with a "Partial Truth" (the rest is random inherently) or "No Truth At All". Partial Truth is probably what the poster had in mind: that the world's science and stuff can work under a common Universal Truth, but that Spiritual Things cannot be constrained to repeatibility. My only argument is that our world's Spritual Concerns change in scope violently at times and that we ourselves as a species are electing more in general to work to find a common set of held beliefs... because we have them inherently. This blows a hole in a Spiritual World's Lack Of Universal Truth, because it don't fit empirical evidence. That leaves the only exit of "Partial Truth" to mean that some Spiritual Aspects of people are somehow related to a Truth, and some are not. The possible attack on this is that we have a hard time perceiving our own needs and even what is Good and Bad. We DO sense things like "That is Bad" and "That is Good", emotionally, but our problems start when we try, by ourselves, to put everything into the natural global sense of Good and Bad, because we have some wants that predictably have Bad reprecussions... and yet we want them sometimes... but other times we don't... because of their Bad effects. From that, we can judge that a Full Truth could exist, and we wouldn't even know it... which makes it a better choice that arguing about Partial Truth. If the two might be very complex to Distinguish, why not work with the one that has less divisions. Lastly... No Truth is simply difficult to make into sense because we use the concept of Truth in walking with gravity on our bodies, in picking things up, in putting them down, in driving a car... and none of that is to speak of building a Space Shuttle or making a program work :->. So... (I wanted to do all this at one time or another, so I posted now) if Complete Truth is considerably likely and it explains the above problems... let it be granted as an assumption that Complete Truth exists. Beyond that... one can assume (as we know viscerally) that we want to use it and from that we want to know it, The Truth, by whatever means. When we finally get to this... it is interesting to look at the above statement again: That it is Not Preferable to discriminate against other belief-sets in one's own belief. If you can't see it yet... just consider that if One Truth exists completely and utterly, why would one attempt to consider many belief-sets if they contridict and also if others contridict known Truth as it is? Therefore again... we are left with the fact that it is preferable to in fact consider only one Truth to exist... and that it is whole. So... one could retake the statement (paring it down a lot) and read it: That it is Not Preferable to discriminate against other belief-sets in one's own belief... if they are not contridictory, and moreso, of known Truth. This is something I can agree with in more likely terms.... though its original emphasis is left totally denied: That Espousing a Single Truth is Arrogant and Bigoted We are left with this statement as driven by something other than consideration of Truth, and it seems likely that it comes more from worries about violent conflict than of any sort of belief-system. That, me friends.. are another story... Onward.. and ending... # 2. These people do NOT have a God-given understanding of the Bible. ^^^^^^^^^ Here is a problem already... the original alternative was that There is Single Religion (assumed to be Bible-ordained), and this alternative considers only that people must recieve God-given understanding, and not any more likely and freer contexts like contemplative thinking and historical research etc... # If you read something and expect to find no faults, you will of # course overlook any faults that there might be. How well someone can self-delude becomes a means of slamming and bashing other people's intelligence, instead of a measure of someone's accurate perception. The assumptions above are of the COMPLETE context of the word "faults" (notibly that of whether or not "faults" are partial truths without their final pieces) and that under this definition of "faults", the supposed faults `missed' are inherently damning and render a piece of literature incapable of delivering meaning at the "faulty" areas... as well as, under assumption, the whole. # I, personally, find 2 to be more probable. But go ahead and be self-deluded. # You seem to be happy. Just don't try to force your ideas on me. BEEP.....BEEP.....BEEP.....BEEP.....BEEP.....BEEP.....BEEP.....BEEP.....BEEP.... The obscurity detector just noticed Zillions of assumptions. :-> (darn near broke the thing!) Beyond those, I've always wondered why the more adamant and quick-jabbing naysayers to Christianity (as a Religion ) can never travel far enough to claim that we have intruded upon their ideological shell, giving Them the disturbing and new ideas in a "forceful" manner.... (which can be taken in the context of the message above this last passage from the author). Doctrine Laden Stuff about to Approach.. put on some blinder-protection. But... then again... us Single Truthers sure are a bit happy and fanatical about how well this Single Truth stuff works... and we just apparently don't like being the cautious and/or apathetically Cool people and Citizens Of The World we are quite supposedly to be.... I guess. We even have these stranger-still Dictates about loving even your Enemies.. and those not made clean yet in God's sight. Call that Compassion stuff a bad habit if you will. # ------- # ======================================================================== # | Alex Elliott (The Lemming) | A circle is a line which meets | # | BAE101@PSUVM.BITNET | its other end without ending. | # ======================================================================== nananananananananaahhh. A circle is a line.. without an end at all. (or beginning for that matter) Humans look a lot more incomplete and yet more full of potential than a circle can ever represent or have associated with it. At least, that's to me, a Human, and at least One Other Human who was something else beyond Human. ### C>H> ### { uunet!rutgers!sunybcs , ncar , nbires } !boulder!tramp!hassell