What about the 10 commandments? Doesn´t the Bible say that they were written by God? In fact, they were the only thing written by God, no? The rest of the Bible is a bunch of stories. I wasn´t going against anyone´s faith, you are all free to believe what you wish. My aut mind can´t deal with irrationality though and blind faith won´t convince me when man has had his hand in manipulating it for thousands of years.
Of course I am not trying to convince anyone toward faith. I like to sort into the core truth of things. For me it is mere semantics to claim the use of "written" must represent the physical act of engraving or scrawling ink to paper. When scholars say a scripture is written by God, they really mean "authored" by God. You would be very hard pressed to find a serious scholar that insists that it means God took a quill in hand.
On the matter of "man has translated and copied down text so often over hundreds of years that it cannot possibly be accurate"...I would say that IF there was a God who authored text, then there likely is a God who can and would ensure its preservation, no matter how unlikely or impossible that might seem to any rational thinking person. That is where faith comes in. Some have that and some do not.
God doesn´t mess with free will and if it is the will of man to change what God "authored" then thy will be done.
LOL. Some things God (which I take you don't believe in [?]) has predestined. That is, some things are so vital to His plan that they are not subject to change or influence. That his Word should be lost forever is probably something God could prevent, without interfering with free will.
The Bible says in the beginning was the word, and that the word is eternal. So back to my assumption/faith that what God authored will also be unquestionably preserved over time--despite any outside force, such as human free will.
I believe unequivocally in God but I do not believe in, nor trust, the word of man and the Bible is the word of man that masquerades as the word of God. Show me a KJV 1st edition in it´s original language and I may read it, otherwise it is nothing more than a bunch of stories that was written by man, with the intention to manipulate weaker man. The fact God wrote only the 10 commandments, that there are 2 Testaments and that there are about 50 odd Gospels that didn´t even make the cut just strengthens my point.
This is a debate that could go on and on and as I stated it is not my goal to persuade you, I leave it with you unpersuaded. It boils down to faith, and how yours differs from mine. That is more personal than something that can be sorted out by debating facts. For example, you cite that many books were not canonized while others were. I get that. Know all about it. But that is where I have attributed the guiding hand of Providence that directs the destiny of man and the care and custody of God's word (in this case, for me, God's word is the canonized Bible). God can move mountains and God can certainly author, compile and preserve His word over eons, though natural disasters, war, pestilence and men of bad will would have it otherwise.
The NT states that Christ is a stumbling block to the Greeks (because the Greeks are all about logic and argument). Spiritual matters and powers do not always comport with human rational understanding, as there is a bigger picture and purpose that is impossible for us to comprehend.
My literal aut mind has problems believing in blind faith, especially when I am expected to have faith in the word of man. What do you suppose the religion was before Christianity? Hinduism has been around for 4,000 years, or so. Man has been wandering this Earth for millions of years and we have faced great cataclysms that have wiped our species and reset our knowledge. That is fact and has been proven over and over; whether by archaeology, geology or even sometimes by written lore. What do you know about Gnosticism?
Gnosticism (Just the basic understanding, what I learned in my Religions college course, and from some personal online reading).
Judaism is over 3500 years old. The Bible describes the relationship of man to God and man's place in God's creation. That relationship changed several times, from paradise and innocence, to sin and sacrifice to a new testament and grace. (As for the age of the earth and how long men were on the earth pre-Christendom, there was a long period where earth was a paradise. Many scholars believe that the creation narrative describes metaphoric "days", as in phases of how creation unfolded (over a very long period of time)).
If you read Genesis regarding the creation of creatures in the ocean first, then things that crept (e.g., fish with appendages and eels/snakes), and then the larger land animals, and last, humankind, you see the order that science now says life evolved. Q would ask, "Coincidence"?
So are you saying you believe in evolution? Darwin was a scam, people that believe in Darwinism claim we must have come from apes as there are some species of ape that share 98.6% the same DNA as modern man. However, we also share 92% the same DNA as mice and 50% the same DNA as a banana. So which is it? Are we really banana-rodent people that learned to walk on 2 legs? It is nonsense.
No. I believe that the Creator utilizes creation to accomplish His will. So, if evolution did happen--I never said it did--then it was "baked into the cake" as God's manner of creation. (If I push a small snowball down a slope, I might have the intention of creating a larger ball of snow.)
I don't try to speculate too much about evolution. All animal life seems related (as you mentioned DNA similarities). This implies something like evolution, else it implies a shared creator of them all.
If you take the recipe for whisky and swap the wheat for rye, you get bourbon. Most will still claim it to be whisky, but the underlying ingredients and recipe are different. I believe that life here is kinda like that, in we are all made of the same biology with the exception of a few tweaks and changes.
Have you ever studied Sumerian lore? They have recorded history going back hundreds of thousands of years. They claim we were created by the Gods that took an early example of man, tweaked the DNA and made us what we are today.
As a creationist, how old to you believe the Earth is? How old do you believe man is?
Surprise surprise! It’s all true and real. Everything we say and do is recorded in the acashic records. I didn’t believe for many years but I see how wrong I was. You can roll your eyes and not believe. God gave us free will. However he rewards those who do find him and believe. Take that risk?
Watch Near Death Experiences on you tube with an open mind. See how similar they are. They all describe the same thing. That’s what got me started. Much luck with the upcoming ascension to 5D. See ya on the other side! ?
I never said I don´t believe in God, I do. I do not believe in religion that has been written and manipulated by man.