Be careful, the Bible was not originally written by 16th century monks; translated maybe, but 16th century monks were not the original authors.
The first couple of books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, etc.) were alleged to have been written at least 500 years after the death of Abraham, which would, if one believes that Abraham existed around 1700 BCE, place the original writing of the first books of the Old Testament around 1200 BCE. Nobody has really been able to pin the dates down and there is still debate about it, but the Old Testament was written down well before the 16th century.
The same could be said of the New Testament as well. The New Testament has been rumored to have been originally written around 50 ACE to 125 ACE, once again, well before the 16th century.
And also, all the books of the Bible were written by Semites, or the present day people of the Middle East (Jews and Arabs). So it would be more accurate to say the Bible was written by a bunch of old dead Middle Eastern guys...
But hey, if Christianity does not work for you, then it does not work for you. But remember, do not determine your religion based on what others say. If some believe that God sat at a desk, took a pen and some paper, and actually wrote the Bible, then so be it. That does not lessen my closeness to God in any way. I still believe in God and Christianity, irrelevant if people say being gay and bisexual is a sin, irrelevant if they would not let me into their churches; pretty much irrelevant of anything. The only thing that counts at the end of the day is my relationship with God and saving my own soul by the way I believe the Bible says I should.
But hey, that is my religious rant for the day ... lol ... but hey, whatever religion you choose (or do not choose), happy new year either way.
My view on it is...even *IF* the original biblical passages remained unaltered for thousands of years - - what would have stopped the Bible's multiple authors from integrating their own puritanical biases into scripture?
We can perhaps prove the authenticity of textual documents, but no one can *prove* that what they wrote was actually the true words of the Christian God.
You are absolutely right, and I cannot prove that the prejudices of the author's did NOT make it into the Scriptures.
Really, nobody can prove anything one way or the other; nobody alive today was alive when the Bible was originally written, so nobody can prove the author's biases made it into the book. We can examine the culture they lived in for clues, but that does not prove much. You would first have to know what God (if one believes in God) originally intended and then compare it to what the author wrote down, while at the same time PERSONALLY being aware of the author's own beliefs and prejudices. I am pretty confident that nobody alive today has lived so long that they can give the world a personal account about the Bible's authors; nobody alive can say they were good friends of the Bible's authors.
But at the end of the day, the Christian can no more prove the Bible was divinely inspired anymore than the skeptic can prove the opposite and say it was not. You would have to either prove or disprove the existence of God to succeed on this one, and neither the Christian nor the skeptic has gotten any closer to that.
For both the Christian and the skeptic, it is merely a matter of faith; you believe it is true, with no evidence to back you up, or you believe it is not true, with no evidence to back you up. So at the end of the day, you are right, divine authorship of the Bible is not something that can be proven, but it cannot be disproved either.
But please understand where I am coming from ... I am not trying to get one over on anybody by appealing to lack of proof of the negative; I am not saying that because nobody can prove the Bible was not divinely inspired that thus it was; it would be silly to make such an assertion. Logically, the burden of proof falls on the Christian, the proposer of the idea, not the challenger, the skeptic. We all know that a claim must be proven, not just asserted until disproved. But we cannot forget that according to the Argument from Ignorance, just because something cannot be proven does not mean that by default it is wrong. So what I am trying to say in all this babbling is that, well I already said it, you are right; but let us remember that it does not mean it did not happen the way the other way either.
For both the Christian and the skeptic, it is merely a matter of faith; you believe it is true, with no evidence to back you up, or you believe it is not true, with no evidence to back you up. So at the end of the day, you are right, divine authorship of the Bible is not something that can be proven, but it cannot be disproved either.
Very true on both counts. Which is why it burns me so much when people try to use literal interpretation of the Bible (i.e.: "God says homosexuality is wrong") as the prime justification for laws favoring heterosexuality (and legally limiting people's rights based on their homosexuality).
For example, someone will say, "Homosexuality is wrong because God says so, which is clearly stated in the Bible - - and the Word of God is how we should structure our laws"...yet, they are basing that assertion on literary assumptions that cannot be proven.
So basically, they are asking all of society (including non-Christians) to subscribe to an unprovable assumption that they are voluntarily willing to believe is concrete.
I understand where you are coming from on this one; but remember the Argument from Ignorance: just because something has not or cannot be proven does not mean it is wrong. It would be a logical fallacy on our part to say that just because a social conservative cannot prove a "literary assumption" that by default the assumption is false or wrong. It is also illogical for us to say something is wrong just because we personally believe it is wrong (Argument from Personal Belief).
But I do agree with you; using the Bible, whether through literal interpretation or metaphorical interpretation, as a prime justification for laws is not right. I admit that Christian morality does play a big part in our laws and I believe that it should continue to do so, but at the end of the day, all these things are secondary to the Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the Bible.
For me, and this may be so because I am a biased contender, quoting Bible verses is not going to cut it. The Bible also says that God is the owner of all things on Earth and that we are only the caretakers of His property, it does not mean we are going to abolish private ownership; the Bible says that we shall cancel debts every seven years, but not many social conservatives do so; the Bible also says that we should not charge interest on any money, but it does not seem that social conservatives are big on calling for America to abolish its entire economic system. As Chief Wigam said on an episode of The Simpsons, "The Bible says a lot of things." Now if you can make a good constitutional case, using morality and other sources as secondary support, then I will listen, but otherwise, just quoting the Bible and telling me that "God said so" just will not cut it (and I am sure it does not cut it with you either). I love God with all my heart, but there is a Constitution for a reason; I hope social conservatives learn this sometime soon.
And the problem there is: there's no constitutional proof to support their claim that "homosexuality is wrong/immoral."
Since the Constitution says nothing one way or the other about homosexuality, there is presently no constitutional basis either for or against recognizing same-sex marriages.
You are right, the Constitution does not say anything about homosexuality; but where does it say it has to say anything about homosexuality or marriage in order for their to exist a right for same-sex marriage? The Constitution says nothing about abortion, but there are those who argue that certain provisions of the Constitution provide for their to be a right to have an abortion under a "right to privacy". So depending on how you interpret certain clauses in the Constitution, you could interpret there to be a constitutional basis for the recognition of same-sex unions, even though the Constitution does not explicitly state anything about marriage or homosexuality. I am not a constitutional scholar or lawyer, so I cannot say one way or another.
Logistics and semantics! It's not *the* premier word of God, and was written by a whole bunch of dead men to make us believe it to be the word of God. I justt hink that if certian parts of the Bible now can;t believed to be ture and it's an "ever changing interpretation" than it doesn't really mean much to begin with, if you ask me.
The first couple of books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, etc.) were alleged to have been written at least 500 years after the death of Abraham, which would, if one believes that Abraham existed around 1700 BCE, place the original writing of the first books of the Old Testament around 1200 BCE. Nobody has really been able to pin the dates down and there is still debate about it, but the Old Testament was written down well before the 16th century.
The same could be said of the New Testament as well. The New Testament has been rumored to have been originally written around 50 ACE to 125 ACE, once again, well before the 16th century.
And also, all the books of the Bible were written by Semites, or the present day people of the Middle East (Jews and Arabs). So it would be more accurate to say the Bible was written by a bunch of old dead Middle Eastern guys...
But hey, if Christianity does not work for you, then it does not work for you. But remember, do not determine your religion based on what others say. If some believe that God sat at a desk, took a pen and some paper, and actually wrote the Bible, then so be it. That does not lessen my closeness to God in any way. I still believe in God and Christianity, irrelevant if people say being gay and bisexual is a sin, irrelevant if they would not let me into their churches; pretty much irrelevant of anything. The only thing that counts at the end of the day is my relationship with God and saving my own soul by the way I believe the Bible says I should.
But hey, that is my religious rant for the day ... lol ... but hey, whatever religion you choose (or do not choose), happy new year either way.
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We can perhaps prove the authenticity of textual documents, but no one can *prove* that what they wrote was actually the true words of the Christian God.
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Really, nobody can prove anything one way or the other; nobody alive today was alive when the Bible was originally written, so nobody can prove the author's biases made it into the book. We can examine the culture they lived in for clues, but that does not prove much. You would first have to know what God (if one believes in God) originally intended and then compare it to what the author wrote down, while at the same time PERSONALLY being aware of the author's own beliefs and prejudices. I am pretty confident that nobody alive today has lived so long that they can give the world a personal account about the Bible's authors; nobody alive can say they were good friends of the Bible's authors.
But at the end of the day, the Christian can no more prove the Bible was divinely inspired anymore than the skeptic can prove the opposite and say it was not. You would have to either prove or disprove the existence of God to succeed on this one, and neither the Christian nor the skeptic has gotten any closer to that.
For both the Christian and the skeptic, it is merely a matter of faith; you believe it is true, with no evidence to back you up, or you believe it is not true, with no evidence to back you up. So at the end of the day, you are right, divine authorship of the Bible is not something that can be proven, but it cannot be disproved either.
But please understand where I am coming from ... I am not trying to get one over on anybody by appealing to lack of proof of the negative; I am not saying that because nobody can prove the Bible was not divinely inspired that thus it was; it would be silly to make such an assertion. Logically, the burden of proof falls on the Christian, the proposer of the idea, not the challenger, the skeptic. We all know that a claim must be proven, not just asserted until disproved. But we cannot forget that according to the Argument from Ignorance, just because something cannot be proven does not mean that by default it is wrong. So what I am trying to say in all this babbling is that, well I already said it, you are right; but let us remember that it does not mean it did not happen the way the other way either.
Remember, it is a matter of faith.
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Very true on both counts. Which is why it burns me so much when people try to use literal interpretation of the Bible (i.e.: "God says homosexuality is wrong") as the prime justification for laws favoring heterosexuality (and legally limiting people's rights based on their homosexuality).
For example, someone will say, "Homosexuality is wrong because God says so, which is clearly stated in the Bible - - and the Word of God is how we should structure our laws"...yet, they are basing that assertion on literary assumptions that cannot be proven.
So basically, they are asking all of society (including non-Christians) to subscribe to an unprovable assumption that they are voluntarily willing to believe is concrete.
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But I do agree with you; using the Bible, whether through literal interpretation or metaphorical interpretation, as a prime justification for laws is not right. I admit that Christian morality does play a big part in our laws and I believe that it should continue to do so, but at the end of the day, all these things are secondary to the Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the Bible.
For me, and this may be so because I am a biased contender, quoting Bible verses is not going to cut it. The Bible also says that God is the owner of all things on Earth and that we are only the caretakers of His property, it does not mean we are going to abolish private ownership; the Bible says that we shall cancel debts every seven years, but not many social conservatives do so; the Bible also says that we should not charge interest on any money, but it does not seem that social conservatives are big on calling for America to abolish its entire economic system. As Chief Wigam said on an episode of The Simpsons, "The Bible says a lot of things." Now if you can make a good constitutional case, using morality and other sources as secondary support, then I will listen, but otherwise, just quoting the Bible and telling me that "God said so" just will not cut it (and I am sure it does not cut it with you either). I love God with all my heart, but there is a Constitution for a reason; I hope social conservatives learn this sometime soon.
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Since the Constitution says nothing one way or the other about homosexuality, there is presently no constitutional basis either for or against recognizing same-sex marriages.
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:)
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