mrfe : Yeah! 


thenumberone : Maybe you're being a sheep, it goes both ways.

Another question: Does the law enslave you? Or does it set you free?

"People should decide for them selves what the scriptures mean."
The Bible is like an instruction book. if we all read an instruction book that tells us how to build a shelf,
Whose fault is it if we all build different shelves? Are instructions meant to say different things to different people?

No he wouldn't eliminate other thought sources, God wants us to become better and smarter. He
wants us to do some things our selves, He isn't going to spoon feed us. If you do everything for a child all
it's life, you are actually hurting the child because you keeping it a weakling. God wants to make us strong, not
baby us. We must learn to discern the truth from a lie.

Some things were stopped at the New Testament.

Sword legion :
Being a sheep requires me to just go along with what im told. I dont. Therefor how can I be.
If the bible is an instruction book there wouldnt be hundreds of different accepted outcomes.
you're not figuring out for yourself by following others. You are suggesting that relying on god means you arent going to see his true word. Why? Dont you have faith in him?

thenumberone :

Being a sheep has to do with trust, not mental blockage. Asking questions is not only permissible, but good. There are hundreds of different outcomes from the "instruction manual" because it is "written in shorthand". No one wants to go research context and original text and check if references are being made and yada yada yada all day long. The first person to give them a decent answer is usually who they'll stick with. Too much work otherwise. On top of that, everyone naturally "wants to build the shelves their own way". This includes those that are reading the manual legitimately wanting a guide.

Txgangsta : Thank you very much!

thenumberone : I bet that you're more of a sheep than you think. (No offense)

Take for example: do you believe in evolution?

If so then what is your strongest evidence for it?

Could you be a sheep do Darwin? Do you question what he taught?
Or do you just except the theory as "best explanation without really researching yourself".

I believe some things simply because my parents have taught me it all of my life.
If I find evidence that they're wrong then I'll challenge the belief.

Questioning is good.

Sword legion :
Being a sheep, i defined as accepting without evidence (the bible is faith, and constantly talks of the shepard and his flock).
I have read the origin of species. I have seen that it fits with what has been observed and studied in nature. And iv read the bible, which almost everyone accepts is faith driven. Allowing one person to tell you you're interpretation is wrong, and accepting that without argument, without evidence, is to surrender your "faith". People should trust in themself a little more. You stated god wants us to challenge ourself, find our own feet if you will, you arent achieving that if you allow someone else to give you your view of the bible.

I personally think, as a non-Christian, that my theory on this matter is rather interesting. What I see is that a man, or even woman, wrote the bible a thousand or so years ago, but was influenced by forces above, that maybe spoke to him in a dream or something similar; this may have encouraged him to write the bible in the word of god, creating something unique, but also an interesting topic at times. Any of you think this to be plausible? I do, I mean he is a divine being, so he should be able to do this, correct? I may not believe in God, but I do enjoy sharing theories such as this. I have read small bits and pieces of the bible, and thought it interesting. But I still stick to my opinion on the matter, and hope none of you try to change my views on the matter as I'm sick of the Christians in my town trying to force me to believe, I like the kind of Christians/Catholics that accept others, and do not care what others beliefs are; and I surely hope that is how you all are.

Snowfarron : that idea isn't too far fetched at all. That is why the Bible talks about being "God breathed" and the "inspired word of God" the way you think about that that when you write something, you use a pen as the instrument to write it, but you are the author. In the same way, God is the author of the Bible, while Man is the instruments.

I also would say that share the gospel truth should not be counted as forcing someone into Christianity. It's not like they are putting a gun on your head or anything like that. But when it comes to talking about Christianity, if that person truly believes what he believes, he should be telling people in Christianity, because he believes it to be truth.

play4fun : that's a pretty nice way to put that, but I mean like they try to hard, true they may not be putting a gun to my head but, they need to learn to try and not shove what they believe on others. I'm fine living in harmony with others whom believe in a higher being. if that is what they believe more power to them. it is their own personal beliefs, and their lifestyle. who am I to try and make everybody stop believing in what they want? I would be a terrible person to do so, so refuse to do it. I believe it is pacifists that hate conflict correct? if so then I am a pacifist. cheers to ya and bless ya.

Yea, I don't see why not!

It depends on what you mean by "true" and "inspired." If by true you mean inerrant, then no. There are several discrepancies in the Bible that would not hold up to that sort of truth (e.g. how many women were at the tomb when Jesus was resurrected). The Bible also would not hold up to scientific standards of truth/objectivity. If by true you mean the revelation of God penned by holy authors, then yes. If by inspired you mean a word-for-word dictation by God, no. If you mean that the writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit to describe, in an entirely finite way, the revelation of God's Word, Jesus Christ, then yes. 

Of course I do there has to be some kind of reason it was made.Who would spend a long time on making the book if it was not so important.If they had no reason of doing so that would be ridiculous of course.So yes I believe that everything in the bible is true.

Here is another point: Whose scripture are we talking about? If we are talking about the texts that the writers of the New Testament used (the Septuagint, among other pseudepigraphical writings), are those texts inspired as well. For example, the author of the book of Jude clearly uses texts from Enoch and the Testament of Moses. Paul is clearly influenced by the Wisdom of Solomon and the Maccabees. John borrows ideas from Sirach. The Revelation contains allusions from Baruch and Psalms of Solomon. Are those texts "true" and "inspired." It appears that what you are really asking is, is the "Bible" that we use today (the Canon), the only "true" and "inspired" word of God? If your answer is yes, then you have some explaining to do. Take, for example, the story Jesus tells about the woman who has seven husbands and they all die. That story is taken probably directly from the story of Tobit in the Apocrypha. Is that story "true" and "inspired?" Any thoughts?

whitesox51 :  Firstly, to answer the OP's question:  Yes I do believe the Bible is the true, inspired Word of God.  

-My reply to some of your statements in your first post:
"There are several discrepancies in the Bible that would not hold up to that sort of truth (e.g. how many women were at the tomb when Jesus was resurrected)."
It is important to distinguish between a Bible inaccuracy, or what you would call a contradiction, and what a Gospel writer observed and chose to include in the records of his experience of an event.  Just for clarity's sake - A contradiction is to affirm and deny the same thing, at the same time, in the same respect.  In the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 28:1), Mark (Mark 16:1) and Luke (Luke 24:1), it mentions Mary Magdalene and other women that came to the tomb.  The book of John (John 20:1) only mentions Mary Magdalene at the tomb, but if you read carefully in the next verse, it says: "Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” 
This supports the other Gospels when they say that other women went to the tomb with Mary.  Perhaps they followed close behind.  John just did not identify who those women were.

"The Bible also would not hold up to scientific standards of truth/objectivity."
A bold statement.  Remember that the Bible was written in a pre-scientific era.  This is a quote from Joseph Dillow, The Waters Above, Chicago: Moody Press, 1981, p. 2:  "It is obvious that the Bible is not a scientific textbook in the sense of giving detailed technical descriptions and mathematical formulations of natural phenomena. But this is not an adequate reason for questioning the objective accuracy of the numerous portions of scripture which do deal with natural phenomena and historical events. The Bible is not a mathematic text either, but we expect that Daniel understands sixty-nine weeks by the phrase, "seven weeks and sixty-two weeks" (Dan 9:25). The Bible is not, strictly speaking, a historical textbook either, but we expect that when it alludes to things that can be historically verified, it should be accurate. Likewise, the Bible is not technically a textbook of modern science, but when it refers to things that can be measured or checked by modern science, it should be accurate."
It is usually due to a lack of understanding of what the Bible says or what science has proven that makes out the Bible to be supposedly "unscientific".  Example - The Bible speaks in Isaiah 11:22 of "the four corners of the earth".  This does not mean that the earth is a quadrangle.  It is a figure of speech which refers to the four points of the horizon.  The same prophet actually shows in another place, Isaiah 40:22, that the earth is in fact round:  "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth".  1 Samuel 2:8 says:  "For the pillars of the earth are the Lords".  Again this is a figurative statement and it does not mean that the earth is supported by pillars.  Job 26:7 says:  "He hangs the earth on nothing".  You cannot get a better scientific description of the earth than this.

-My reply to your second post:
Sorry for this, but I'll be jumping around a bit, touching on only two of the examples given in your post, since there are too many things to write about and to consider > The Apocrypha - again for clarity - refers to a group of writings which are considered part of Old Testament scripture by the Roman Catholic church, but it is not accepted as inspired by the Protestant church and Judaism.  Just shortly, a few reasons for this:  There is no claim within the books that they are inspired by God.  This is in contrast to the canonical scriptures which claims to record the revelation of God.  The New Testament almost cites directly every book of the Old Testament as scripture, but it never cites the Apocrypha as being God's Word.  Many Catholic scholars, through the Protestant Reformation, rejected the Apocrypha as scripture.  The Apocrypha contains errors - Example:  When king Jereboam staged his revolt in 931 B.C., Tobit was supposedly alive and he was still alive when the Assyrians captured the Northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C. This means that he lived over 200 years.  The book of Tobit says he lived only 158 years ??? (Tobit 1:3-5).  Good example of a contradiction I would say.  The list of reasons go on.

The book of Jude apparently quote the Book of Enoch (Apocrypha).  This statement arises from a citation in Jude 1:14:  "Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men saying, 'Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints'"  Jude records a prophecy made by Enoch and this prophecy is not recorded in the Old Testament.  The Book of Enoch, which contains this prophecy, was apparently written in the period between the Old and New Testament and some assume that Jude obtained this prophecy from the Book of Enoch when this is actually not the case.  Jude quotes Enoch directly and not from the Book of Enoch.  The source of Jude's quotation was the person Enoch.  Where the Book of Enoch got the info from is not 100% clear.  It is possible that the source of the quotation found in the Book of Enoch was Jude, since there was apparently no evidence of the exact contents of the Book of Enoch until several centuries after Jude was written.  However it maybe, we cannot go on an assumption that Jude considered the Book of Enoch as authoritative.

As a Christian, how do we know that the correct books are in the Bible?  The Bible today consists of 66 books and the fact that these books are Holy scripture, is confirmed by the testimony of Jesus Christ where He, with regards to the Old Testament, confirmed  the accepted 3-fold division of our canonical books in Luke 24:44:  "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."  
For the New Testament, Jesus gave us this promise in John 14:26:  "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."
Although we do not have His guarantee after the fact, we have His promise that a New Testament would be given.  The Bible also says that God calls all the stars by their name - there is a gazillion stars out there, if God is able to do that, He is certainly able to preserve His Word for the benefit of all.

(Sources:  Blue letter bible;  Always be ready ministries;  The Bible - NKJV)

Yes, just yes.

SoL@R : Thanks for the reply! Perhaps I should clarify. I said that the Bible would not hold up to modern, scientific standards of objectivity. As you correctly noted, the Bible is not  a scientific text book and therefore has no bearing (or necessarily a comment) on the findings of science. The problem with Fundamentalists is that they hold to such a rigid understanding of inerrancy that they believe that, at the end of the day, all "scientific" claims made by the Bible (e.g. the Earth was created in six days) will stand objectively true. They are extreme literalists, taking biblical material (and even whole genres of material, i.e. etiology) overly literal in places where a more delicate, artistic hand is needed (cf. St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, book II).

Now, if one is an extreme literalist, they probably feel the need to defend contradictions in the biblical text in order to maintain their doctrine of inerrancy. I believe it was the great Fundamentalist scholar B.B. Warfield who once wrote that no theory of inspiration (or orthodoxy haha) hangs on the doctrine of inerrancy. I briefly mentioned the synoptic problem. In truth, modern day fundamentalists cannot wrap their heads around the notion that the biblical writers, and ancient writers in general, did not relay information the way modern folks do (i.e. the Gospel of Matthew is not a news report). For the Gospel writers to contradict one another in minor places (and I would stress the word minor) proves no big deal when one examines the range of biographies from the ancient world (see Deissmann, Light From the Ancient Near East). What Im trying to say is that the biblical texts can be inspired and not be inerrant. At the end of the day, as Karl Barth once wrote, Jesus is the Word of God, the ultimate and final revelation of God; the biblical writers are simply relaying what they have seen through the lenses of the risen Lord. It is a fallacy to understand the Bible as divine; Jesus is the only divine logos.

The question regarding canon is a tough one. The writers of the New Testament, and the early church fathers, used texts that most of us would not consider inspired today. That is just the plain fact. Augustine quotes Sirach throughout his writings more times then I can count, and he cites it as scripture. If one were to examine Paul's theory of atonement, it is laden in Second Temple Jewish thought, some of which did not make our canon (II Macc). The person whom you quoted is somewhat correct, though he fails to seriously undertake all the allusions (and the citations of Jude) of the various second temple writings found in the NT. The NT writers used the LXX, not the protestant canon. This is simply fact and not up for dispute. If you want to say that the canon is limit of scripture that the church should adhere to today, I would ask you "whose canon," since the Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and others all have diverging books in their canon.

Lolikon : Don't you think you are taking that a little too general? In fact, what you described there probably takes up about 5%-10% of the Bible. How can you make an opinion about the Bible when you did not read it, or even know what is in the Bible itself?

play4fun : Well apparently you know me better than I know myself. You know what I did or not. So go ahead, tell me something I don't know about me.

Lolikon : All I'm saying is that when I hear general statements like this, statements that are sooo generalize that it borders being false, I don't buy the idea that you know the Bible and giving an opinion about it when you don't have at least a good idea about it is going at it blindly. If we talk in terms of games, you making an opinion about a game without actually playing or even read reviews or try to understand the full idea or even the basic concept about the game, I would not buy the idea that you know the game. I would even assume that you are just basing the opinion on hearsay or on the box art, or just snippets of clips that don't tell you the whole story.

I don't mind people disagreeing about stuff, it doesn't change reality and no one is forcing you to believe it, but giving an opinion when you don't know the content itself is going at it blindly. If I am wrong about how much you know about the Bible, I'll apologize and we'll move on.

play4fun : Listen, I was born and raised a Christian, I went Church everyday, prayed every night, read the bible, blah blah. And then I actually read the Bible. I'm saying how I interpreted it. And if it's what I read in the Bible that made me not care for my religion anymore, then it'll be my fault for burning in the pits of hell.
Also, for me not caring my religion doesn't mean I don't like Christians. I do. I have many Christian/Catholic/Monotheistic friends. it's just how I live. 

   I'm still Christian.. I just don't care. It's hard to explain, but I'd much rather cease to exist than forget everything I did in my life, and do nothing but praise God. But you know..