"Can we ever really know?" (What's true, Who's right; when it comes to the Bible, why everyone differs on fundamental questions of [Christian] faith)
We can't.
Here, try this: The Bible was NOT divinely inspired. Prove me wrong.... you can't. Just like I can't really prove you wrong if you believe that it is. It's not possible. You can't prove something right by quoting it, that's flawed logic. You can't say "Well God told me so" because you have no way of proving to me that God did say anything to you, you can't record it or transmit it to me. There is no independently verified evidence you can give me. You can't say the Bible is right because the Bible said so. You can't say the Bible was divinely inspired because the Bible said so, it's the most absurd logic that has ever existed in the history of man kind.
That's like me saying that I'm right because I say so -- That would never fly!
I'm not putting down the Bible, before anyone chooses to be all upset over what I just said, I'm trying to explain to you the answer to the question: How everyone simply can't all get on the same page so easily. If we can't prove things as independently true in the Bible, the only way to believe that anything is true about the Bible? Is subjectively.
Subjective, for the people who may not understand this word (and some people don't and are afraid to ask), means how you see things. (For instance: "I believe the Earth is flat, just because I think so or because God told me") -- Objective, means a factual, independently-verified way of how everyone sees things. ("The Earth is round, I know that it's true, as verified by going up into space and seeing that it's really true.")
You can't even independently verify things in the Bible based on history. There are some historical facts independently verified by a multitude of other sources for which we can make the educated guess that these historical events happened; but far from everything has this privileged. At the end of the day though, even history is nothing but an educated guess! We assume what happened based on the fact that we have a written record of 80 people throughout a few hundred years that said it happened.
Today, it's easier to document history with pictures and videos and sound. We have it good! But history is harder to verify in the past because these resources were not available. History, and the Bible, were both translated through a barrage of languages, by mortal human flawed hands, by flawed minds that made both accidental and purposeful changes to the Bible, that have resulted in multiple variations, multiple interpretations, and hard-to-verify written-down things that can only really be verified...
... by faith. And faith? Is subjective. There is no way to say "God said this to me, here listen for yourself." People can only say "God said this to me, you just have to take my word on it" and that... is subjective knowledge.
No one can go back in time. No one can know everything. When it comes to religion, we're stuck with subjective viewpoints. We're mortal, and unique, and flawed, and limited by our very mortality. We don't have the capacity to know all. Even if God wanted to tell us all? I don't think he could, there's just no way. Our brains are incapable of even processing that kind of information.
These are just some of the reasons that I think it is absolutely ridiculous to fight about religion and religious difference, inter-Christian or inter-faith. We're literally fighting about things we can never really know.
Think about it: People who formed cults and suicide pacts with others, said that God was speaking to them. Was God speaking to them? No? Prove it! You can't. You can only sit there and say "God would never tell a person those kinds of things... I just know it / the Bible says so / because God told me / etc etc" but you cannot produce one shred of independent evidence that can be fully and completely, objectively verified, that God did not tell those people to commit suicide.
People... can't know for sure. And if we'd just stop assuming that we could?
Maybe we'd all just get along for once.
That's my rant, useful or not.
We can't.
Here, try this: The Bible was NOT divinely inspired. Prove me wrong.... you can't. Just like I can't really prove you wrong if you believe that it is. It's not possible. You can't prove something right by quoting it, that's flawed logic. You can't say "Well God told me so" because you have no way of proving to me that God did say anything to you, you can't record it or transmit it to me. There is no independently verified evidence you can give me. You can't say the Bible is right because the Bible said so. You can't say the Bible was divinely inspired because the Bible said so, it's the most absurd logic that has ever existed in the history of man kind.
That's like me saying that I'm right because I say so -- That would never fly!
I'm not putting down the Bible, before anyone chooses to be all upset over what I just said, I'm trying to explain to you the answer to the question: How everyone simply can't all get on the same page so easily. If we can't prove things as independently true in the Bible, the only way to believe that anything is true about the Bible? Is subjectively.
Subjective, for the people who may not understand this word (and some people don't and are afraid to ask), means how you see things. (For instance: "I believe the Earth is flat, just because I think so or because God told me") -- Objective, means a factual, independently-verified way of how everyone sees things. ("The Earth is round, I know that it's true, as verified by going up into space and seeing that it's really true.")
You can't even independently verify things in the Bible based on history. There are some historical facts independently verified by a multitude of other sources for which we can make the educated guess that these historical events happened; but far from everything has this privileged. At the end of the day though, even history is nothing but an educated guess! We assume what happened based on the fact that we have a written record of 80 people throughout a few hundred years that said it happened.
Today, it's easier to document history with pictures and videos and sound. We have it good! But history is harder to verify in the past because these resources were not available. History, and the Bible, were both translated through a barrage of languages, by mortal human flawed hands, by flawed minds that made both accidental and purposeful changes to the Bible, that have resulted in multiple variations, multiple interpretations, and hard-to-verify written-down things that can only really be verified...
... by faith. And faith? Is subjective. There is no way to say "God said this to me, here listen for yourself." People can only say "God said this to me, you just have to take my word on it" and that... is subjective knowledge.
No one can go back in time. No one can know everything. When it comes to religion, we're stuck with subjective viewpoints. We're mortal, and unique, and flawed, and limited by our very mortality. We don't have the capacity to know all. Even if God wanted to tell us all? I don't think he could, there's just no way. Our brains are incapable of even processing that kind of information.
These are just some of the reasons that I think it is absolutely ridiculous to fight about religion and religious difference, inter-Christian or inter-faith. We're literally fighting about things we can never really know.
Think about it: People who formed cults and suicide pacts with others, said that God was speaking to them. Was God speaking to them? No? Prove it! You can't. You can only sit there and say "God would never tell a person those kinds of things... I just know it / the Bible says so / because God told me / etc etc" but you cannot produce one shred of independent evidence that can be fully and completely, objectively verified, that God did not tell those people to commit suicide.
People... can't know for sure. And if we'd just stop assuming that we could?
Maybe we'd all just get along for once.
That's my rant, useful or not.
