Who Speaks?

[GrowingSmaller]

"Voice" in anthropology belongs to people who can speak for a group, and not everybody can...

Could I speak for Christians, I dont think so..

 

[Colter]

A hypothetical question.

Imagine you encounter a vision. A figure shrouded in holy light appears before you, a brilliant halo on their head. They speak in a divine voice, and tell you that they are the holy spirit of the lord God. They then absolve you of your sins, and demand that you put your neighbors to death for the sin of adultery. You are given the feeling that you know this to be God speaking to you.

But who really just spoke to you? How do you know? How could you tell? How do you know it is not Satan, or some hypothetical other supernatural being?

I would refuse putting my neighbor to death for adultery then write off the whole "vision" as some sort of hallucination. Then I would call a friend and talk out the weirdness that occurred.

The funny thing is, with the billions of people of faith in the world this sort of obvious human willfulness rarely ever occurs.

 

[anonymous person]

And if they told you that the scripture is a lie, placed there by Satan to fool mankind? Again, how would you know who to trust?

The scripture. It is trustworthy.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The scripture. It is trustworthy.

Do you have an authority for that (apart from the circular one of it being God's word because it says it's God's word)? IOW who told you the scripture was trustworthy, and who told them?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

"Travel in the land and see what was the end of those who rejected truth" - Koran.

MAybe theres something similar in the bible.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

DP

 

[SkyWriting]

25Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 26Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

That says when you are in the wrong, settle out of court.
Not seeing that?
US law is built on scripture.

 

[SkyWriting]

What if this being claiming to be god comes forward and says, "The scripture is fraudulent, it was placed there by Satan and does not reflect my will." Why would you reject this claim? You have a supernatural being before you claiming explicitly that the bible is false; what possible evidence supporting the bible could trump that?

Since scripture is without error, then the being is not God.

 

[anonymous person]

Do you have an authority for that (apart from the circular one of it being God's word because it says it's God's word)? IOW who told you the scripture was trustworthy, and who told them?

I don't need to take someone's word that it is. I have personally tried it and found it trustworthy.

 

[Tree of Life]

A hypothetical question.

Imagine you encounter a vision. A figure shrouded in holy light appears before you, a brilliant halo on their head. They speak in a divine voice, and tell you that they are the holy spirit of the lord God. They then absolve you of your sins, and demand that you put your neighbors to death for the sin of adultery. You are given the feeling that you know this to be God speaking to you.

But who really just spoke to you? How do you know? How could you tell? How do you know it is not Satan, or some hypothetical other supernatural being?

Setting aside the notion that we can never be 100% certain about anything...

God is consistent with himself. So thankfully we have thousands of years of precedence for how he has acted with humanity and what he has said. So God's word that has already been revealed (once for all, even) serves as a good guide for this kind of thing. According to Scripture we have a few parameters:

1. It is possible that God would give us a vision. He has done this in the past and there is, strictly speaking, nothing in Scripture to suggest that God will never do this again. So we can be tentatively open to this possibility. It does seem unlikely, however, Scripturally speaking. Such revelations are very rare.
2. Feelings are not a reliable indicator of truth and so the idea that I would feel as if this was God isn't very compelling.
3. The command that I personally execute my neighbors for the sin of adultery violates Scripture on many levels. I can therefore be certain that this is not God speaking but perhaps a demon or some personal, psychotic episode of my own.

 

[Colter]

Since scripture is without error, then the being is not God.

Even the many errors in the Bible are without error because it's a sacred book and the church derives it's authority form it.

 

[SkyWriting]

Even the many errors in the Bible are without error because it's a sacred book and the church derives it's authority form it.

No, it's without error because it is a story book about man's relationship
with God, who is Spirit. The spiritual message could get through clear
eevn if the srbices srfufeed form dxsleiya.

 

[Colter]

No, it's without error because it is a story book about man's relationship
with God, who is Spirit. The spiritual message could get through clear
eevn if the srbices srfufeed form dxsleiya.

To me it's the imperfectly preserved story of biased holy men speculating about the meaning of Gods doings via managing agents and their accompanying revelations over the ages. I agree there is a spiritual message but unfortunately that message is contaminated by the associated speculation and conjecture, leaving people with a dysfunctional concept of said deity.

 

[SkyWriting]

To me it's the imperfectly preserved story of biased holy men speculating about the meaning of Gods doings via managing agents and their accompanying revelations over the ages. I agree there is a spiritual message but unfortunately that message is contaminated by the associated speculation and conjecture, leaving people with a dysfunctional concept of said deity.

It's not contaminated in the least. It's a history book about how man sees and deals with
a God who is only accessible in Spirit. It was not written in Heaven. It was written by men
with their imperfect connection to the Spirit. Some that we read about had an occasional
strong insight about God, others did not. Just like the world we live in today.
You couldn't ask for a more perfect explanation of who & how God is.

 

[Tree of Life]

To me it's the imperfectly preserved story of biased holy men speculating about the meaning of Gods doings via managing agents and their accompanying revelations over the ages. I agree there is a spiritual message but unfortunately that message is contaminated by the associated speculation and conjecture, leaving people with a dysfunctional concept of said deity.

How do you know that the message is contaminated? Where do you find the most functional concept of diety? What is your functional "Bible" that you compare the Bible to in order to make such a judgement?

 

[Colter]

It's not contaminated in the least. It's a history book about how man sees and deals with
a God who is only accessible in Spirit. It was not written in Heaven. It was written by men
with their imperfect connection to the Spirit. Some that we read about had an occasional
strong insight about God, others did not. Just like the world we live in today.
You couldn't ask for a more perfect explanation of who & how God is.

I disagree, the Hebrews redacted their secular history in Babylon converting it into a miraculous fiction. Their primitive concepts of God conflict with the God revealed in the life of Christ.

 

[Tree of Life]

I disagree, the Hebrews redacted their secular history in Babylon converting it into a miraculous fiction. Their primitive concepts of God conflict with the God revealed in the life of Christ.

From a scholarly standpoint this has to be answered with a resounding: MAYBE. The view you're presenting here is a fairly typical critical view of the OT and has certain arguments in support of it. But it is also fraught with tons of problems and is certainly not the only scholarly accepted view on the provenance and authorship of the OT.

But it seems from this post that you're at least willing to take the gospel accounts in the NT as authoritative?

 

[Colter]

How do you know that the message is contaminated? Where do you find the most functional concept of diety? What is your functional "Bible" that you compare the Bible to in order to make such a judgement?

For me it's the Urantia Book.

 

[Tree of Life]

For me it's the Urantia Book.

Well there you go. I suppose the Urantia Book for you has something of a sacred value and is, therefore, beyond serious question. If anything, including Scripture itself, contradicts the Urantia Book then Scripture must be wrong. But what if you're wrong? What if Scripture is actually the authority and the Urantia Book should be judged by Scripture?

 

[Colter]

From a scholarly standpoint this has to be answered with a resounding: MAYBE. The view you're presenting here is a fairly typical critical view of the OT and has certain arguments in support of it. But it is also fraught with tons of problems and is certainly not the only scholarly accepted view on the provenance and authorship of the OT.

But it seems from this post that you're at least willing to take the gospel accounts in the NT as authoritative?

I wouldn't use the term "authority" , attempts at establishing institutional authority is the foundation for a great deal of mischief. God is the ultimate authority, the priest class has often asserted itself between man and God.