Christians: When you read the bible what convinces you that it is of divine origin?

@SW-User
Couldn't it be a book in which people recorded the divine recelations revealed to them?

@Pikachu certainly humans could record anything, from hallucinations, to outright lies to manipulate other humans

But by definition, no deity would ever need anything as ambiguous as a physical book, or other Earthly representation, nor any human intermediaries ... and any deity that would still choose to be ambiguous by relying on such flimsy communications with just a subset of humanity or all of humanity is not a benevolent deity

@SW-User

You're kind of pretending to know what a deity would or would not do.
I'm don't think that the Bible or any other holy book is proof of god...i just don't think the fact that the scripture is recorded in a book is a particularly strong counterargument.
I'd say the contents would be a stronger counter argument lol

@SW-User Yeah I agree. You think an all powerful deity would record its philosophies into a fucking star or a super ancient black hole or in an unknown 4th dimension or something lol and not just a….book

@QueenOfZaun

But if a deity was interested in humans learning about it and obeying it i think you'll agree that a book is rather more accessible than a black hole😉

@Pikachu Or perhaps getting to the black hole makes us worthy enough of the knowledge. You can justify either explanation with baseless personal conjecture.

@QueenOfZaun

lol sorry Shay, i don't think this comes down to personal conjecture.
It is not up for debate that if you want humans to know about you and follow you either for your own glory or their own good then you are not going to achieve that by having the information stored on a star rather than a book.

I think if we're working with the conceit that gods are real then they always, always want people to at the very least worship them. That ain't gonna happen if folks have to pass an event horizon and get back out in order to find out.
Your worshiper base is going to be pretty small and that appears counter the apparent motivation of gods as we understand it through various religions.

@Pikachu I think if a benevolent deity was interested in humans learning about it (and obeying it), it would hold some annual (so all generations are covered) global meeting and tell us all at the same time so there is no doubt or ambiguity (because literally every human on Earth just experienced the same event without question) ... rather than whisper into the ear of a Stone Age goat herder and then say "now go tell everyone else what I told you, my special favorite mortal!"

And in addition, it could have just designed us to know all this and not even have the capacity to doubt or disbelief it from the start

Honestly, if a deity is perfect, and is capable of creating things that are perfect, all these other avenues to knowledge of the deity are design flaws that are not congruent with this reputation for perfection ... and if it intentionally makes us imperfect, then it is malevolent and just f-cking with us for its own psychotic amusement

@SW-User

I also think that there are better ways an omnipotent, benevolent deity could do things.
But maybe they're not omnipotent. Maybe they gotta work with what they got.
Or maybe disseminating the word in this way IS the best way to do it for reasons that mere mortals cannot comprehend.
The speculation is endless and impossible to resolve.

But the point is that the fact that this revelation is recorded in the form of writing is not itself evidence against it being divinely inspired.

@Pikachu okay, if it's not omnipotent / omniscient, then it is not a deity, it's just some extraterrestrial species more powerful than humans, and all the same benevolent/malevolent/sane/psychotic concerns still apply

@SW-User

Is Zeus a deity?

@Pikachu I think the bigger question is has any alleged deity be proven to exist, and if so, based on what evidence? I think we need to prove the construct exists before we can start assigning individual candidates to the construct.

@SW-User

That is indeed a bigger question but a different one than the one which we have been discussing.
But i'm happy to end that particular discussion here if you like.

@Pikachu well do all humans at least agree that if there were deities, they would be omnipotent and omniscient? Or does the factionalism for particular alleged deities also spill over into supernatural taxonomy?

@Pikachu Look sweetie, if you want to argue about purely hypothetical situations and trying to apply imagined justifications to those situations then go for it.

My point is that literally any explanation can be justifiable. We’re talking about an imaginary god whose own internal logic is whatever you want it to be for the sake of your argument.

The fact that you’re even trying to justify your explanation over someone else’s; is literally my point lol I don’t see the point in a debate where nobody can be right or wrong. There is no objectively right or wrong argument here.

Mine is baseless conjecture because it lacks “foundation?” What foundation am I lacking exactly?

Because the gods want to be obeyed?

Well if God wants to be obeyed; then why would the Christian God put all of his philosophy into the Bible when large quantities of books can be easily destroyed; by even small groups of people? Your argument is based on the presupposition that just because the gods want to be “obeyed” means that their information HAS to be easily accessible.

You see this internal logic making sense, I just see it gaps in logic.

Like I said books are easy to destroy, if I was a goddess. I sure as hell would not put my philosophies into folds of paper lmao

And this goes back to my point of any explanation being justifiable. We can literally do this all day long and absolutely no objective truth is going to come out of it. Surely you are intellectual enough and also not stubborn enough to admit that?

And yes I am being slightly antagonistic towards you because the fact that you’re trying to debate me over something as ridiculous as this, annoys me. Greatly.

@SW-User


Well no. That's why i asked you about Zeus. Or Osiris or any number of gods who are not meant to be all powerful or all knowing. Gods who regularly behave like men or get fooled or killed.

Omnipotence is not a prerequisite of godhood.

@QueenOfZaun


Exactly.
Which is why BreadAndCircuses' argument fails and why your support of it fails as well.
Sure, maybe a god would have been better off recording its message in a black hole...but then again maybe not and therefore the fact that it was recorded in a book is not on its own contradiction against it being of divine origin.


The foundation of scripture. The only thing we can "know" about gods is what we glean from religions and those religions seem to make clear the priorities of their deities, priorities which would make a book rather more practical than a blackhole as a medium for dissemination.


And yet many religions survive because they've been written down. Maybe it's not as fragile a medium as you think.
I wonder how long a religion would survive if it relied on its adherents being able to access it within a star...


Well it takes two to tango, Shay.
But i do this for fun. If you're not having fun then i think we should stop because again, i have no antagonism toward you.

You may have the last word ( if you wish) and we'll end it there.🙂

Why doesn't God just tell us all directly, every day (for every generation on the planet at a given time), rather than rely on any form of intermediary or ambiguous environmental esoterica at all? I mean if they have the ability to inform some intermediaries, or create some ambiguous "miracles" observable to a handful of mortals, then they have the ability for direct communication to all of us at once, in any era, in any region, without any room for a given group to say "Oh, it meant this!" or "No no no, it meant that!" or "Screw you guys, I'm creating my own social club based on the idea that it really meant this other thing!"

Aside from the fragility of the book method you mentioned, this is what makes everything other than direct communication to all humans existing right now hard to digest, and the basis of any sort of religion or other mystical endeavor faulty.

@QueenOfZaun

@SW-User Yes! Exactly!

@Pikachu ok, taxonomy issues aside, I think anything with any degree of supernatural ability would be able to convince us of these abilities without relying on non-supernatural middlemen

@QueenOfZaun but the usual response to anything I am saying right now is always "But, The Bible sez ..." 🤦‍♀️

@SW-User

Could be.
Or it could be that in their supernatural wisdom this is the best way, despite what we may think.
Or it could be the best they are capable of because again, a deity need not be all powerful.

The speculation on why a god might choose that medium is endless and without resolution.