Be honest: when you read the bible what makes you think it is of divine origin? [Spirituality & Religion]

@Moosepantspatty

I think there are like 20 commandments in total lol
But of course you're right, the bible is not meant to be the direct word of god. But people do seem to think that it is the inspired word of god.

@Pikachu inspired being the key word to me. Men are fallible, all men are. Even if these men wrote with their purest intention, it will never be the word of god. Any man can be inspired by God, fo good or evil. To claim that every action we disagree with is a corruption of the devil, or perpetrated by "not a real Christian" or whatever religion have you, is ignorant, offensive, and frankly, heretical. No man may judge the character of another, that is gods place.

@Pikachu Orthodox Jews follow the 613 Precepts, of which the Ten Commandments are part. Although, the Rabbi Hillel said, when asked to sum up his entire religion in one sentence, said "What is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the whole of the law. The rest is commentary."

@LeopoldBloom Sounds like a good man.

@OggggO Yes. He represents the spiritual side of Judaism, while his rival rabbi Shammai represents the legalistic side. The other part of the story is that the person who asked Hillel this question, had first gone to Shammai, who threw him out on his ear.

And of course, the connection to Jesus' dictum "Treat others as you wish to be treated" is fairly obvious. Hillel lived some decades earlier and Jesus was undoubtedly familiar with him.

God says "All scripture is God breathed" Tim 2:3@Moosepantspatty

@Carazaa I really care very little about mistranslated words in a rewritten book authored by old men who weren't present for the events it tells.

Your choice then to not understand the meaning of Gods words. They take a lot of praying, and God says that he blinds some people to the truth.@Moosepantspatty

@Carazaa your hubris is showing. The word is plain to see and easily understood. Your faith allows you to abide by what you will, since your living piously.

I need no book, no faith, no savior, nor threat of damnation to force me too live with grace or hear gods words.

@Moosepantspatty even the idea of there being only 10 commandments is a simplification for the masses. When christianity wad ibvented as an offshoit of Judaism tbey took the existing commandments with them. Fundamentalust Jysaism has hundreds of commandments which are difficult to remnember, let alone follow strictly in day to day life, so they trimmed it back to make the new religion more appealing to the masses.
I guess if you believe in such things you could still claim those 10 are the word of god....

@voodoo1970 I understand your point, but its irrelevant to the point. Those commandments are the only things ever mentioned to be explicitly written by God. No matter how many there are, God didnt come down and write [i]any[/i] of these holy books.

@Moosepantspatty totally agree. Putting aside the commandments, my problem with people taking the bible literally is that regardless of inspiration or claims of "speaking through" the various books are still penned by human veings, writing of events ling before their lifetime, and reflecting tbe values of sociey at the time and place in which rhey were living, and using language of that rime and pmace - and words have a habit of cganging meaning as time passes.
Really, all the bible storues could be distilled down to "just be nice to everyone else and try to get along" and it would gave tge same meaning regardless of your beliefs

Jesus is mentioned in the old testament in many places. Foreinstance in Isaiha 9 " Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,, of the greatness of his government there will be no end._"@voodoo1970

@Carazaa The New Testament writers wrote and rewrote many passages to make Jesus fit those prophesies. You don't realize it but those NT writers knew those OT prophesies very well and created a lot of pure fiction to make Jesus fit the description

Absolutely not true! The Bible is a prophetic book and all has come true that is why we know he will come back in this generation. It has all come true what was written thousands of years ago.

@Carazaa That you believe that is sad

That is not a belief that is fact. And it is so beautiful, without Jesus dying for you and for me we have no hope. Now we do.

@Carazaa When you put your hope and trust in haints and hobgoblins you will be very disappointed

Yes you are right, don't put your trust in hobgoblins or saints, they can not hear you. Only God can❤️

@Carazaa You're confusing trust with faith. Trust is based on demonstrated authority. Faith is by definition belief without proof. I can't put my trust in your God, because I've never seen any evidence of it, and I don't have faith in it either, because the whole story sounds ludicrous.

Gods love does not make any sense I understand. Because why would Jesus die for haters who don't believe him. But he did. That is confusing but true. You have to repent and have faith in what he did and then you will have Gods help and also total understanding that God really loves us. Trust comes from having faith and seeing what God can do in your life. The more you trust him the more your faith grows.

You are taking a chance, so be careful. I care about you and I wish you would reconsider reading your Bible.@Moosepantspatty

@Carazaa Or, Jesus didn't die for anyone but himself, the way we all do.

Also, demanding that someone "have faith" is ridiculous. No one can force themselves to believe something that they consider absurd. Faith is not subject to free will. If you disagree, please demonstrate by sincerely believing in something you know to be false, like the Church of Scientology, for the next five minutes.

This is why the requirement that people believe in Jesus (or any other religion) is ludicrous. People have no more control over what they believe than they do over their eye color, and any God that would judge people based on that is a tyrannical monster who deserves to be resisted and destroyed if at all possible.

God says "You didn't choose me, I chose you" I can't take credit for my faith "By grace you have been saved, through faith, and THAT is a gift from God so no one can boast"

Jesus died for the whole world because he loves the world.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whosoever believes on Him shall not die but have eternal life" John 3:16

@Carazaa So you're a hard Calvinist who believes that God decided who to save and who to condemn before he created the universe, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. What I find interesting is the doctrine of "persistence of the saints," where an atheist like me could be saved (in fact, there's nothing I could do to prevent myself from being saved), while a religious person like you could be condemned to hell despite all your faith and efforts, because God chose me and not you.

I find that philosophy to be profoundly nihilistic.