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Man wasn't inspired but was commanded by God to write the Bible. If you really want me to I'll find the verses. So therefore the Bible is the word of God and if you're saying the Bible isn't the infallible word of God than you are directly disagreeing with the very book you believe in and you can throw out any part you don't see fit, which you seem just fine with doing.

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Gods message in the Bible doesn't appear to be that difficult to understand at all, actually I'd say most ignorant people do fine comprehending its central message. You can't put limitations on an omnipotent being you just can't.

But I'm sure were about to go in circles anyway.

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Tchan909 said:

I think you misunderstood. The closest thing God has to a mouth is an enlightened human being. The human being is flawed and cannot possibly relate the full awesomeness of God to his fellow human beings. So he does his best, and writes a book.

You also must understood that the people who wrote the Bible did not think like we do. Their minds literally ran on a different track. They barely had a concept of "fiction," let alone all the other literary traditions we rely on today to communicate meaning. The only way they knew to tell stories and explain their world was through symbolism and allegory.

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Tchan909 said:

Isaac, being that you're on the Shroomery, I'm willing to take a shot in the dark here and assume that you've eaten mushrooms.

That having been said, have you ever had a mushroom trip where you realized that if there is a God, that God is the consciousness of the universe itself? That we, as human beings, are individual only inasmuch as we inherently recognize the artificial boundary between ourselves and the rest of the universe? Our function in this universe is, as a mass collective, to think for God. We are the brain. Our conversations, our dialogue, our language and art and experiences are the deceptive harmony of a single massive brain trying to come to some kind of understanding. We are nothing but neurons firing away at some incomprehensible existential quandary. Bill Hicks put it this way: we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.

Think of it this way: God is an infant. Remember when you were an infant and you were monumentally confused, struggling to come to some concrete understanding of what you and the strange sensations bombarding you were?

I kind of went off on a tangent here, but my point is don't have such a limited view of "God."

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Firewolf127 said:

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Gods message in the Bible doesn't appear to be that difficult to understand at all, actually I'd say most ignorant people do fine comprehending its central message. You can't put limitations on an omnipotent being you just can't.

But I'm sure were about to go in circles anyway.

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You're putting limitations on an omnipotent being by saying an omnipotent being can't be limited...

It's the classic "can god make a rock so massive that he can't lift it?" argument.

If he can make said stone, than he lacks the power to overcome his own creation= not omnipotent

If he can't make it, once again, not all powerful.

God by our human definition is capable of anything, and yet most religious teachings involve a deity incarnate, living in flesh, bound by man's perceptions.

choice.

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Tchan909 said:

That is true. My only point is that God is an abstract being and any attempt to determine its definitive nature by individual human beings will inherently be flawed, including the Bible, however much truth is also in there.

Self-awareness is a tricky thing, ya know?

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Tchan909 said:

I would like to clarify, at this point, that I do not believe in God.

I just really hope God exists.

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Firewolf127said:

In what capacity are humans 'simple beings?'

you're contending that common sense tells you what god would want or think. how can simple beings get that? do you believe you know the mind of god?

I'd like to see my deviation from scripture on this, but i'll wait until the morning.

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Tchan909 said:
I'm not an atheist, I'm what you might call a positive agnostic. I believe it's quite possible that we are more than we appear to be, immortal spirits cased in a temporary mortal flesh, and I believe it's quite possible that there is a universal consciousness that has made meaningful contact with individuals.

However, I also believe it's imminently possible that when I die I will rot in the ground, that the universe is just a huge barren pile of stuff in which one (or more) tiny little planet happened to be able to support this funny little thing called life.

I don't like to jump to conclusions.

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Silversoul said:

Isaac said:

Tchan909 said:

When God speaks through a man, it's just that: God speaking through the use of the limited capacities of an individual human being. Whether or not the Bible was inspired by God, it is subject to the assumptions of the time and people that produced it.

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So in order to communicate with man he had to limit himself?

Can't you see the Bible claims God is omnipotent therefore has no limitations? Where's the evidence of your claim that if god wants to speak with man he has to have the intelligence of man?

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God constricting himself in order to form the physical universe(Tzimtzum) is a central Kabbalistic teaching. It is the only way a finite universe could emerge from an infinite God. Consider how minuscule a man is compared to the universe, and then from there how much more minuscule he is compared to God. How could such a small mind comprehend infinity? God had to condense his message to such a feeble mind. It would be like writing a quantum mechanics book for children. There is another Kabbalistic teaching which says that the Torah is not scripture. The scriptures are merely the garment which clothes the Torah. The map is not the territory. The words that describe the map are even further removed from the territory.

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Kinematics said:

If the Christian god is real...

I'd rather go to hell.

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