Christians- How do you know Jesus and the Bible are true?

[viole]

Because Christians don't lie.

A friend of mine swears that he saw a troll in his garden. He is from Iceland, they believe that stuff.
I am sure he did not lie.

Does that entail he knew there was a troll in his garden?

Ciao

- viole

 

[RestlessSoul]

Are they from Christ or did the author of Matthew pull them all from the Old Testament?

Would that make any difference to the value of the teachings themselves?

 

[Windwalker]

The argument is that the errors and contradictions tell us that the authors were not reliable and not informed exclusively (if at all) by a transcendent prescience.

Well, yes. It does tend to tip over this artificial house of cards that is created by modern fundamentalist Christians of biblical inerrancy and infallibility. It sets it all up to topple that if you find one error, the entire thing collapses, and you shouldn't trust anything at all it says. That doctrine alone is probably responsible for creating more atheists than anything else is!

But what if you take away that idea that everything the authors have to say is either 100% right, or not reliable at all? What if you let go of such black and white thinking? What then changes? My answer to that question is, everything changes.

Think of it like going to a well known and respected psychologist, and then hearing them saying something wrong about the earth sciences, say how life evolved on this planet? "Oh, you don't understand that homosapiens are related more closely to chimps than they are monkeys?? Well, why should I believe you know anything about the way the human mind works then?"

Does that sound like a logical conclusion for them to make? Yet isn't this, if the Bible gets history wrong, then it knows nothing at all about the human condition? They made technical errors, therefore they know nothing at all? I can't trust anything they say?

Isn't that really kind of saying then, "I don't know how tell the difference, so therefore it's better to not listen to anything they have to say"?

I think we've had this discussion about myths before. Others praise myths as being valuable vehicles for transmitting cultural values, but to me, that's how you teach children - with fables with moral points about crying wolf or the cost of being lazy. I may have heard them in stories first, but learning and wisdom come from understanding experience.

Stories convery richer and more accessible meaning to the vast majority of people, than reading technical manuals does. Humans are storytellers. Adults use stories on a daily basis. It's happening in your own mind right now. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves, which is how we define who were are as a person. It's our own mythology about ourselves, that makes us "me". It's in our DNA, so to speak. The rub is that we don't see those as stories. We see those as reality.

Understanding this, then we can move out into our cultural stories, which is also part of the narritives of ourselves. We are not island universes. We all have "we" stories embedded in our personal "I" stories. Cultural myths are part of who we are, and take the form of everything from science to politics, to relationships, to history, to religion, to beliefs. It's all stories, all carrying and conveying symbolic meaning.

If we understand this, then when you look at the Bible, you see something more than just 'fables'. It's lessons and stories are embedded in our culture, and our culture is embedded in us. So, hardly something anyone can just lightly dismiss as trivial nonsense.

Also, a chief value these myths teach is that man's troubles are the result of his sinful nature and punishment from God, that he is born spiritually defective. That's why he was cast from the garden, subjected to a near-sterilizing flood event, saw large cities destroyed, and confounded with mutually unintelligible languages. He deserved it for sinning.

Well that is one very myopic, and hardly universal understanding of its stories. While I acknowledge its prevalence, it's hardly what I see in it beyond such a narrow, and dark perspective on humanity, or God.

Nobody from the past knew what it would be like to be human now.

I almost hesitate commenting on this, as frankly just read what you said? So Shakespeare's plays say nothing of the human condition? Plato knew nothing about being human? Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, Paul, etc, were nothing at all like us, and we today are nothing at all like them? They are a foreign to humans today as a praying mantis or a bumble bee in the garden is?

You'll need to try to explain this.

I find the life advice from the Bible to be either flawed or trivially self-evident. Consider the Ten Commandments. Obey the Sabbath is meaningless now,

It is??? Where do you think the 5 day work week comes from? The Sabbath day was that first social step in created a day off of labor! That the priest class called it from God, is not any different really then our secular society making laws that are above the individual that govern society's action. Think about that in that context next time you consider what the 'day of rest' was all about.

It's the great equalizer. Everyone takes a day off, otherwise, it is unhealthy for society, all work and no play... It's an advance from what came before it.

and don't kill or steal is something most of us don't need to be told and the rest don't hear.

But yet we have it on our law books, just as they did theirs. No difference at all.


If it's of any help, I think it was in this thread someone shared that video of Jordan Peterson speaking. And while I'm not a fan of his for a number of reasons, what he says in that as a modernist, non-literalist, rational and critical thinker like me, remarkably parallels my own thinking and things that I have been saying for some time now. I jotted down some quotes as he was talking. This is as if I were saying all this myself:

However, the people who wrote these stories thought more like dramatists think, more like Shakespeare thought. But that doesn't mean that there isn't truth in it. It just means that you have to be a little bit more sophisticated about your ideas of truth. And that's okay. There are truths to live by.
---
It isn't easy to read the Bible literally, because it is full of literal contradictions. And whatever it is, especially the really archaic stories in Genesis, it's not history the way we think of history. And so that's hard for people to see how that might still be true. If it's not literal, how can it be true?

This is a discussion that I tried to have with Sam Harris a lot, because the atheist types, the rationalist types, there's something they miss. And what they miss is that fiction isn't false. It's not a lie, right? It's not literal, but it's not a lie. And great fiction is true, but it never happened, so how can it be true?

The answer to that is something like well, there are patterns in things, deep patterns, deep recurring patterns. Human nature, the fact that we're human, that humanity itself is a recurring pattern. It has characteristic shape. And great fiction describes the shape of that pattern. And the greater the fiction becomes, the more it is religious in nature.

And that's not even a claim about the nature of truth. It's more a claim about the nature of experience. When we say something is profound, what we mean is that it's moving and that is has a brad influence. It's capable of having a broad influence on the way we think and see and act.​

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Well, yes. It does tend to tip over this artificial house of cards that is created by modern fundamentalist Christians of biblical inerrancy and infallibility. It sets it all up to topple that if you find one error, the entire thing collapses, and you shouldn't trust anything at all it says. That doctrine alone is probably responsible for creating more atheists than anything else is!

It's not what Christians say about the infallibility of the Bible that makes me reject it as a source for anything. A book said to be the thoughts of a transhuman prescience channeled through scribes is judged by a different standard than any other kind of book. Yes, one error falsifies that idea. And if the words are partly or wholly human, then they are judged by their content, in contrast to divine revelation. I explained that I don't find value there, so if it's not the word of a deity, then it's just the often conflicting and erroneous opinions of people who knew little about my world. Even if I thought some was divinely inspired, there's not test for differentiating those passages from the ones people decided to insert in there themselves.

But what if you take away that idea that everything the authors have to say is either 100% right, or not reliable at all?

I'm not interested in that book if it isn't of divine origin. Why would I be? Once I stopped believing in that god, I stopped reading the book, as it lost relevance without the divine imprimatur.

Stories convery richer and more accessible meaning to the vast majority of people, than reading technical manuals does.

I didn't suggest technical manuals. Facts can come from reading, but meaning comes from experience, not reading. I learned right and wrong empirically - trial and error, with my conscience as my guide. Nothing else was needed.

Well that is one very myopic, and hardly universal understanding of its stories. While I acknowledge its prevalence, it's hardly what I see in it beyond such a narrow, and dark perspective on humanity, or God.

I described several myths based in man deserving punishment for being a sinner. That is completely wrong-headed to me, and a destructive doctrine. This is not a book for me to go to for life lessons or moral guidance. I'd go to Aesop's fables first. They aren't based in a perverted understanding of man as a failure. They're constructive unlike this dismal book's stories, where a deity abuses a good man on a lark and bears tear up children for mocking a bald man while others are dashed on the rocks.

A pharaoh's heart is hardened and then his people punished with plagues. A demigod yells at a fig tree for doing what fig trees do and advises "Take therefore no thought for tomorrow: for tomorrow shall take thought of the things for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The book recommends castration, plucking out eyes and cutting off hands. It calls finding women attractive if married adultery.

Jesus tells them, "For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes [shall][be] they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." This is not a book that has anything to offer a humanist.

So Shakespeare's plays say nothing of the human condition? Plato knew nothing about being human? Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, Paul, etc, were nothing at all like us, and we today are nothing at all like them? They are a foreign to humans today as a praying mantis or a bumble bee in the garden is?

Straw man. That was not my claim. Also, my humanist worldview dovetails with much of the ideas of the secular sources there, but is completely at odds with people like Jesus and Paul.

Where do you think the 5 day work week comes from?

I have a very good idea where both the week and weekend come from. The most remarkable thing about the concept of the Sabbath to me is the idea that an omnipotent god took six days to create reality and then took a day of rest. Why depict one's superman deity this way? Why make that six-day work week with a one-day weekend a model for man, who is commanded to imitate it? Why put a timeline into a creation myth at all? Few or none of the others do so to my knowledge.

This says to me that there was a transformation in human culture from a time when able-bodied people worked every day, as in the Hebrew's nomadic days, when social groups were smaller and religion was administered by one of them wherever they were, to a time when man had settled, populations became larger, and a centralized temple and an established priesthood needing to be supported by the community arose. A new work ethic was necessary to accommodate the need for people to travel to and from a temple to bring tithes to the now full-time, professional priesthood and stay for services. Whereas once it was unacceptable to take a day off for anything less than illness, it now was necessary to make the opposite true, and so, it became a sin to not do that. Put down that plowshare and shepherd's crook one day a week and take the family to synagogue, since it can't come to you. Or be stoned to death.

And why a week? What an unnatural unit of time. The three natural, astronomical temporal cycles are the 24-hour day, the 29.5-day month, and the 365.25-day year. Daily trips to the temple are too frequent and thus don't make sense, but monthly and yearly visits were too far apart, so a new, artificial unit was coined for this purpose of tithing every seven days. That was likely the birth of the six-day work week.

 

[loverofhumanity]

I believe I have experience with God that backs up what the Bible says.

I think all religionists have similar experiences with their own Holy Book. So I don’t believe we can say the scriptures like the Bhagavad-Gita or Quran are not from God too.

 

[InChrist]

Describe this spiritual encounter. What makes it valid?

I can’t say what would make it valid for you, but it was valid for me. I didn’t have a clue spiritually and prior to being saved by Christ I was completely blind and confused concerning life, spiritual matters and reality.
I used to read the Bible, as well as other religious materials without much understanding. After realizing I needed a Savior and trusting Jesus, it was as if my eyes and mind were opened. Everything made sense. Life looked entirely different. The biblical scriptures were clear and made sense. The freedom and peace I experienced was indescribable. That was over thirty years ago and my faith, experience, and relationship with Jesus Christ has only grown.

 

[loverofhumanity]

I can’t say what would make it valid for you, but it was valid for me. I didn’t have a clue spiritually and prior to being saved by Christ I was completely blind and confused concerning life, spiritual matters and reality.
I used to read the Bible, as well as other religious materials without much understanding. After realizing I needed a Savior and trusting Jesus, it was as if my eyes and mind were opened. Everything made sense. Life looked entirely different. The biblical scriptures were clear and made sense. The freedom and peace I experienced was indescribable. That was over thirty years ago and my faith, experience, and relationship with Jesus Christ has only grown.

That’s great! Now what about people of other faiths who have a similar experience?

 

[CG Didymus]

You seem sure but unsure about Baha'i at the same time.

I'm not sure if Baha'u'llah is a manifestation of God. But I'm sure Baha'is force the Scriptures and prophecies of other religions to fit their beliefs. And, to me, if they have to force their interpretations to make them work, then it probably isn't true. I would believe them more if they just stood on their own and said that all the other religions are man-made myths and are wrong. But they have to try and make all the other religions fit their doctrine of "progressive" revelation.

 

[CG Didymus]

This is the age to get rid of once and for all the attitude that any race, religion or nationality is superior to another.

Can a Baha'i say that they believe their religion is the fulfillment of all the others and not sound as if they have an attitude of superiority? Here again is Abdul Baha' talking about Buddhism and Judaism...

The real teaching of Buddha is the same as the teaching of Jesus Christ. The teachings of all the Prophets are the same in character. Now men have changed the teaching. If you look at the present practice of the Buddhist religion, you will see that there is little of the Reality left. Many worship idols although their teaching forbids it. … The teaching of Buddha was like a young and beautiful child, and now it has become as an old and decrepit man. Like the aged man it cannot see, it cannot hear, it cannot remember anything. Why go so far back? Consider the laws of the Old Testament: the Jews do not follow Moses as their example nor keep his commands. So it is with many other religions.” (Abdu’l-Baha, Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 63)​

 

[CG Didymus]

The fruit of Baha'u'llah is to throw doubt on the Bible and it's obvious meaning. It says the Bible is true but then tells us about the places it is not true and the places it does not mean what it says.
Are you talking specifically about Baha'i?

His writings and teachings are meant to replace the Bible and all other Scriptures from other religions. They call them true, but then they say that they are outdated... that there is a need for a new message. I see the other Scriptures as being all different and still useful for those that believe and follow them.

 

[CG Didymus]

Aha, I didn't know you tried Christianity and Bahai...I was wondering why you were so nice and respectful to me...I tried both too, and was heavily disappointed at exactly this "one Religion has to be the one and only true Religion"

I first learned about the Baha'i Faith. I was told several Bible and NT quotes that they used to support their belief that Baha'u'llah is the return of Christ and is the Jewish Messiah. Then a friend became a Christian, and I went with him to Bible studies. I really believe the Baha'is had cherry-picked and twisted the interpretations to fit their beliefs. But then, I can see how Christians did the same thing with the Jewish Scriptures... especially the verses about a "virgin" will give birth to a son. They only use verse fourteen and ignore all the other verses that give us more information about this boy. And none of it fits Jesus.

So, is what I've learned... Don't trust what people tell you. They will always bend the Bible or other Scriptures to fit their beliefs.

 

[stvdv]

I first learned about the Baha'i Faith. I was told several Bible and NT quotes that they used to support their belief that Baha'u'llah is the return of Christ and is the Jewish Messiah

Can't blame Bahais for doing that, if Baha'u'llah Himself made these claims

But did Baha'u'llah really claim this, or was He just speaking on Advaitha level, in which case He is not even wrong saying these things

Of course if Bahais, twist these Advaitha verses into Duality verses and then start claiming these Duality verses to be the Truth, it all gets very messy.

But the Sadhaka who can read between lines won't get confused by these things of course

 

[stvdv]

I first learned about the Baha'i Faith. I was told several Bible and NT quotes that they used to support their belief that Baha'u'llah is the return of Christ and is the Jewish Messiah

Then a friend became a Christian, and I went with him to Bible studies. I really believe the Baha'is had cherry-picked and twisted the interpretations to fit their beliefs.

Yes, this easily occurs when people are over enthusiastic, but lacking wisdom, and stil need stuff to fit all nice

But then, I can see how Christians did the same thing with the Jewish Scriptures... especially the verses about a "virgin" will give birth to a son. They only use verse fourteen and ignore all the other verses that give us more information about this boy. And none of it fits Jesus.

Yes, after all we all belong to the human race, who all share this nasty or better called habit due to ignorance

 

[stvdv]

So, is what I've learned... Don't trust what people tell you. They will always bend the Bible or other Scriptures to fit their beliefs.

I've learned that to.

Since Corona I added to the "not to trust" list also Scientists, News reporters, Social Media, politicians, presidents, kings and what not (even my own ego made it into this list)

 

[1213]

...
Does that apply to the Bible as well?

I think it applies to all books.

Why do you think that affirms the correctness of Christianity and the existence of its god? Persecution doesn't generally drive people from their beliefs, especially when you teach them to expect it and even to see it as a badge of righteousness. People are commonly willingly to die for a cause they support, including a country or another life - even a stranger if one is heroic.

Would you develop a religion out of your own head, if you would know you will be killed? Would you develop a religion that doesn't really benefit you in any material way? Why assume someone else would do so?

What do you say to somebody who has found errors and contradictions? What explanation do you offer for why they see something you don't? Are they delusional?....

I would say, please show the "contradiction" and explain why you think so. After that, I could check is it true or not and explain why it is not, if it is not.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

So, is what I've learned... Don't trust what people tell you. They will always bend the Bible or other Scriptures to fit their beliefs.

That is a good lesson. We must learn to trust the Messengers.

Now the quandary, we have to embrace the Messengers sent by God and not false prophets.

It then becomes obvious the evidence that God gives needs to be pursued.

Then the quandary, what is from God and what is from our own selves?

Regards Tony

 

[Brian2]

When I was 10, I told my mother "if Jesus is on earth, I will go there and meet Him". It seems I was destined to meet Sai Baba.

You (and I) know what is so special about Jesus, that you follow what He Teaches.

Sai Baba is as special to me, as Jesus is to you (and me). The main difference is that I now have been able to experience it first hand

I'm sure it will be different when you meat the real thing............ as we all must.............. even Sai Baba.
How about his false prophecies, aren't they a dead give away?

 

[Brian2]

I'm not sure if Baha'u'llah is a manifestation of God. But I'm sure Baha'is force the Scriptures and prophecies of other religions to fit their beliefs. And, to me, if they have to force their interpretations to make them work, then it probably isn't true. I would believe them more if they just stood on their own and said that all the other religions are man-made myths and are wrong. But they have to try and make all the other religions fit their doctrine of "progressive" revelation.

It isn't just Baha'i, it is Baha'u'llah who claimed whom he is from the scriptures of other religions, and it just does not work.
Do you think that there are Messengers of God, as in the Baha'i versions of what that means?

 

[Brian2]

How is the way they choose their religious beliefs different from choosing from a hat? For most, the choice is an accident of birth, but still an unexamined and insufficiently evidenced choice. Faith is untethered to the laws that govern the experience of nature (empiricism), and so there are tens of thousands of variations of Christianity alone. Go ahead and pick one, or one from some other religion. But there is only one periodic table of the elements. What's the difference? Religions can multiply without constraint because they are faith-based.

I don't just throw names in a hat and choose one. I consider what the religions have going for them, it is not a blind choice.
There is only one Jesus.

 

[wellwisher]

Christians today have never met Jesus physically yet believe in Him. Why?

If you say you believe in Christ because of the Bible then how do you know the Bible is true?

How do you know Christ and the Bible are true?

What makes you so sure?

I never met Albert Einstein or Sir Isaac Newton, either, but I believe they both once existed. Faith is the belief in things not seen. If you have to see Einstein or Newton, in person, to believe, that would mean you have no trust and no inference or deductions skills. You can only react by direct sensory stimulation like an animal or caveman.

Science has never seen the Big Bang, but they have faith it happened. All we can see are the leftover signals, which are not the actual BB process, but only its exhaust fumes. But through faith in theory and indirect data, we learn how to infer and deduce the source. Theoretical science uses faith for inner vision.

We continue to learn the Bible stories, because those who came before us, and their contributions to the world, show their faith and belief had an impact on their motivations and drive. The most powerful and prosperous country of all time; USA, was built on Christian values.

Of all the religions of the world, why was Christianity at the right place, at the right time, to inherit a clean slate country, of vast natural resources, allowing it a leadership role in the future of the world? The Pilgrims; religious term, can first to America, when it was considered too raw and wild to be of concern. They had faith in a good outcome. Christianity also had a similar leadership role as the Holy Roman Empire, which used to control Europe and left it's mark.

The concept of religious freedom in the USA, which is under attack by the cavemen, was interesting in that it did not require loyalty to only the Christian religion. It made provision for all religions. This is also unique in that Christianity, since it has a sense of destiny, that does not need monopoly or dominance to compensate for doubt, since it is not a fly by night but here to stay. It can be nice and share its blessings.

Things of value linger longest in time, and maintain their impact. These lingering classics often lead to jealousy, by those who would rather create and follow fads; fast buck Freddy. The things that linger, will often have had the most people trying to undermine them, with doubts and scams, since the fly by night lack inference and deduction skills needed to see longest term. Their own creed has no direct proof in terms of a lingering positive impact on the world.