Did God really write a book?

[1213]

…

Is there a single verse in that book that proves it had to be written by a God, because it could only have come from a God? If so, the evidence will force me to at least accept that a God does exist…

Bible has for example this:

But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
Mat. 5:44-45

I think people are too evil on their own to write/say something like that. I don’t think people would have written Bible, and kept it, if it would not really be true, because there would not be any good motive to do so.

…I'll give you an example of the kind of thing that the entire world would probably find convincing: A verse in the bible that includes anything factual about the natural world, that could not be known by a human at that time, and is too detailed to be a guess….

I don’t think anything would convince the entire world, but I think one example of knowledge beyond human abilities is the idea of one single original continent at the beginning.

God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Sea. God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:10
Are you a disciple of Jesus?

 

[Truthseeker]

I'm only looking for a single verse, one sentence that could only have come from God. I have yet to see that in any of the ancient religious texts.

You can't find it one sentence, in my opinion. You can only find it on a larger scale. How about more more modern religious texts?

If you're looking for definitive proof in a prophecy or a sentence or paragraph it's not there.

 

[Truthseeker]

I don’t think anything would convince the entire world, but I think one example of knowledge beyond human abilities is the idea of one single original continent at the beginning.

God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Sea. God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:10

That is not at all convincing. What about the other verses in that sequence that don't make sense to me?

 

[stvdv]

I am using the standard picture that god is the creator of the entire universe. This covers most of the worlds major religions that are based on texts that claim to be the word of god.

Thanks, that starts narrowing it down, though for me it is still quite vague

How you picture god "as the creator of the entire universe". Physical Form, Formless, Consciousness or a combination, or something else or maybe beyond words to describe or maybe beyond comprehension (at least for us as human beings)?

 

[Dawnofhope]

One of the things that I often think about when contemplating the worlds major religions is the idea that the message god wants to deliver to the entire world is often given to a single person, alone (Moses, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, etc.). It is up to that single person to deliver gods message to the world. We aren't even arguing about the content of the books, many of us are trying to understand if a god exists at all. Once that is settled, then perhaps we will be in a better position to examine which book is actually the book god wants us to follow. It should be easy, if only one of the religious text is actually from god.

I'm convinced that god didn't tell these people to write anything. I believe human authors of all religious books wrote it themselves and no gods had anything to do with it. This is true for every religious text. If you believe your religion has a doctrine or book that was actually written by or "breathed" by a God, I have a question for you:

Is there a single verse in that book that proves it had to be written by a God, because it could only have come from a God? If so, the evidence will force me to at least accept that a God does exist.

I'll give you an example of the kind of thing that the entire world would probably find convincing: A verse in the bible that includes anything factual about the natural world, that could not be known by a human at that time, and is too detailed to be a guess. It could have only come from an actual creator of the entire universe.

Could be something like "I have created vast pools of crude oil under the ground. One day, you humans will figure out how to extract it and refine that oil into fuel in order to operate machines you will build to travel. Those machines will allow you to move from one country to the next, across oceans, and even to travel through the air at hundreds of miles per hour." Or maybe it's something less obvious, but still completely convincing?

Does this exist in any text that is supposedly gods word?

I don’t believe that God literally wrote any books but.has inspired some of the texts of the major world religions such as the Torah, Gospel and Quran. Maybe some of the works attributable to the Teachings of Buddha and Krishna were Divinely inspired? There is a great deal in common, especially with admonitions about living a morally coherent life. Their differences are expected and in many cases attributable to the vastly different cultures from where each religious founder emerged. Other differences result from the core message being altered and changed over time.

 

[Moonjuice]

Thanks, that starts narrowing it down, though for me it is still quite vague

How you picture god "as the creator of the entire universe". Physical Form, Formless, Consciousness or a combination, or something else or maybe beyond words to describe or maybe beyond comprehension (at least for us as human beings)?

I don't picture god as the creator of the universe at all. I'm referring to those religions that do. If you have religious text that tells you "god" in whatever way the book describes god, created the universe, and he also wrote the book, then that is god I am referring to.

 

[Link]

I think Quran talks about two creation accounts, one is a metaphor of earth and skies and 6 days as metaphors. The other is clear that it's referring to creation as in the earth and heavens in physical sense:


.....
Is your creation more prodigious or that of the heaven He has built?
He raised its vault and fashioned it,
And He made dark its night and brought out its light.
And the earth, He expanded it after that.
He brought forth from it its water and its pasturage.
And set firm the mountains,
A provision for you and for your cattle.
But when the great predominating calamity comes;
....


I find it a miracle that two accounts were given, one of the metaphorical nature of earth and skies and thereby whence God established himself on the throne, and the other, is pertaining to physical, and it talked about 6 days only in metaphoric one, and as for the physical creation, it didn't mention a time frame.

 

[Moonjuice]

But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
Mat. 5:44-45. I think people are too evil on their own to write/say something like that.

I remain unconvinced. There are plenty of people capable of uttering a simple moral precept like this, including you and me. When I read this, all I see is the moral concept that we should "treat people the way we want to be treated", just reworded. Which, as we all know, is a moral understanding that predates the new testament. There is nothing in that sentence that could only come from the all knowing creator of the universe. It can (and I think it did) come from a human who agrees we should treat each other well. He also took the time to remind us that despite Gods power, you will not notice it by the amount of "sun and rain" in the lives of evil and good people, which is exactly what you would expect to see if he wasn't there at all.

 

[Moonjuice]

I don’t believe that God literally wrote any books but.has inspired some of the texts of the major world religions such as the Torah, Gospel and Quran. Maybe some of the works attributable to the Teachings of Buddha and Krishna were Divinely inspired?

I'm certain that all the authors were inspired by the idea of their god.

 

[stvdv]

I don't picture god as the creator of the universe at all. I'm referring to those religions that do. If you have religious text that tells you "god" in whatever way the book describes god, created the universe, and he also wrote the book, then that is god I am referring to.

Right

From my POV: Scriptures are just stepping stones when trying to realize the Truth; useful in the beginning, but one has to go beyond to realize the Truth. So, to me the questions you ask are not important when trying to know God. God can never be understood by the mind. Science is below the mind, and Spirituality is beyond the mind. Hence science is more easy, whereas Spirituality is not so easy (going beyond the mind)

I hope you find the answers to your questions, but I would be surprised to see them answered here on RF. But I do believe in miracles, so we will see

 

[Wildswanderer]

What specific detailed prophecies came true in the 21st century that does not warrant anyone's belief or faith even knowledge of scripture to discern its validity by multiple disciplines all over the world?

Why would it have to be in the 21 century?
Isaiah was written 200 years before Christ and yet tell us what will happen to him.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Really? I think I have examined every "prophecy" in the bible. I haven't found a single one to be even remotely convincing. What is the most obvious and powerful prophecy that you find so convincing? Maybe I missed something.

Isaiah was written 200 years before Christ and testifies about his life.


Some of what it contains:
"For He will honor the pious upon the throne of His eternal kingdom, release the captives, open the eyes of the blind, lifting up those who are oppressed… For He shall heal the critically wounded, He shall raise the dead, He shall bring good news to the poor."

All this is fulfilled by Christ.
I certainly can not pass it off as happenstance.
It even contains details about his death.

 

[Irate State]

Isn't it time God released a CD and Podcast?

What would he call it?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Isaiah was written 200 years before Christ and testifies about his life.


Some of what it contains:
"For He will honor the pious upon the throne of His eternal kingdom, release the captives, open the eyes of the blind, lifting up those who are oppressed… For He shall heal the critically wounded, He shall raise the dead, He shall bring good news to the poor."

All this is fulfilled by Christ.
I certainly can not pass it off as happenstance.
It even contains details about his death.

That Book has nothing remotely to do with Christ.


Yeshayahu (Isaiah): Full Text


Plus it's self fulfilling simply by customizing the mythology and storytelling and passed off as being 'fulfilled' soley by virtue of authorship.

 

[firedragon]

Could be something like "I have created vast pools of crude oil under the ground. One day, you humans will figure out how to extract it and refine that oil into fuel in order to operate machines you will build to travel. Those machines will allow you to move from one country to the next, across oceans, and even to travel through the air at hundreds of miles per hour." Or maybe it's something less obvious, but still completely convincing?

So this is the criteria you have used to decide that everything is mans writing? Just a clarification.

 

[Altfish]

What would he call it?

Welcome to the Pleasuredome

 

[firedragon]

Is there a single verse in that book that proves it had to be written by a God, because it could only have come from a God? If so, the evidence will force me to at least accept that a God does exist.

Brother. This type of conversation has happened many many times. So I guess the only outcome would be that you would reject anything and everything since you are already prepared to do that. Sorry, I don't mean to prototype you but this is usual.

If someone speaks of language, you would not understand. When asked, people retort with some comment about there being no necessity to know language. When that happens, if you are not aware of the language then you have to go by faith about what I would tell you.

This is the general problem with this kind of discussion. Again, I apologise if this is not your approach and/or if you know the subject very well.

Peace.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I don't picture god as the creator of the universe at all. I'm referring to those religions that do. If you have religious text that tells you "god" in whatever way the book describes god, created the universe, and he also wrote the book, then that is god I am referring to.

I’m curious. What religious text claims to have been written by God?

 

[Mock Turtle]

What would he call it?

Now listen, don't waste MY time!

 

[Redemptionsong]

I agree, I think it is impossible. If god actually wrote a book, I would expect the contents of the message to be more profound than what we see. What we see, in my opinion, are books that are written by humans, clearly coming from the human mind. If it was coming from the all powerful creator of the universe, wouldn't it be obvious? I'm only looking for a single verse, one sentence that could only have come from God. I have yet to see that in any of the ancient religious texts.

(IMO) If you don't consider the contents of the Bible to be profound then you haven't given scripture the time it deserves.

A true prophet speaks the words of God, and God has chosen His prophets carefully. They come from 'Israel', the people God chose to be the guardians of His written word.

The Bible contains the prophecies of over forty prophets, written over a period of about 1500 years (Hebrew and Greek scriptures). The Bible is, therefore, not the writing of a single man but the revelation of God's will and purpose over more than a thousand years.

If, as you suggest, the Bible is the product of men, and not divine inspiration, then men must have had a purpose in writing it. What, to your understanding, was the human intention or motivation behind this detailed and complex piece of deception?