I would strongly,disagree with you that reality is the same for everyone. What is reality? For someone with a psychiatric disorder, such as someone who suffers hallucinations, reality is very unique. You cannot view the world as I do as my world view is through the lens of my own experiences. My experiences led me to become a nurse, and that led to being an advanced practice nurse and so on. For someone who crunches numbers how I care for someone would be outside the scope of their understanding just as I would loathe doing math all day. You are trying, IMO, to fit belief into a scientific paradigm and it simply does not work. The realm of psychology is quite intangible really. There are no medical tests to determine if someone has bipolar disorder or ocd. Yet they are accepted as legitimate illnesses. The world is simply not all scientifically based. For my master's in psychology I worked with a wonderful neuropsychologist who thought as you do. We had some awesome discussions while drinking 100% grain alcohol. We used chimps and studied choice. He could not scientifically determine choice each time. So for me, this is about me and you and does not reflect the reality you have.
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Who Said the Bible is True?
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
Thousands of years ago, the reality was that the earth was flat and anyone with the temerity to believe differently was often put to death. And before Newton, no one understood gravity. Reality changes with time. Can you imagine what a person from that time period would think of a quark or anti-matter? That said, your last remarks, IMO, were unnecessarily personal and intended to insult. Carry on but not with me. Peace to you.There is no "for us". Reality is what it is for everyone, like it or not. You don't get to decide that you don't like gravity to be, therefore you're going to believe something else. You'd just be wrong. Just because you have no interest doesn't stop you from being wrong. Open-mindedness doesn't mean that you just let your brain go on a vacation, which seemingly, a lot of theists have done.
That is just about how I view things! How interesting to meet someone of such a like mind. I am very glad I found this forum and look forward to more discussions. Bright blessings. Jo
Bobbyh
Infinite Nothingness
There is something called "supporting evidence". This is not a proof, but it's evidence that supports a theory. There's plenty of that, it just depends on what you subjectively choose to determine as significant enough to classify as enough supporting evidence to form a confident opinion in favor of the possibility that it is true. The book was written by men and speaks of men, so that evidence is supportive. Many people believe in it, that is supportive evidence.
Empirical evidence though... there is none of that as of yet.
Domenic
Active Member
Can the Bible be proven true?
All things, even those that have nothing to do with the Bible can come into question. We do take what other have written about history as fact. We take what some say about this or that without question. The Bible is very different...everything is questioned, and that is as it should be. If we are to follow a God we can't see, who's voice we do not hear, something needs to be proven.
Many say of the Bible, "It was written by men, thus it can't be trusted". Was not all history written by men? It is a true statement, a lot of history is fiction. Those who win wars, write history as they want. Those who lose are always written as the bad guy...things are left out, some changed...so yes, all things come into question. We try to hold to things that can be proven to some degree. That is what I have done here.
History:
Alexander the Great was a Greek. He came out of the West, and conquered to the east. He was the first King of Media, and Persia. He died about the age of 30 in the year 539 BC. His empire was divided into four equal parts by his Generals.
The Bible:
The book of Daniel.
Daniel died in the year 539 BC, at the age (about) 84. He died 216 years before Alexander the great was born. His scrolls were dated by science.
Prophesy made by Daniel:
Daniel 8:3 When I raised my eyes, then I saw, and look! A ram standing before the watercourse, and it had two horns. And the two horns were tall, but the one was taller than the other, and the taller was the one that come up afterward.
Daniel 8:5 And I for my part, kept considering, and look there was a male of the goats coming from the sunset upon the surface of the whole earth, and it was not touching the earth etc…
Daniel 8:20 The ram that you saw possessing the two horns stands for the King of Media, and Persia, and the hairy he-goat stands for the King of Greece, and for the great horn that was between its eyes, it stands for the first King. That one having been broken, so that there were four that finally stood up instead of it, there are four Kingdoms from his nation.
It is clear from History, The prophesy is about Alexander the Great, who was the first King of Media, and Persia. He did die at a young age,(30) and his kingdom was divided into four parts by his four Generals after his death. Daniel died in the year 539 BC…216 years before Alexander was born. Yes there could be a question: Were the scrolls of Daniel written during Daniels life time by Daniel? Science can only say, “The scrolls, and ink date from that time.
All things, even those that have nothing to do with the Bible can come into question. We do take what other have written about history as fact. We take what some say about this or that without question. The Bible is very different...everything is questioned, and that is as it should be. If we are to follow a God we can't see, who's voice we do not hear, something needs to be proven.
Many say of the Bible, "It was written by men, thus it can't be trusted". Was not all history written by men? It is a true statement, a lot of history is fiction. Those who win wars, write history as they want. Those who lose are always written as the bad guy...things are left out, some changed...so yes, all things come into question. We try to hold to things that can be proven to some degree. That is what I have done here.
History:
Alexander the Great was a Greek. He came out of the West, and conquered to the east. He was the first King of Media, and Persia. He died about the age of 30 in the year 539 BC. His empire was divided into four equal parts by his Generals.
The Bible:
The book of Daniel.
Daniel died in the year 539 BC, at the age (about) 84. He died 216 years before Alexander the great was born. His scrolls were dated by science.
Prophesy made by Daniel:
Daniel 8:3 When I raised my eyes, then I saw, and look! A ram standing before the watercourse, and it had two horns. And the two horns were tall, but the one was taller than the other, and the taller was the one that come up afterward.
Daniel 8:5 And I for my part, kept considering, and look there was a male of the goats coming from the sunset upon the surface of the whole earth, and it was not touching the earth etc…
Daniel 8:20 The ram that you saw possessing the two horns stands for the King of Media, and Persia, and the hairy he-goat stands for the King of Greece, and for the great horn that was between its eyes, it stands for the first King. That one having been broken, so that there were four that finally stood up instead of it, there are four Kingdoms from his nation.
It is clear from History, The prophesy is about Alexander the Great, who was the first King of Media, and Persia. He did die at a young age,(30) and his kingdom was divided into four parts by his four Generals after his death. Daniel died in the year 539 BC…216 years before Alexander was born. Yes there could be a question: Were the scrolls of Daniel written during Daniels life time by Daniel? Science can only say, “The scrolls, and ink date from that time.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Everything was written after all the "events".
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Don't forget time zones and daylight savings. !0]
Domenic
Active Member
Those like you always ask for proof. You made a statement...prove it. If you can't, anything you say will be the mark of a fool.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Not actually necessary to ask for proof. Already know when the Bible was first penned and documented for the first time.
People by then already knew everything by that time. Easy to write about.
Domenic
Active Member
In other words you have no proof. The Bible was taken from scrolls, and the scrolls have been dated by science. Before you start shouting false, you should first learn what you are talking about.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
And the age of the scrolls supersedes every prophecy ever claimed. Thanks for confirming my point here.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Your experiences of reality are not the same as reality itself. Do try again.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
No, the reality was that the Earth was never flat. People believed something that was wrong. Are you really unable to comprehend this?
Skwim
Veteran Member
In this particular case:
Alexander the Great: 20 or 21 July 356 – 10 or 11 June 323 BC
Source:Wikipedia
"Chapters 10–12 must therefore have been written between 167 and 164 BCE. There is no evidence of a significant time lapse between those chapters and chapters 8 and 9, and chapter 7 may have been written just a few months earlier again"
Source:Collins, John J. (1984). Daniel: With an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature. Eerdmans.
Chapter 8 was therefore written 156 to 159 years after the death of Alexander the Great.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe I write about my experience after the experience took place also. That does not mean that I made it up. I believe it is a stretch to believe that those who wrote the books of the prophets were making them out to be more than they were. Why in the world would someone want to elevate someone else. And in the end even the prophet does not have an axe to grind because He is not elevating himself either but is touting God.
The prophets line up a snare/great deception, where there shall be an evil idolatrous city built upon blood shed. Where there shall be ravenous beings, who are obsessed with blood and sacrifice; who will swear falsely and steal what isn't theirs...Yet they will have no comprehension, that they're going completely the wrong way.
They shall follow a false version of jesus, who was proclaiming 'I Am' and be deceived by it. There will be people globally following this false belief.
So proof is in the pudding, as they say.... These bits in the Bible have clearly come true, so can't argue with the maths; the probability of it all occurring, implies at least some of the prophets and Yeshua were real.
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Skwim
Veteran Member
Sorry, but your post here isn't making any sense.The prophets line up a snare/great deception, where there shall be an evil idolatrous city, built upon blood shed. Where there shall be ravenous beings, who are obsessed with blood and sacrifice; who will swear falsely and steal what isn't theirs...Yet they will have no comprehension, that they're going the completely wrong way.
They shall follow a false version of jesus, who was proclaiming 'I Am' and be deceived by it. There will be people globally following this false belief.
So proof is in the pudding, as they say.... These bits in the Bible have clearly come true, so can't argue with the maths; the probability of it all occurring, implies at least some of the prophets and Yeshua were real.
The post makes sense in context of the question and thread; could post half the Bible to substantiate it..... Yet it is the same thing as saying; if you're not looking to understand it, then you won't.
Moishe3rd
Yehudi
Rational reasons for "the bible?" Not sure.
However, for the Jewish Torah; Tanach; Talmud; Jewish Law, and the 3,000 plus years old religion of the Jews which is solidly based on these writings and concepts - well, there is a great deal of rational thought dedicated to that matter.
“I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.”
- John Adams, Second President of the United States
(From a letter to F. A. Van der Kemp [Feb. 16, 1808] Pennsylvania Historical Society)
“This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth… [But] for the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; [and] as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
- Robert Jastrow
(God and the Astronomers [New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1978], 116. Professor Jastrow was the founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute, now director of the Mount Wilson Institute and its observatory.)
”...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way. properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.
The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
- Mark Twain
(“Concerning The Jews,” Harper’s Magazine, 1899
see The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Doubleday [1963] pg. 249)
“If we had lived in the second millennium BC, the millennium of Abraham, and could have canvassed all the nations of the earth, what would they have said of Abraham’s journey? In most of Africa and Europe, they would have laughed at Abraham’s madness and pointed to the heavens, where the life of earth had been plotted from all eternity ... a man cannot escape his fate. The Egyptians would have shaken their heads in disbelief. The early Greeks might have told Abraham the story of Prometheus ... Do not overreach, they would advise; come to resignation. In India, he would be told that time is black, irrational and merciless. Do not set yourself the task of accomplishing something in time, which is only the dominion of suffering. On every continent, in every society, Abraham would have been given the same advice that wise men as diverse as Heraclitus, Lao-Tsu and Siddhartha would one day give their followers: do not journey but sit; compose yourself by the river of life, meditate on its ceaseless and meaningless flow.”
“The Jews started it all—and by ‘it’ I mean so many of the things we care about, the underlying values that make all of us, Jew and Gentile, believer and aethiest, tick. Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings ... we would think with a different mind, interpret all our experience differently, draw different conclusions from the things that befall us. And we would set a different course for our lives.”
- Thomas Cahill, The Gifts Of The Jews
“The preservation of the Jews is really one of the most signal and illustrious acts of divine Providence… and what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner as none other nation upon earth hath been preserved. Nor is the providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies, than in their preservation… We see that the great empires, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God, are all come to ruin… And if such hath been the fatal end of the enemies and oppressors of the Jews, let it serve as a warning to all those, who at any time or upon any occasion are for raising a clamor and persecution against them.”
- Thomas Newton - British Clergyman: Bishop of Bristol (1704-1782)
“The preservation of the Jews is really one of the most signal and illustrious acts of divine Providence… and what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner as none other nation upon earth hath been preserved. Nor is the providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies, than in their preservation… We see that the great empires, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God, are all come to ruin… And if such hath been the fatal end of the enemies and oppressors of the Jews, let it serve as a warning to all those, who at any time or upon any occasion are for raising a clamor and persecution against them.”
- Thomas Newton - British Clergyman: Bishop of Bristol (1704-1782)
I could, of course, go on but this should suffice.
All logic, science and "rationality" is based on history. Is it recorded? How did it happen? Can the experiment be duplicated with similar results?
Does it make sense?
Aye, there's the rub because, no, it does not make sense. Jews are a-historical and therefore, their history and the above quotes make no "rational" sense.
Yet, we exist.
And, Jews exist on the basis of our Torah; Jewish Law.
Without the Torah; without Jewish Law, Jews would not exist.
The Rational reason that Jews exist is because of Torah - Jewish Law.
Ergo; ipso facto; the Torah (the bible) is either True or - the Jewish People and therefore all of mankind that has been influenced by the Jews, is based on a lie.