Who wrote the bible?

[styley]

Please don't answer if you know the answer. I wanna here from people who think they know.

[WaldoMcFroog]

It certainly must require considerable force of will to believe in the Bible despite all the contradictions, errors, immorality (by God & his helpers) etc.

You seem to imply that because athiests don't believe in the Bible they must therefore be degenerate pigs, which is not only wrong but also a rather ridiculous line of logic.

Oh, and I'm sure that other atheists would deny 'back stabbing'. I'll tell you what I think to your face and hope that you'll be equally forthright in return.

[chakka35]

Thanks for asking,Praline.
Until my mid-twenties I was a bog-standard Christian. Then I saw something on television about Jesus which both puzzled and surprised me. I started reading lots of books about the origins of Christianity and discovered how appallingly ignorant I was of my own religion (as most Christians are). For example, I had had some vague idea that the gospels were eyewitness accounts by four of Jesus's disciples called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!
As it became clear that nothing was written about Jesus during his suppsed lifetime, that he appears in no records of that time, nor in the writings of contemporary Jewish historians, that there is not one ear- or eyewitness account of anything he said or did and that the (unknown) people who wrote the gospels never knew him, I realised that there is no reason to consider the Jesus story as history, merely as myth. At the same time I recognised that my belief in God was also irrational and built merely on my upbringing. So I became an atheist.
But the subject still interests me (purely academically) and I now have lots of books about the bible in general and the NT in particular.

[Octavius]

The same thing could be said of King Arthur really and people believe he existed without any explicit tangible evidence.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Maybe so, Octavius, but it's a bit harder to prove Arturophiles have affected or attempted to affect civilisation to the same extent Christians have and do, nor that belief in King Arthur determines a particular identifiable set of behaviors! ;-)

[Octavius]

Really? You haven�t seen Spamalot then.

[WaldoMcFroog]

lol!

[naomi24]

Praline, forgive me, I'm confused by your contention that not believing in the bible is a crutch. Atheists clearly don't feel the need for religion and most, I would say, live successful, respectable and fulfilled lives without it, so how are they using their non-belief as a crutch?

[Octavius]

I don�t go along with the crutch theory either. The atheists are like a disorganised religion amongst themselves. They also feel the need to belong and to do that don�t they often use the Bible when staking their claim to anti-religion? The whole �I turned my back on religion years ago� thing is fine with me and I would hope that those people will continue to live normal happy, successful lives like a lot of other people, but it would seem when they return several times to vent their frustration, they haven�t really walked away from it have they. So religion and the Bible, still plays a big part in the life of an atheist.

[WaldoMcFroog]

That's like implying people who object to Derek Acorah - of which you are one, according to another thread - are basically pro-psychic medium.

Or like saying that because a member of the Anti-Nazi League has a familiarity with the policies of the BNP, they're essentially pro-racism.

[jamesisgod]

Jackie Collins....

[Praline25]

Thankyou for answering Chakka.
I can understand what your saying. It's almost like you rebelled and reversed because what you were bought up to belief as fact was in fact no fact at all, betrayal. Problem is there's only a couple of things to believe in about how the world started, so tell me people if you don't believe in god how do you think we got here? Ive heard many times from information that the world hasnt always always been here, so theres only a few ways.
Chakka you seem to feel that christians are betraying themselves cause what they believe is a lie. am i right?
Noami24 i was letting off steam and crutch is probably not the correct word really.

[naomi24]

Praline, so what did you mean? I can't see that atheists use anything whatsoever to confirm or to bolster their non-belief. If anything, they are confident in themselves and don't feel they need backing or confirmation from any other source.

[legend760]

in relation to your king arthur point .
octavius we could then surmise that aliens exist too?
in fact people still alive say they have had close encounters with them.
does that make them more factual than the bible?

[naomi24]

Praline, in answer to your question "if you don't believe in god how do you think we got here?", no one can answer that with any authority, so we can only say we don't know.

[naomi24]

Legend, can I just jump in here.? I don't know about close encounters, alien abductions or anything of that nature - I have my doubts - but I definitely believe that people from other planets visited us in the distant past - and I definitely believe that this is where the legends of gods from around the world - including the biblical god - have stemmed from. Additionally, I believe the biblical accounts of god are basically factual, since that god was without a doubt, far from perfect, and displayed some of the more obnoxious traits of humankind - just as the gods of ancient Greece did.

[naomi24]

Styley, sorry, we've strayed completely from the original question. My apologies - but unfortunately that seems to happen a lot on R&S.

[Julah]

You have to study the bible to believe it. The Bible is a fully integrated message system. When you study it, you quickly begin to realise that there is no way that this book is not God's message to us. God does not leave us with just claims of His divine handiwork in the Bible, but also supports it with compelling evidence. The design of the Bible itself is a miracle. Written over more than 1,500 years by vastly different writers, yet every book in the Bible is consistent in its message.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Apart from when it isn't, you mean?

The problem with people who insist there are no contradiction within the bible is that whenever they attempt to explain away these glaring errors, they do so by expanding one or other of the elements found contradictory beyond what is contained in the text itself.

Those who believe in it would have you believe that the Bible is a 'plain text' and can be read by anyone and understood, yet when faced with a difficulty, rapidly retreat into obscurantism and the insistance that certain portions of this book are intended to be read in a special way, and not taken at face value.

Will they reveal their special concordances that tell them *when* to abandon the face value of the text so the rest of us may have a look? I too would like to know which texts are meant to be taken at face value and which require additional, not included knowledge; which are metaphor etc.

But the apologists will not allow us to see their guides that tell them these things, and I think we all know why... ;-)

[Julah]

Actually, there are no Bible contradictions, there are only passages which "seem" to be contradictions to some people either because they are unaware of the context, the language may be difficult, they are not considering some other information, or they may not readily understand what's in view. Most of the alleged contradictions are so obvious that a blind man could have seen them and corrected them. Some people point to these as proof that the bible is of men, because of the obvious contradictions. But the opposite is true. If it was of men, the (seeming) obvious contradictions would have been corrected long ago. But they weren't corrected because they aren't contradictions. The Bible testifies of itself that it is the divinely inspired Word of God.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Just repeating a statement doesn't actually make it real.

Why not address the substance of what I wrote rather than just going 'la la la, you're wrong'?