Men with Pens
Virtually everyone agrees that the Holy books of religions (especially the Abrahamic religions) were written by ancient men. That is, there are no popular claims that God literally wrote these books. The claim instead is that God (Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, ...) inspired men who then wrote the divine words.
A Credible Claim?
Most agree that men literally penned the Holy books. So what persuades us to go one step further and hold these books as the divine words of a perfect God?
Good Question
One could show passages that illustrate knowledge beyond that of the ancient writers. For example, the specific prediction of an unlikely event that has since come true. Some argue that Genesis accomplishes this by 'predicting' the universe was created and that creation matches the Big Bang theory because it shows the universe had a beginning. But one would expect ancient men to presume everything is created. Cause & effect is core to human intuition – they simply wrote what was intuitively obvious. No prediction there. (Especially since the universe having a beginning does not mean it was created.)
An excellent example of advanced knowledge would be describing the Earth as one of a handful of planets orbiting the Sun. Or possibly explaining (with non-scientific language) that the lithosphere of our planet consists of moving tectonic plates which explain phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanoes. But no such knowledge is provided.
Alternatively, one might try to illustrate that a Holy book is perfect. Given human failings, it is almost impossible to produce something that is flawless but a perfect God certainly could accomplish this. A perfect Holy book would have no factual errors, no internal contradictions, no logical paradoxes, etc. Such a product would suggest the hand of a perfect entity. But no perfect Holy book exists; not even close.
Counter Evidence
There is a notable lack of evidence for the hand of a perfect entity but substantial evidence against. First and foremost we have clear errors. The Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible) is common to Judaism, Islam and Christianity so it is a good book to consider. Immediately, we see Genesis describing the heavens as an ordinary bronze-age man might perceive it looking with his naked eyes. The sun and the moon are described as lights in the sky. The stars (and the visible planets by the way) are simply other lights. These men simply saw lights and had no cosmological knowledge. They did not know that our sun is a star, the moon is a rock that reflects light and that some of the lights in the sky are actually planets in our solar system reflecting sunlight. If the Bible had reflected something more than what the men with pens could see then that would be positive evidence of divinity.
Factual errors abound in stories such as Noah's flood which, among other things, describes an ark made of wood that we now know (by engineering and practical experience) would sink due to twisting motion of the water against wood.
Probably the most obvious evidence against the Pentateuch as the divine word of God are its many interpretations. If this work (and its subsequent Holy books such as the Bible and the Qur'an) is to be the word of a perfect, omniscient God then one would expect it to be so clear that it could not be misinterpreted. Yet the Bible alone has thousands of formal interpretations and individual believers –even within a specific formal interpretation (a denomination)– routinely disagree among themselves on fundamentals.
Beyond this, we have logical errors. The Bible defines an omniscient God (one that knows everything including the future). How is an omniscient entity surprised or disappointed? The Adam & Eve story, for example, depicts a disappointed God who casts his disobeying creatures out of Eden.
For vs. Against
The amount of evidence one can bring to illustrate flaws in books such as the Pentateuch (and beyond) is staggering. Biblical scholarship reveals the repurposing of ancient tales and the weaving of multiple inconsistent stories (see Noah's flood) into a single contradictory text. History refutes claims of ancient Jews in a 40 year exile, the stories of King David, etc. Science refutes the Genesis creation account, Noah's flood and countless other references. Logic refutes claims of omniscience and perfection in a God depicted as emotional, vain, petty and surprised by events of His making.
What evidence persuades anyone to hold these words by ancient men as the divine words of a perfect God?
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An experiment to see how this plays in Newstalkers.
The responses should be interesting.
Being a person that follows the Midewiwin (Ojibwe Native Amercan teaching) I don't subcribe to the religions of today nor their teachings.
We have no dedicated places for worship, that is left to the individual to chose what place is best for him or her. There is no specific day either. It is when you choose.
We call the Creator the ''Great Mystery''...since we have no way of knowing who or what it is. It has no gender and no color. We do not have painting/photos/statues of it. To us that would be ridiculous.
To us the it is in everything on earth. That is why the animals, plants, insects, fish and all things are part of the ''master plan'' to so speak.
We do not try to convert anyone to our beliefs and have no written ''book''.
Tig you responded six times...If you see the comment in the ''post comment'' box, before you click on ''post your comment'' again go up to where it states ''load more comments'' if you click on that you'll see your comment, thus the one still in the ''post comment box'' is a duplicate...Just forget about it, it will disappear soon.
Sorry, I was mislead by the comment not disappearing. I kept trying things not knowing it had posted. Now I have tried to delete the spurious comments. The site lets me delete them but never actually deletes. Is there some trick for deleting I should know about?
LOL. Welcome to the club. Sometimes it takes a long time for a posting to register. If you sat and waited a long time it would probably show up. However, few of us have that much patience so we keep clicking on "Post Your Comment". Kavika has shown you how "Load More Comments" will cause your posting to register, sometimes in duplicate. I found that the "trash can" icon might not work the first time, so I have to use it sometimes a few times for it to actually delete the duplicates. I get another problem sometimes. The "Amend" and "delete" icons are there and when I put my cursor on them they disappear. When that happens I have to come back later to do my deletion, because it will eventually work correctly. Sorry about this anomoly, but you have to have faith that what you write will everntually show up. Have faith - LOL.
In result, your beliefs follow the evidence. We exist so naturally one would presume we were created since cause & effect is intuitive to us and because when we see apparent order we presume a designer.
To me this is a sensible religion - related to Pantheism. It does not include claims of floods and arks, original sin, deity/human sacrifice nor does it presume to know the character, personality and intent of God. It is an example of what I was suggesting in the article.
I'm not a particularly religious person, in fact I think Frank Lloyd Wright's concept that Nature is God is closer to reality than organized religions. Native Americans seem to be cloe to that. I just wonder if there is any feeling of emptiness, that something is missing, if one is a total athiest.
"I just wonder if there is any feeling of emptiness, that something is missing, if one is a total atheist."
By your description, you might be a Pantheist - one who considers God to be 'all that exists'. That is certainly a logical viewpoint and reflects one who marvels at the awesomeness of our environment. Although Pantheists are technically theists, they are functionally atheists in that they are not convinced there is a sentient creator entity. I suspect that is what you mean by 'total atheist'.
Well, I think most atheists are quite comfortable and hold their one life in high regard. They (we) would like to have a chance to see loved ones again, have everlasting life, etc. but the emptiness, if you will, of not having those options is akin to the emptiness of not winning $500 million in a lottery. Never had it, never lost it.
This article, however, is not really so much about atheism but rather the belief that the Bible (and other 'holy' books) is divine. In my opinion, we would be better served by considering the Bible and similar works to be semi-historical literature penned by ancient men -with an agenda- pretending to be God.
I think of the bible as an allegory - an attempt by more primitve authors to explain their concept of creation and events, sometimes unexplainable events. For example, each "day" in Genesis represents millions if not billions of years. I never believed that Jesus was the son of God, if there IS a God, but he may well have been an amazingly charismatic leader.
Your article is well expressed , well thought out, and well written.I think it is basically irrelevant though, other than to the people whom it appeals to. By that I mean the atheists who think about this sort of thing a fair amount.
At some point in ancient history the people started thinking about man's place in this "existence" . Many of them came to believe that "God" or gods , controlled earthly conditions and the fortunes of it's human beings. At another point, some of the history of these beliefs and the people who expressed them were written down. Over time "religions" developed around the accrued beliefs.
Is there any way to know whether or not any or all of this was truly "divinely inspired" ? No, just as there is no way to "prove" the existence of God. It is faith. You can call it cultural expression or you can call it inspired belief.
You say that the scriptures aren't perfect? Well, if "God" intended his nature to be revealed over centuries or millenia or eons, scripture could be "perfect" as the amount of God's nature that it wanted revealed and expressed at that paticular point in time that it was written. Who knows?
The eastern philosopher Alan Watts said the universe and all in it are manifestations of God, which has an endless desire to express itself in every way imaginable and in an infinity of ways that we cannot even imagine.
We just cannot know what if any connection there is between "God" and the scriptures of the planet earth.
" Is there any way to know whether or not any or all of this was truly "divinely inspired" ? No, just as there is no way to "prove" the existence of God. "
Proof is not possible but reason is. A very plausible explanation for the many errors and contradictions in the Bible is that it really is nothing more than the work of many ancient fallible men over centuries of 'editting'. Contrast that with the unlikely possibility that a perfect God would inspire a book designed to communicate with His creatures yet is both errant and ambiguous leading to countless conflicting interpretations each of which is held by some as truth.
" You say that the scriptures aren't perfect? Well, if "God" intended his nature to be revealed over centuries or millenia or eons, scripture could be "perfect" as the amount of God's nature that it wanted revealed and expressed at that paticular point in time that it was written. Who knows? "
One can always posit extreme possibilities. I tend to follow the evidence to where it leads. In this case, we know ancient men wrote the Bible and that certainly explains its content. We have no evidence of divine inspiration but rather evidence to the contrary.
Saying that an infinite God that is playful and experimental might have had a back hand in the writing of scripture is not an extreme possibility. To an infinite God there are no extremes.
I am not saying you are at all wrong, by the way. I just don't think your argument is relevant to people who believe in God.
Religions are man made cultural expressions related to our innate desire to understand the unknowable.
Religious people generally reject any argument that does not support their faith. So yes, this article is not intended to make someone irreligious but rather to discuss what I posit as a problem - blind acceptance of words penned by ancient men pretending to be God.
...and I think you have done that well.
To an infinite God there are no extremes.
True, but that is not what I was getting at. I was talking about what is most likely based on the evidence. An extreme possibility is one that has little or no supporting evidence. So the hypothesis that an errant Bible is the deliberate product of an omnipotent, eternal God would be an extreme possibility on two counts:
Hi TiG.
Welcome to The Newstalkers!
BTW, how does it feel to be on a site where everyone is a Right-wing Troll?
I know that true-- because I read it on Newsvine!
/sarc
Virtually everyone agrees that the Holy books of religions (especially the Abrahamic religions) were written by ancient men. That is, there are no popular claims that God literally wrote these books.
I believe that statement is inaccurate.
I'm no expert on Islam, but I believe I've read that an integral part of that religion is the belief that The Holy Koran is the literal word of God. In fact, to say otherwise is considered blasphemy.
(And even beyond that-- not only that but also The Holy Koran as given to Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) has been handed down from generation to generation without any changes.
So their belief is that God wrote that book.
I just googled-- apparently its true:
Quran: The Word of God
Hi krishna
So their [Muslims] belief is that God wrote that book.
Muslims believe that Allah communicated with the prophet Muhammed who then, in turn, dictated to scribes who then committed the content to paper.
Note that my point was that we all agree that men with pens actually wrote the books. This is evidence that we all support. Where things go awry is when people claim that these men were inspired by God - that they were literally serving as the writing hands of God - from God to paper via scribes. This is indeed the belief of many as you note, but this belief has no foundation in evidence. The evidence shows that men wrote the books but does not support the notion that the content came from God.
OK, this is what I think.
I think that these text, could have been either geniuses or inspired by a higher force, who realized that man could only be civilized if they had the fear of god put into them. The reason I don't totally discredit divine intervention, is that many of the 614 laws of the old testament/torah contains things that are health related (i.e. dietary laws/ burial rules), given that they were pretty primitive in what they knew. Now I could be wrong, and who ever wrote the original texts were geniuses and got people to follow by scaring the masses to death, but I don't think so. But I could be wrong. Don't you love it when a person argues with himself? LOL!
But yes, men with pens wrote those books. Who or what inspired them is the big question.
There is no god. None of them.
Prove that Randy.
I would say that religion is man made.. but a creating force, that I am not sure of. No one can be.
@Randy - "There is no god."
You are probably correct. But that depends on how you define 'god'. How do you define 'god'?