Christianity in a nutshell

Second-Hand Revelation

My comment on this blog

One could say that virtually every verse in the Bible, Qu’ran, or other holy text from a revealed religion could be preceded by "Some guy said God told him to tell you..." Millions have taken it for granted that an omnipotent God chose second-hand revelation as a primary method to communicate to us.

One seeming paradox of second-hand revelation is that God supposedly had a message for all of humanity, but God told just a few guys. For unexplained reasons, God apparently stopped communicating that way from then on, putting the burden on them to be messenger boys. Well, perhaps God didn’t stop entirely, as we continue to get claims of revelation periodically, but many revelations claim to be the final one and pronounce dire warnings to any who claim later ones. That might explain the tendency for many to accept ancient revelation over modern revelation.

If God uses a few selected scribes to reveal all-important truths to the rest of us, we are essentially stuck taking their word for it. To me, it seems ironic and contradictory that God allegedly would want a personal relationship but then use bronze-age tribesmen as agents to obtain it.

Why would an omnipotent being choose this method in the first place, with all the risks of translation error, copy error, miscommunication, cross-cultural differences, appearance of favoritism, inherent limits of human language, and so on? It can’t be more trouble to simply speak to us directly, if omnipotence is a reality.

Why are conflicting revelations allowed?

Some claim that the path to eternal salvation lies in second-hand revelation. If so, wouldn't that place your salvation into the hands a fallible human? It seems odd that this arguably most important of truths would be communicated indirectly by fallible humans, especially when God is said to be omnipotent.

Would the originating force behind the entire universe choose a method so fraught with potential for trouble? As if God needed a spokesguy... In the churches of my youth, we simply took it for granted and never gave it a second thought. Is that common?

JANUARY 2, 2010 4:03 PM

And a reply from Bob A, who said...

Philip, I believe your thoughts cross many minds that really want to seek the truth. I remember I wrestled with the same questions when I was first introduced to the Bible. But the more I read, the more I saw within His word that it was the simple things that God chose to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:26-28 26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,….).

Unless this book is a series of our-right lies (it has withstood the test and punishment of man and time without a scratch), we need to take it for what it says it is…the truth (Jer.34:12; 2Tim 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21; Rev. 1:1; 14:13..and my favorite 1 John 5:13) …..this is of course where faith comes in….but not blind faith…..faith that believes on evidence and reason.

There are so many scholars that spend their lives searching and defending the Bible through apologetics. I have found a great source to be Josh McDowel’s “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict”. Also check out Dr. James White on his website, http://aomin.org/ he's great.

I guess for me the testimony of the inspired men of God that became martyrs for their beliefs gave me the historical evidence I needed combined with reason, logic, the laws of evidence and faith…Paul seems to have summed it up for me.....

Galatians 1:6-24 No Other Gospel
“ 6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
10Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Paul Called by God
11I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

I would say it is common for the world to look at God’s word this way…….I would say it is unfortunately, but what is common to man is not common to God.. 1 Corinthians 10:13
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful……”.

1 Corinthians 2:15-16 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?"[a] But we have the mind of Christ.

Aren’t you glad He chose us to be able to look at the things of God His Way?!

JANUARY 4, 2010 4:23 PM

I am beginning to find that there is no debating with people like Bob A, no inch that they are prepared to give, no admission that their beliefs could appear to be absurd and then they pull answers out of the bible to show me they are right.

I'm just as bad because I know I am right. There can be no concept of me being wrong either unless god is a sadist. And then which god? Now that's given me an idea, "Which God? - We test all the major religions and come up with a best buy and recommended".

He's from Denmark

"Islam is the one and true religion. The Quran says so - and then it gotta be true. So i REVERTED to islam. Because all people are BORN into islam. That is a biological fact. So when you "convert" to islam you actually revert - because you are only returning to the one and true religion. That is a fact"

http://www.youtube.com/user/reverttoislam


It's going to be a long hard ride fellow anti-theists. Give the man an axe. He's from Denmark you know.

Right and Wrong is human made

I like the point he makes about the concept being invented by humans and then attributed to their gods. He states that there is no one or nothing to miss us if we all perished tomorrow and it's perhaps that thought that drives believers deeper into their faith as this reality is just too much for them.

Have they actually considered what Heaven will be like when they get there? No board games by the sound of it. And no one ever comes back to tell us.

The comment from Mr Smith that I have reproduced below is in response to the Times article, "A time for Tolerence". Most of us tend to move on and become more accepting of others despite our backgrounds. My parents were racist but went out of their way to help my friend at infant school who was in the foster home and of South American descent. My father didn't like gays but the two transvestites who grew up in the local hardened community of terraced back to backs(Imagine Quentin Crisp) were revered and 'protected by the local 'mafia' and could go anywhere in relative safety. The locals were offered a new pub to name that was part of a housing development and wanted to call it after 'Brenda' one of the transvestites but the brewery vetoed it and it became the 'Firey Fred after Freddie Trueman, the Yorkshireman and cricketer.

Confusing times. I lived in London for many years and developed my own likes and dislikes, noticed cultural trends and had conversations with people from many cultures and faiths. I even spent a while living on the Broadwater Farm Estate after the riots.

Anyway, I digress. Christian faith does indeed appear to be eating itself from the inside, without any help from us militant atheists.

Derek Smith wrote:

I was born directly after WWII into a country where morals were, to a great
extent, dictated by various religions. We were taught that Jews were sinners
because – well they never said why. Gays were beyond all hope because they loved
people. Blacks were all right in their place and the same with Germans. But
there was a lot of resentment against those living together or, much more worthy
of condemnation, children of such couples. Special contempt was reserved for
those who were stripped of their loved ones by the war before they could marry,
especially if they had a child.

I was treated with care by some parents
as I was allowed to play with Tommy, whose mother wasn’t married. That would
have been bad enough but his father was an American GI. And, just to make things
much worse, was an African. I found out later that he had been from South
America but not being white was enough.

As religion lost its influence
so tolerance has become more widespread. My children have little comprehension
of differences in the way I was taught. My daughter didn’t think to tell me that
one of her friends was overtly gay before she introduced me to him. It didn’t
concern her so why should it concern me? ‘You’ll like him.’ she told us. And we
do.

This country has moved on tremendously in my 60 years. It would have
gone much further had it not been for religion. Most people I know are
bewildered by the church’s problems with gays and women. As my daughter said
about women priests: ‘They should keep up at the back. We’re not waiting for
them.’

We’ve just had an international rugby player ‘come out’ as
homosexual and most of my non-religious, and rugby fan friends wonder what all
the fuss is about.

Don’t look for tolerance in religions. But it is
blossoming everywhere else.

Dear Professor Nutt

Dear Professor Nutt

In previous correspondence with you the Government has highlighted the value that we place on receiving high quality scientific advice from the ACMD.

It is precisely for this reason that we asked you to find evidence in support of a pre-determined Government policy that was acceptable to readers of the tabloid press. Your total failure in this regard raises doubts about your independence as a scientific advisor.

Not only have you singularly failed to produce the requested evidence, you have not even attempted to distort existing evidence. There has been no massaging of the statistics, no exaggeration of the significance of minor studies and anecdotal testimony, no attempt to suppress embarrassing data. All contrary to established Government practise. Indeed, I am left wondering what qualifications you have to fulfil this high profile role or whether you have any proper understanding of the role of science in informing policy decisions.

You may wish to take a leaf out of Sir John Scarlett's book. Sir John was given the far more demanding task of finding evidence of WMDs in Iraq, a task that he performed masterfully, working closely with such distinguished professionals as the Prime Minister's press secretary. The resultant dossier was widely regarded as the definitive statement of the threat posed by the then Iraqi regime, and doubted only by some dodgy journalists and one rather eccentric weapons expert, both of whom were soon disposed of. You will note that Sir John's career has blossomed thanks to this fine tradition of public service.

Your recent remarks have highlighted comparable risks among legal drugs and sporting activities. This is totally unacceptable. It is not your role to go around informing people about things and giving them facts. It completely undermines government policy. All of the evidence must be presented to the public through trusted, Right Honourable statesmen, such as myself.

It is for these reasons that I have lost all confidence in your ability to provide me with the evidence that the Government would like to see. Nor do I trust you to keep your trap shut about the true state of affairs.

I would therefore ask you to step down from the council with immediate effect.

Regards

Alan.
See it in context here.
Thanks to Platitude of the Day

No more kosher lifts

It has been decided that lifts and escalators can no longer be used on the sabbath. Lifts used to have a 'sabbath' mode that allowed them to stop on every floor so that no-one had to do any work by summoning the lift or pressing a floor button. Article here.

This is important stuff. Doesn't it say in the bible that anyone who works on the sabbeth should be killed?