In Psalm 14:1 we are told....?

Question

In Psalm 14:1 we are told, ‘The fool has said in his heart, There is no God! They acted corruptly; they have done abominable works, there is none who does good.’
Some of the so called fools who believe there is no god are James Watson (co-discovered the structure of DNA), Albert Einstein (regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century) and Karl Popper (is considered the most influential philosopher of the 20th century).
Some of the people who have supposedly acted corruptly, have done abominable works and do no good are Warren Buffet (Donated 37 billion dollars to charity), Susan B. Anthony (Civil rights leader) and Lance Armstrong (7 times tour de france winner). Is it just me or does Psalm 14:1 seem foolish?

You said help the poor did you miss the part where Warren Buffet donated 37 billion dollars to charity?

Answer 1

It seems like an attempt to create drones.

Answer 2

When you only take one verse out of whole chapters you can make it say anything you want. Some of the best TV preachers have done this very well. Read the whole chapter and see if the meaning changes for you. Psalms 14:1-7

1 The fool [a] says in his heart,
"There is no God."
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.

2 The LORD looks down from heaven
on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.

3 All have turned aside,
they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

4 Will evildoers never learn—
those who devour my people as men eat bread
and who do not call on the LORD ?

5 There they are, overwhelmed with dread,
for God is present in the company of the righteous.

6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the LORD is their refuge.

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Answer 3

Hi,

The point here is they did not do good works in a spiritual sense.
Sure they did great works here for mankind but what works did they do for God. What works will give them reward at the Great White Throne Judgment day?
Since , they have said in their hearts there is no God, they can do no good works......FOR GOD. Preach the Gospel? Start and run churches? Help the poor? Visit those in prison. This are things God said are good works.

So the answer is NO Psalm 14:1 is not foolish.

The Bible is a spiritual book. It deals with the heart and spirit of man. That is why so many misinterpret it. They are thinking in a worldly way.

You are reading the Bible, I see. God wants us to come to Him by faith not by sight. If you are to ever to understand the TRUE meaning of the Bible, you have to put your Faith in God and his son Jesus. That is what the Bible is really about, Jesus and your soul.

Bob

Ps. Even Warren Buffet can not buy his way into heaven. Only if his heart is right with Jesus will he recieve reward in heaven.

Answer 4

I know very well how foolish the message of the cross sounds to those who are on the road to destruction. But we who are being saved recognise this message as the very power of God. As the Scriptures say,

"I will destroy human wisdom
and discard their most brilliant ideas."

So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world's brilliant debaters? God has made them all look foolish and has shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense. Since God in His wisdom saw to it that the world would never find Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save all who believe. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 v 18-21

But God shows His anger from Heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and the sky and all that God made. They can clearly see His invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. Romans 1 v 18 -20

Answer 5

“It never occurred to any writer of the OT [Hebrew Scriptures] to prove or argue the existence of God,” says Dr. James Hastings in A Dictionary of the Bible. “It is not according to the spirit of the ancient world in general to deny the existence of God, or to use arguments to prove it. The belief was one natural to the human mind and common to all men.” This does not mean, of course, that all men at that time were God-fearing. Far from it. Psalm 14:1 and 53:1 both mention “the senseless one,” or as the King James Version says, “the fool,” who has said in his heart, “There is no God.”

What kind of person is this fool, the man who denies the existence of God? He is not intellectually ignorant. Rather, the Hebrew word na·val′ points to a moral deficiency. Professor S. R. Driver, in his notes to The Parallel Psalter, says that the fault is “not weakness of reason, but moral and religious insensibility, an invincible lack of sense, or perception.”

The psalmist goes on to describe the moral breakdown that is a result of such an attitude: “They have acted ruinously, they have acted detestably in their dealing. There is no one doing good.” (Psalm 14:1) “Counting on this absence of God from the world and on impunity, men become corrupt and do abominable deeds.” They openly embrace ungodly principles and discount a personal God to whom they have no wish to be accountable. But such thinking is as foolish and senseless today as it was when the psalmist wrote his words over 3,000 years ago.

Answer 6

It is idle to use the religious beliefs of notable persons to draw conclusions about religion: many such had strong religious beliefs. It is far better to draw one's own conclusions. My conclusions: It is impossible to demonstrate either that God exists, or does not exist: no experiment could conceivably show either. Since no such theory is refutable, and it can be proved that the predictive power (i.e., usefulness) of any theory obtains strictly from its refutability, any theory about God is useless, and rather than engage in idle speculation on such, I would rather do something useful.

Catholic theologian Hans Kung, in his huge book Does God Exist, also comes to the conclusion that the existence or non-existence is not demonstrable. But he chooses to accept the existence of God as compativle with his other beliefs. (Which is, of course, not surprising.)

Since the bible has hundreds of errors, to use it as an authority on anything is senseless.

Answer 7

Umm, no. Just because there works were socially great, does not make them good to God.

Answer 8

People should stop reading the Bible so they wouldn't have to worry about any rules and regulations!. Screw the Bible! and screw the people who wrote it.

Answer 9

You missed a few