Then why did he not write it (or tell someone) in such a way as it's content would be debated over for centuries and from which countless denominations(or cults if you prefer) would spring?
2007-10-15 00:34:55 · 11 answers · asked by Cotton Wool Ninja 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Sorry for the typo,missed out NOT
2007-10-15 01:00:27 · update #1
(after would)
2007-10-15 01:01:35 · update #2
Excellent question, I have often wondered that myself! I'm afraid I can't answer your question though, because I don't think he did exist and the Bible is 100% man-made.
2007-10-15 00:43:11 · answer #1 · answered by katie_london 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
There's always someone somewhere who will dispute anything and everything. That is what the devil does. For every God given right, there is a devil's wrong. Even Jesus, when He started to teach the people, He couldn't in His home town, because people said, "wow, isn't He the son of the carpenter"? The devil is a strong and mighty foe of God's, and the devil is not going to rest until he has everyone against God or confused about God. So the devil springs up all these cults, and debates, and people who just have to have an answer for everything.
2007-10-15 07:44:19 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Countless denominations and sects (I do not prefer cults - it is a distinctly pejorative term), spring from, not God's word the Bible, but from me-ism, selfishness, lack of knowledge, pagan and demonic influence. In point of fact, the Bible is written in such a way as to be understood. That people insist upon debating it is evidence, not against divine inspiration, but rather, for the truthfulness of 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
To illustrate: Genesis 2:17 plainly states the act that God forbids and the punishment that will result. Genesis 3:19 plainly states the sentence God pronounces. Clearly, the punishment for disobedience is death. Romans 6:23 reiterates the punishment for sin. Death. No questions, no concessions, no ambiguity. How is it then that so many who profess to base their beliefs on scripture insist that the punishment meted out by God is eternal agony and torment in a hellfire? Even if another scripture seems to suggest this, it still must be understood in the light of these verses in Genesis and Romans and cannot be suffered to contradict them. So where did hellfire come from? God? No. It comes from Greek mythology.
Moreover, Christ himself warned that there would be true Christians and false ones and that the false ones would spring from His enemy. You may read this for yourself at Matthew 13:24-43. There you will find the prophetic illustration followed by the plain explanation of its meaning.
In the final analysis, the Bible is God's word. And there is ample reason to look to it for guidance. What people do with that word is another matter entirely.
Hannah J Paul
2007-10-15 08:02:16 · answer #3 · answered by Hannah J Paul 7 · 0⤊ 3⤋
That is an excellent question. The answer is involved, so I hope you bear with me.
The Bible shows us that when God first made people, they could communicate freely. In that context, God said, "do not eat the forbidden fruit." The snake tricked them and said, "God is lying". The first people chose to disbelieve God and believe a lie.
That story (take its exact interpretation how you will) explains how we ended up in our predicament. By rejecting God's communication to us, God punishes us by doing what we want: he no longer speaks freely with us.
Well not quite... Because of his great mercy and love, he has made certain channels of communication available. He has given us the Bible as a limited form of communication to us, and, provided we repent from our rebellion against him, he will listen to our prayers. The Bible is in part a record of God's most amazing communication to us, sending his own Son to live with us for a time as a human being.
The problem then is not so much that God's revelation to us is unclear as it is that God by his mercy has chosen to reveal to us a few things that we need to enter into a relationship with him. He does not answer all our questions. He does not decide all our petty squabbles over points of doctrine. We can't force him to.
So the reasons for division in the Christian church are due to:
(a) Deliberate error. People choose to believe the parts of the Bible that suit them and ignore the bits that don't suit them. Examples of this include Gnostics, Mormons and Muslims.
(b) Genuine mistakes. People may have misunderstood the Bible. For example, the church didn't like what Galileo had to say because they thought the Bible taught that the earth was the centre of the universe. Of course it doesn't say that at all and now the Roman Catholic church has apologized for what happened.
(c) Differences in interpretation. Some for example believe in infant baptism and some believe in adult baptism only. Some believe that speaking in tongues is a spiritual gift for today and some do not. They're not really a big deal, it's something that people can't seem to agree over and in fact we probably don't have a clear answer in the Bible. What goes wrong is when people don't accept other's right to their opinion and make it a divisive issue.
So ultimately the problem is human sin and fallibility, not God's fault at all.
2007-10-15 07:54:43 · answer #4 · answered by Raichu 6 · 0⤊ 3⤋
lol isn't that exactly what He did?
The Bible's content HAS been debated for centuries and countless denominations HAVE been sprung from it's words.
2007-10-15 07:45:44 · answer #5 · answered by arewethereyet 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the main confusion i have is that if the bible really is god's word than why doesn't it start many more years before? maybe he could have told someone what really happened to the dinosaurs?
i think its a good read, a bit like Aesop's fables, where we can read it and take the moral messages and understand how important they would have been a few thousand years ago
basing moral, religious or cult structures around a book is asking for trouble ^^
2007-10-15 07:49:08 · answer #6 · answered by ombomstiggywoggles 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Excellent point. god would not want belief in his/her/its existence dependent first on whether we believe man or which man to believe for that matter. Some say this is where "faith" steps in. However, faith in that sense is nothing but a sugar-coated word for a guess. You have to guess which man is right FIRST, in order to have a belief in a particular god SECOND. god would not require a guess about which man is correct.
2007-10-15 07:45:22 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Man will always interpret things, no matter how black and white they are, the way he see fit to better his own situation.
2007-10-15 07:48:58 · answer #8 · answered by kenny p 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If you look at the Bible carefully, you will NOT see inconsistencies. People want these inconsistencies to exist so they take scripture out of context and manipulate it to suit their positions.
GOD bless
2007-10-15 07:55:15 · answer #9 · answered by Exodus 20:1-17 6 · 0⤊ 3⤋
I don't think God was thinking of a book when he inspired those who wrote the Bible.
2007-10-15 08:01:58 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋