in my opinion, People can come to an awakened understanding of Life without an old book - you don't need to have read the bible to be a good person in the eyes of God.
It's true. God lives in our hearts and our souls. Don't lean too hard on the understanding of man. Shut off the distractions, sit outside at night in the quiet darkness and you'll find a comforting presence waiting for you.
So we are to replace the understanding of Man with the understanding of what? The self? So Man?
All we have is the understanding of Man. And I would much rather put my understanding up against the many, rather than just my fallible self. I am not an authority on Truth. No individual except for God is.
You simply collect the data but always avoid firm conclusions until they're proven accurate. You don't accept fact because man says it or because any construct of man says it. Shut your mind, open your soul, and you find truth.
In the end it doesn't matter what any holy book says. God is God and you have a built in spiritual core capable of processing that without the work of men.
What can be proven accurate? How? Is it really proven? What if it isn't?
Proven accurate by whom? Man? Yourself (i.e. Man)?
And we are not a spirit. We are mind, body, and spirit. To only address one is to miss the fullness and Truth of God's creation.
You can't find truth by shutting your mind and opening your soul, because then you aren't discerning what you are encountering. You're also rejecting the basis of the way God created us. At that point, truth is eluding you from the beginning, so you certainly won't find it later down the line.
In the end, it matters what God says. And if He says it in one holy book, then that book is His True Word. And since we are demonstrably fallible and incapable of attaining perfect truth, the only logical conclusion is that He would put His Word in an objective, external source that we can look to for guidance.
At that point, we only need have faith in Him and his Revelation, and not have faith in ourselves to try and figure out every little aspect of truth.
It isn't the work of men, it's the Gift of God. This is clearly a faith issue for many, and nothing else.
Not one of us here would even have an inkling of an idea about God without the "old book".
If the Bible is the perfect Truth, then it is impossible to know the truth and be awakened without reading It. On this topic, there are no opinions. It's far more important than that. Not something one can just approach however they feel like and be fine in the end if they weren't totally right.
The rejection of the Bible appears to me to be a total lack of faith in God. Instead, all that faith is being directed at the self. The self that we all know suffers from sin and from the fallibility of being human.
On your last point, you're not wrong. I've been raised in this new world with vast knowledge at my fingertips that are far better distilled, advanced and tuned to my brain than the Bible. Nothing against it, but It's incredibly boring to me. The Emerald Tablets were much more interesting to me, but I don't worship them.
I could be totally wrong and the Bible is the perfect truth, but to me, if it doesn't compute with me - and other avenues and stories do - but lead to the same truth, which is "truth" then I believe God doesn't care. He just wants us to know the truth, whether you read his manual or figure it out other ways, he just wants you to know the truth.
But you have a good point and you could be right. I'm just a Human and don't know, but have come to know the truth via other methods that have lead me to a much more austere and righteous life without it - However, it wasn't ME that came up with it. Many Lessons that I've gathered and lead me to the truth was distilled through youtube Videos ABOUT the Bible, such as the Bible project. Again, I just don't like reading it, maybe I'm just ADHD.
Does it need to be exciting? Or true? I'll admit that some of it can be just a tad boring, as unpleasant as it is to admit. But it's also extremely exciting to read the Gospels or to read a passage in the Old Testament that is clearly talking about Jesus Christ hundreds of years before he lived.
The Emerald Tablets piqued my interest because they were less well known. More esoteric. Not accepted and hidden away. This doesn't make them true, and is the perfect recipe to be led astray by the "fun" or "exciting" thing rather than lead to truth by the "boring" but true thing.
Truth is not to be based on feeling. Our feelings are not only often wrong or irrational, but they also contradict each other's feelings. This is why we need an objective standard.
I don't only believe things that I find agreeable. I do trust my intuition, to be clear, but when the Bible says something I didn't think was true, I look into it and find that the Bible is right or at least makes a perfectly valid and compelling case. So I change for God, I don't find a "god" that fits me. Because without an objective source of truth, something that I am not, there is no truth at all.
And the way I see it, if I always agree with God, I'm not agreeing with God. I'm just agreeing with myself. The notion that I'd get everything right exactly as God ordained it is highly unlikely in my mind.
To be clear, I always found this quite easy. I went from an agnostic to a hardliner Christian in a couple of months. It really feels more like a day. I realized one day I believed and everything changed. I found it exceptionally easy to just believe the Bible and cede my authority to God, which was quite the opposite of the mindset I'd been fostering spending a lot of time here on GAW, and of my general mindset all my life.
So I don't know what it is like to face the opposite problem of not wanting to cede my authority to God, or not finding it compelling. But I still think that to believe in God is to deny what you know to some degree. Some stuff will align, but we don't know everything and God does, so every truth we learn shouldn't necessarily go down easy, so to speak. There's going to be some big red pills in there. Some big ways of thinking that we aren't correct on.
And respectfully, how can you possibly believe you have found some kind of personal, spiritual truth when there are a dozen other people who claim the same thing, but they claim they were led to an exclusionary truth? Islam isn't compatible with Christianity, which isn't compatible with Judaism, which I'd assume isn't compatible with your spiritual beliefs.
Many of these "truths" contradict each other. They can not all be true. And if Islam is right, I'm going to Hell. Is Christianity is right, that could very well be your path. I don't intend to be one of those fire and brimstone "you're going to hell! Repent!" types, but it's a real possibility if you're wrong.
And what even is truth? If it comes from God, it is objective. Not something one gets to pick between several options on.
I mean, the truth I have found is that the only way to the Father is through the Lord Jesus Christ. This excludes every Muslim, every Jew, every Atheist, and every "spiritual but not religious" person. This certainly isn't the same truth you have found. So who is right? How do we know? Can we know?
I think we can, and I think God gives us exactly what we need in the Bible and His Church.
For one, the Bible makes verifiable, historical claims. The Gospels in particular lay out Jesus' life in a way that we can verify. And history does verify Christ's life as the Bible lays it out.
For another, it's uniquely based on salvation by grace and by Jesus' death on the cross to pay the price for our sins.
If you honestly just can't muster up the attention/focus/interest to read the Bible, I'd suggest going to Church. There was quite some time when the commoners were illiterate and relied on the Church for their teachings. Though, they were still getting the Word of God from the Bible, just in a way they understood. It may be more digestible if you find reading it yourself too boring.
in my opinion, People can come to an awakened understanding of Life without an old book - you don't need to have read the bible to be a good person in the eyes of God.
My opinion.
It's true. God lives in our hearts and our souls. Don't lean too hard on the understanding of man. Shut off the distractions, sit outside at night in the quiet darkness and you'll find a comforting presence waiting for you.
So we are to replace the understanding of Man with the understanding of what? The self? So Man?
All we have is the understanding of Man. And I would much rather put my understanding up against the many, rather than just my fallible self. I am not an authority on Truth. No individual except for God is.
You simply collect the data but always avoid firm conclusions until they're proven accurate. You don't accept fact because man says it or because any construct of man says it. Shut your mind, open your soul, and you find truth.
In the end it doesn't matter what any holy book says. God is God and you have a built in spiritual core capable of processing that without the work of men.
What can be proven accurate? How? Is it really proven? What if it isn't?
Proven accurate by whom? Man? Yourself (i.e. Man)?
And we are not a spirit. We are mind, body, and spirit. To only address one is to miss the fullness and Truth of God's creation.
You can't find truth by shutting your mind and opening your soul, because then you aren't discerning what you are encountering. You're also rejecting the basis of the way God created us. At that point, truth is eluding you from the beginning, so you certainly won't find it later down the line.
In the end, it matters what God says. And if He says it in one holy book, then that book is His True Word. And since we are demonstrably fallible and incapable of attaining perfect truth, the only logical conclusion is that He would put His Word in an objective, external source that we can look to for guidance.
At that point, we only need have faith in Him and his Revelation, and not have faith in ourselves to try and figure out every little aspect of truth.
It isn't the work of men, it's the Gift of God. This is clearly a faith issue for many, and nothing else.
It's all about your relationship with Jesus Christ†, the Savior† of the world.
Jesus said that in the last days he will tell many that He never knew them.
One can not know Jesus Christ without the Bible. We wouldn't even know His name without It.
If someone can't see Him in His revelation to Man, then they don't truly know Him.
Not one of us here would even have an inkling of an idea about God without the "old book".
If the Bible is the perfect Truth, then it is impossible to know the truth and be awakened without reading It. On this topic, there are no opinions. It's far more important than that. Not something one can just approach however they feel like and be fine in the end if they weren't totally right.
The rejection of the Bible appears to me to be a total lack of faith in God. Instead, all that faith is being directed at the self. The self that we all know suffers from sin and from the fallibility of being human.
On your last point, you're not wrong. I've been raised in this new world with vast knowledge at my fingertips that are far better distilled, advanced and tuned to my brain than the Bible. Nothing against it, but It's incredibly boring to me. The Emerald Tablets were much more interesting to me, but I don't worship them.
I could be totally wrong and the Bible is the perfect truth, but to me, if it doesn't compute with me - and other avenues and stories do - but lead to the same truth, which is "truth" then I believe God doesn't care. He just wants us to know the truth, whether you read his manual or figure it out other ways, he just wants you to know the truth.
But you have a good point and you could be right. I'm just a Human and don't know, but have come to know the truth via other methods that have lead me to a much more austere and righteous life without it - However, it wasn't ME that came up with it. Many Lessons that I've gathered and lead me to the truth was distilled through youtube Videos ABOUT the Bible, such as the Bible project. Again, I just don't like reading it, maybe I'm just ADHD.
Does it need to be exciting? Or true? I'll admit that some of it can be just a tad boring, as unpleasant as it is to admit. But it's also extremely exciting to read the Gospels or to read a passage in the Old Testament that is clearly talking about Jesus Christ hundreds of years before he lived.
The Emerald Tablets piqued my interest because they were less well known. More esoteric. Not accepted and hidden away. This doesn't make them true, and is the perfect recipe to be led astray by the "fun" or "exciting" thing rather than lead to truth by the "boring" but true thing.
Truth is not to be based on feeling. Our feelings are not only often wrong or irrational, but they also contradict each other's feelings. This is why we need an objective standard.
I don't only believe things that I find agreeable. I do trust my intuition, to be clear, but when the Bible says something I didn't think was true, I look into it and find that the Bible is right or at least makes a perfectly valid and compelling case. So I change for God, I don't find a "god" that fits me. Because without an objective source of truth, something that I am not, there is no truth at all.
And the way I see it, if I always agree with God, I'm not agreeing with God. I'm just agreeing with myself. The notion that I'd get everything right exactly as God ordained it is highly unlikely in my mind.
To be clear, I always found this quite easy. I went from an agnostic to a hardliner Christian in a couple of months. It really feels more like a day. I realized one day I believed and everything changed. I found it exceptionally easy to just believe the Bible and cede my authority to God, which was quite the opposite of the mindset I'd been fostering spending a lot of time here on GAW, and of my general mindset all my life.
So I don't know what it is like to face the opposite problem of not wanting to cede my authority to God, or not finding it compelling. But I still think that to believe in God is to deny what you know to some degree. Some stuff will align, but we don't know everything and God does, so every truth we learn shouldn't necessarily go down easy, so to speak. There's going to be some big red pills in there. Some big ways of thinking that we aren't correct on.
And respectfully, how can you possibly believe you have found some kind of personal, spiritual truth when there are a dozen other people who claim the same thing, but they claim they were led to an exclusionary truth? Islam isn't compatible with Christianity, which isn't compatible with Judaism, which I'd assume isn't compatible with your spiritual beliefs.
Many of these "truths" contradict each other. They can not all be true. And if Islam is right, I'm going to Hell. Is Christianity is right, that could very well be your path. I don't intend to be one of those fire and brimstone "you're going to hell! Repent!" types, but it's a real possibility if you're wrong.
And what even is truth? If it comes from God, it is objective. Not something one gets to pick between several options on.
I mean, the truth I have found is that the only way to the Father is through the Lord Jesus Christ. This excludes every Muslim, every Jew, every Atheist, and every "spiritual but not religious" person. This certainly isn't the same truth you have found. So who is right? How do we know? Can we know?
I think we can, and I think God gives us exactly what we need in the Bible and His Church.
For one, the Bible makes verifiable, historical claims. The Gospels in particular lay out Jesus' life in a way that we can verify. And history does verify Christ's life as the Bible lays it out.
For another, it's uniquely based on salvation by grace and by Jesus' death on the cross to pay the price for our sins.
If you honestly just can't muster up the attention/focus/interest to read the Bible, I'd suggest going to Church. There was quite some time when the commoners were illiterate and relied on the Church for their teachings. Though, they were still getting the Word of God from the Bible, just in a way they understood. It may be more digestible if you find reading it yourself too boring.