The Bible as Miraculous Secular Instrument

[Lacewing]

Lacewing, to you and others on this site, I've yet to 'relearn' how to form replies using the quotes for posting. Sorry, I'll get to it. At eighty-nine it seems like I'm always too busy doing nothing.

I do gain some comfort in believing God has a plan that is above my paygrade. I say that because of verses like — Philippians 1:15–18 "Even in Unrighteousness, Christ Is Preached" — they give me a pause in judgements made about religious doctrines.
Because, in the final analysis, I'm a product of such teaching. I question, what would I now not know had I not been taught lessons I now consider foolishness? What benefit does my present thinking enjoy?

Hey, congratulations on experiencing 89 years on this planet and still asking great questions!

Very true... we are products of the teachings we might have decided to move past. All of it contributes to where we travel to. I am very grateful for the journey and the opportunity for life even though there have been some very brutal parts. Those have been, no doubt, what spurred me to look/reach beyond the conventional. I've never wanted to settle when I knew there was so much more... and always is.

Even though I get rowdy on this forum I do recognize something I could call divine within all forms. Many faces... many behaviors... of the same thing. Dancing and wrestling with each other, perhaps to create more consciously. And I can imagine love permeating ALL, as life plays out. Those who do 'bad things', do not understand all the ripples that result from that. We can be foolish, destructive children. I don't think that condemns us.

[Walker]

Even with a great faith in God’s ability to make anything possible, it is impossible for me to rectify stories like Samson killing a thousand soldiers with the jawbone of an ass. It may be a story in a form like a fable and there may indeed be a lesson, or moral, to the story, but I can’t in my wildest allowance for God’s power, believe it. Nor do I believe we are supposed to accept it as true.

LOL ----- well first leave aside "numbers" << and the term, applied to soldiers, can mean a troop/war band the same way the term "commander of a thousand" means a military rank, not how many troops he actually had >>

More important, a SICKLE not such an improbably weapon with which to reap an enemy. How do you think sickles were constructed n the bronze age? You COULD make one of bronze, but copper was money and a sickle blade made of bronze would cost more than the farm! So in the bronze age, ordinary poor folk still using flint (and flint still used for ceremonial purposes like sacrificial knife, circumcision, etc.). So how do you make a functioning sickle using flints? You take the jawbone of a horse or ass and glue flints into the tooth sockets. Then lash on a handle.

No good reason to assume the "jawbone of an ass" refers to one before made into sickle. Given the context of being used as an effective weapon, makes sense to assume after flints inserted.

He had to be Rambo without a gun to create such a legendary story.

In the movie version, Sampson wedged himself into a corner of boulders so the bad guys couldn’t gang up on him. So, his fight was one on one, over and over again ..; not one against a thousand all at once.

It’s the same strategy the Romans used to defeat Boudica and her heathen hoards.

[Walker]

Even with a great faith in God’s ability to make anything possible, it is impossible for me to rectify stories like Samson killing a thousand soldiers with the jawbone of an ass. It may be a story in a form like a fable and there may indeed be a lesson, or moral, to the story, but I can’t in my wildest allowance for God’s power, believe it. Nor do I believe we are supposed to accept it as true.

Refreshing logic and clarity.

It does not make sense that it would be wise or divine to be blind followers/believers of anything. Deception and detours (and mankind's manipulations) come in many forms -- most effectively in that which we trust without question. Staying clear and noticing them for what they are is surely a divine thing to do!

An unstated subset of the thread's theme is ...

How can there be secular explanations for Biblical miracles ... explanations other than the divinely inspired, who delivered the word of God, were lying, which is what Mortalsfool proposes.

So, get with the program, Lacy.
Secular explanations are being proposed to explain the inexplicable ... based on suspension of disbelief, which creates the assumption that the miracle in fact did happen.

Pick a supernatural miracle in the Holy Bible and determine the secular conditions, known and unknown, that could cause that miraculous reaction.

[Walker]

He had to be Rambo without a gun to create such a legendary story.

Tendon strength, not puffed-up creatine, and whatever else.

Farmer strength.

Check out Anatoli on Youtube.
(raised on a farm)

[Mortalsfool]

Walker, you asked,
‘How can there be secular explanations for Biblical miracles ... explanations other than the divinely inspired, who delivered the word of God, were lying, which is what Mortalsfool proposes.’

Mortalsfool wrote: Is it so hard to believe that something was created with supernatural power, to accomplish miraculous appearing results in the secular world. I think there can be no question about the power the Bible attributes to the capabilities of words. If you go by what the Bible has to say about those powers, there is a wide allowance for words to do more than just express their mundane meanings. The requirement put forth in my premise is, that mutual love is the only way to gain the connection necessary to be taught all the understandings of God’s ways. that knowledge is not taught in Sunday school. As far as the ability to do so is concerned, the Bible’s ability to do what it does, is no more of a mystery than the secularly understood mechanics that limit the mutual connection of love in a love letter.

If the Bible was so designed to furnish a means of communication to impart what God wants to teach his followers that reciprocate his love, it just means it was another one of his creations for which all glory still goes to him. It miraculously serves its purposes by disclosing the secular curiosities and also expands its meanings to those being taught the promised learning and ‘understanding’, which in turn serve to fulfill God’s promises to teach his mysteries.

As for the miracles, they may in fact be no different than the forms fables are presented in, a base story not meant to believe, like animals doing human like things, with a moral that is to be considered, understood and believed. The cute stories that makeup the base story of a fable, are not lies, they are just not true. Nor are they expected to be believed. Perhaps the miracles are the same? We have all learned the valuable lessons the miracles exampled. I, being a thinking reasoning human being have to consider, in our lifetimes, something that is undeniably true, all of us have read and heard about those miracles, but so far as we know, the laws of science have never been violated. So, if a miracle can be rectified with the laws that govern the existence we witness, I will entertain my full belief.

Tomorrow I will make an effort to learn how to properly post on the site. I do appreciate your tolerance in not trolling me for my ineptness.

[Lacewing]

So, get with the program, Lacy.
Secular explanations are being proposed to explain the inexplicable ... based on suspension of disbelief, which creates the assumption that the miracle in fact did happen.

Pick a supernatural miracle in the Holy Bible and determine the secular conditions, known and unknown, that could cause that miraculous reaction.

Who made you the program police? I've already commented on what I think of biblical miracles.

[Walker]

[Walker]

Troll is a projection upon me, that I bear with broad shoulders.



*

My point is, the divinely inspired cannot be a lie or else it's ... demonic.

If everything in the Holy Bible is not accepted literally, then where can poor, puny humans draw the line between truth and unicorns?

The answer to that is, the line is drawn where the known meets the unknown.

However, that line changes and has changed. For example, after modern physics came along with the talk of the big bang, the line changed and the Biblical creation made more sense to folks who look more to the principle rather than stuck on quibbles over details.

However, those who insist on the Holy Bible toeing the line of preconceptions don't venture further down the road that becomes faith.

[Lacewing]

My point is, the divinely inspired cannot be a lie or else it's ... demonic.

When you only consider extremes, in order to justify your extreme, you are choosing ignorance.

[Walker]

My point is, the divinely inspired cannot be a lie or else it's ... demonic.

When you only consider extremes, in order to justify your extreme, you are choosing ignorance.

Is the subjective you the arbiter of what is true and what is not true in the Holy Bible?

[Lacewing]

the divinely inspired cannot be a lie or else it's ... demonic.

When you only consider extremes, in order to justify your extreme, you are choosing ignorance.

Is the subjective you the arbiter of what is true and what is not true in the Holy Bible?

You are seriously disturbed and delusional. So, whatever you're following or intoxicated with, I'm not interested because it clearly attracts whack-jobs to feed on it... and apparently does you no good.

[Dubious]

My point is, the divinely inspired cannot be a lie or else it's ... demonic.

When you only consider extremes, in order to justify your extreme, you are choosing ignorance.

Is the subjective you the arbiter of what is true and what is not true in the Holy Bible?

History is and history does not favor the bible with anything amounting to holy or miraculous. It's the belief in the bible as divinely inspired which is thoroughly subjective and only idiots accept in every detail starting with an Original Mating Couple using the pejorative evolutionism to give it biblical credence.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You are seriously disturbed and delusional. So, whatever you're following or intoxicated with, I'm not interested because it clearly attracts whack-jobs to feed on it... and apparently does you no good.

On the other side of the psychological game of declaring who is and who is not “disturbed and delusional” is a stance, a perspective, that could say the same essential thing to you (and really I mean to a wide class of people who are, and here is the key: illiterate and who suffer lack of nourishment on many levels).

So let me start with an initial framing statement: If you cannot see what is elevated and indeed “holy” in the Scriptures (and note: all throughout our Occidental history important people have done just that), how might we realistically assess your issue? Here is one avenue to pursue: Have you read Shakespeare? Were you ever moved by a sense of profound intelligence moving through his portrayals and poetry? Like in Hamlet or King Lear?

I doubt you have read Shakespeare and this is some part of my point: Though it is harsh I must toss up in your face that you come across as an ignoramus in the literal sense of the word. You have intelligence, but you have not put it to work.

Really, if you cannot grasp what is meaningful, relevant, exalted and pertinent in the Scriptures, it is quite simply because of a certain dullness that is strong in you. It’s very “girlish”, very saucy and effusive, but your discourse is extremely shallow. How might this be changed?

Yes, you escaped a very confining Christian upbringing, but did the people who raised you really have an emotional or intellectual elevation to present you with a vision of ‘the sacred’ that really moved you genuinely? Obviously not.

To be illiterate is not a sin in itself. Aldous Huxley stated poignantly that 95% of people are woefully such. That is terrifying when you think of it. That is a good reason to consider the relevance of Ortega y Gasset’s “The Revolt of the Masses”. It pictures the rise, the expansion, of a vulgar class of men, of vulgar quality, into all important posts in our society.

But though illiteracy is not a sin it is certainly a failing. And a gurgling vagina though its ‘music’ may have a certain charm if it is correctly tuned, cannot in any sense nor in any way compete with what has been expressed in Scripture and what it has inspired.

[Walker]

When you only consider extremes, in order to justify your extreme, you are choosing ignorance.

Is the subjective you the arbiter of what is true and what is not true in the Holy Bible?

You are seriously disturbed and delusional. So, whatever you're following or intoxicated with, I'm not interested because it clearly attracts whack-jobs to feed on it... and apparently does you no good.

The obvious answer to the shunned question is …

No, you are not the objective arbiter of truth in the Holy Bible.

Of course ... Irrational, inference-rules defying, insipid subjectiveness does not make one the objective arbiter of the Holy Bible or of anything else other than personal, feeble attempts of impotent, totalitarian affectations.

That would be included in the facts of life talk if children could only understand.

[Walker]

But though illiteracy is not a sin it is certainly a failing. And a gurgling vagina though its ‘music’ may have a certain charm if it is correctly tuned, cannot in any sense nor in any way compete with what has been expressed in Scripture and what it has inspired.

“Divinely inspired” can be, and is, in reference to both the product and the proper motive to move off the couch (other than to be servant of the body).