Would you believe in God if holy texts were different

[amorphous_constellation]

Could the written material actually play a major role in what is stopping you from believing? There are many ways the material could probably be different. In the bible there is an emphasis on war at times, and the morality can be quite ancient and severe. If alternatively, the bible was a pure doctrine of the best clear cut philosophical morals, with no parsing through metaphor and hard to understand riddle-like wisdom, would that make more of an impression on you. What if it even contained science, perhaps conveyed to prophets, telling us how to produce the best medicines or engineer electrics cars the best way. Or organize cities and government most efficiently, in a manner that was straight to the point. Instead, it obliges you to dig laboriously through ancient stories from the iron age like an archeologist. And from a long story of twists and turns arcane and hard to understand, you wrest from it what you believe is some relevant ingot of wisdom. But what if everything were crystal clear, with no twists and turns and controversy. With one simple testament relevant to all of modernity with principles clear as a mountain stream, with no need for clashing schools of interpretation and debate.

 

[lukethethird]

Would you believe in God if holy texts were different
All holy books are different.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

"Holy texts," are still texts written by humans. I do not believe in Ents just because JRR Tolkien wrote about them. I don't believe in Never Never Land just because JM Barrie wrote about it.

There has to be some sort of reason for me to believe anything. And that reason cannot be simply that I don't know, so I'll accept whatever somebody tells me. I am content to say "I don't know" when I don't. That still leaves me the opportunity to find out!

And what you call "holy texts" are merely the musings of admittedly thoughtful humans trying to understand a world that was amazingly beyond their ability to comprehend. How do you understand disease if you have no microscopes to see the germs that plague us? How do you understand natural disasters like storms and earthquakes, or how do you figure out deformities or madness, with no notion of DNA or neuroscience? (Remember, the Egyptians thought the brain was only for cooling the blood! It was the only organ they threw out, preserving the rest in canopic jars.)

Scripture is questioning, sometimes brilliant, minds, trying to work out the truths of the world they lived in, and deserve our respect for their efforts. But like other thinkers, for example the Greek Philosophers and the Roman Lucretius (De Rerum Natura -- On the Nature of Things), their brilliant efforts have been mostly supplanted by our increasing ability to simply observe.

So no, changing the texts won't do anything to change my mind. You want to change my mind about God, you need to provide something, anything, observable about God. And it cannot be something that you ascribe to God simply because you have no better explanation.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Could the written material actually play a major role in what is stopping you from believing? There are many ways the material could probably be different. In the bible there is an emphasis on war at times, and the morality can be quite ancient and severe. If alternatively, the bible was a pure doctrine of the best clear cut philosophical morals, with no parsing through metaphor and hard to understand riddle-like wisdom, would that make more of an impression on you. What if it even contained science, perhaps conveyed to prophets, telling us how to produce the best medicines or engineer electrics cars the best way. Or organize cities and government most efficiently, in a manner that was straight to the point. Instead, it obliges you to dig laboriously through ancient stories from the iron age like an archeologist. And from a long story of twists and turns arcane and hard to understand, you wrest from it what you believe is some relevant ingot of wisdom. But what if everything were crystal clear, with no twists and turns and controversy. With one simple testament relevant to all of modernity with principles clear as a mountain stream, with no need for clashing schools of interpretation and debate.

It will take a God to know a god.

Not a book or any type of written medium.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

It will take a God to know a god.

Not a book or any type of written medium.

what do you mean

 

[amorphous_constellation]

All holy books are different.

Yeah I know. But if there's a truly monistic holy force, why should there be

 

[amorphous_constellation]

How do you understand disease if you have no microscopes to see the germs that plague us? How do you understand natural disasters like storms and earthquakes, or how do you figure out deformities or madness, with no notion of DNA or neuroscience?

What I'm saying is that if any of those things were explained in perfect detail by a prophet, wouldn't that be convincing? Why would the ultimate being leave that stuff for us to figure out with few clues as how to approach them.

 

[Windwalker]

But what if everything were crystal clear, with no twists and turns and controversy. With one simple testament relevant to all of modernity with principles clear as a mountain stream, with no need for clashing schools of interpretation and debate.

Fascinating question! Interesting line of thought. To answer as best I can, I don't think that would be possible. All truths are interpreted at the level of development someone is at. So there is no one-size-fits-all solution or answer. Each answer is heard in a number of ways, each within the domain of the system of thought for that particular stage of development.

An Enlightened Master may speak deep truths to his students, but their students understandings will pale by comparison to the that of the Master's. This is just a fact of the way things work with understanding and meaning. It's relative to the hearer's reality. End of story, almost.

This is not to say that higher truth is not registered at some level by the hearer within their own which is transcendent to it. But the realization of that truth may take an entire lifetime, or then some, to be understood. So I do not believe it is possible for there to be some crystal-clear understanding to be had, save from the person utterly dissolving any dualistic conceptualizations in a direct Realization of Absolute Truth, at which point, it would be nothing they could communicate with absolute certainty to any hearer.

The Realization of Absolute Truth, is an on an individual path of Awakening. It's a proposition to tell the human mind that it might comprehend, and thus transcend itself. It begins with not-knowing, not better information.

 

[Brickjectivity]

But what if everything were crystal clear, with no twists and turns and controversy. With one simple testament relevant to all of modernity with principles clear as a mountain stream, with no need for clashing schools of interpretation and debate.

Everyone would find new lies to tell. The language would drift, making the books nearly unreadable. Culture would warp itself around the books to make them incomprehensible. Folks would focus on minutia while abandoning the intentions, thus obscuring them.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

The Realization of Absolute Truth, is an on an individual path of Awakening. It's a proposition to tell the human mind that it might comprehend, and thus transcend itself. It begins with not-knowing, not better information.

And that's a problem, the fact that spiritual truth is opaque. Maybe that would have been a better thread title: Why is spiritual truth always opaque? It's opaque and arcane no matter which path you go on, looking 360 degrees around yourself to whatever wisdom you want to master. The foibles of the prophet, hero, creation story, or taboo law are everywhere revealed in short anecdotal sayings or verses from which you must pry the meaning, using the lever of years-steeped enlightenment to let the light in. I want real magic... to command flocks of birds with a word, to walk on water, to defeat mortality.

 

[Windwalker]

And that's a problem, the fact that spiritual truth is opaque. Maybe that would have been a better thread title: Why is spiritual truth always opaque? It's opaque and arcane no matter which path you go on, looking 360 degrees around yourself to whatever wisdom you want to master. The foibles of the prophet, hero, creation story, or taboo law are everywhere revealed in short anecdotal sayings or verses from which you must pry the meaning, using the lever of years-steeped enlightenment to let the light in. I want real magic... to command flocks of birds with a word, to walk on water, to defeat mortality.

Well the real question is why is it opaque. That's what I hear you saying. The answer I offer is that it's actually crystal clear, no need to translate anything. The opaqueness is our own way of preserving truth and reality that makes it obscure.

If we stop this obsession with trying to figure things out through our egos and reasonings, then it's as obvious as our lungs. You don't have to work to achieve breathing. You simply be quite, and breathe. It's all perfectly obvious, when we simply let it be and breathe it in.

 

[Enoch07]

Everyone would find new lies to tell. The language would drift, making the books nearly unreadable. Culture would warp itself around the books to make them incomprehensible. Folks would focus on minutia while abandoning the intentions, thus obscuring them.

So not much difference then. Just different names of different people/beings. But the same old arguments and frothing at the mouth?

 

[Brickjectivity]

So not much difference then. Just different names of different people/beings. But the same old arguments and frothing at the mouth?

Image your shock when nine centuries from now you wake up from an ageless sleep to find that your internet comments have become someone's scriptures?

 

[Enoch07]

Image your shock when nine centuries from now you wake up from an ageless sleep to find that your internet comments have become someone's scriptures?

Easy now, I think you just gave a ton of people nightmares for the rest of their lives!

But I would just end it right then and there, before I have a chance to abuse my new found power.

 

[Windwalker]

Image your shock when nine centuries from now you wake up from an ageless sleep to find that your internet comments have become someone's scriptures?

I often wonder if this is how religions get born. Hate to think of what they might look like.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Image your shock when nine centuries from now you wake up from an ageless sleep to find that your internet comments have become someone's scriptures?

Well it seems to me that since the start of the human project, the 'truth' has been something that everyone has pursued in a very, very long process of discovery. But I'm not sure how tradition typically ever felt about that, it typically wanted to give you the concrete structure that you abide by, no editing allowed. But the fact is, the truth is always discovered, and slowly. I think maybe everything we write here might be relevant, it's all part of the idea/word soup that future historians nine centuries later might boil down into ever more concentrated wisdom, discarding the parts that make no sense and integrating the good bits.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I often wonder if this is how religions get born. Hate to think of what they might look like.

Maybe the birth of religion looks like this, what if we're all actually partaking of it right now. I debate with you / then you debate with him/her, someone else joins in. Nine centuries later the astounded philosophers see us as sages, toughing it out in the archaic centuries of civilizational birth.

 

[Left Coast]

Could the written material actually play a major role in what is stopping you from believing? There are many ways the material could probably be different. In the bible there is an emphasis on war at times, and the morality can be quite ancient and severe. If alternatively, the bible was a pure doctrine of the best clear cut philosophical morals, with no parsing through metaphor and hard to understand riddle-like wisdom, would that make more of an impression on you. What if it even contained science, perhaps conveyed to prophets, telling us how to produce the best medicines or engineer electrics cars the best way. Or organize cities and government most efficiently, in a manner that was straight to the point. Instead, it obliges you to dig laboriously through ancient stories from the iron age like an archeologist. And from a long story of twists and turns arcane and hard to understand, you wrest from it what you believe is some relevant ingot of wisdom. But what if everything were crystal clear, with no twists and turns and controversy. With one simple testament relevant to all of modernity with principles clear as a mountain stream, with no need for clashing schools of interpretation and debate.

If the typical God posited by monotheists (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc.) actually existed, that's certainly much closer to what you'd expect than what we have. If understanding God's teachings/ expectations is of such paramount importance, as is imagined by the major monotheistic faiths, surely he'd come up with a method of transmitting that teaching in a way that is completely clear to everyone.

 

[InChrist]

If the typical God posited by monotheists (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc.) actually existed, that's certainly much closer to what you'd expect than what we have. If understanding God's teachings/ expectations is of such paramount importance, as is imagined by the major monotheistic faiths, surely he'd come up with a method of transmitting that teaching in a way that is completely clear to everyone.

According to the scriptures it is clear to everyone...

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Romans 1:20-21

Yet, if one refuses to even acknowledge what is clearly obvious concerning God's existence, then they will be oblivious to understanding any further spiritual truths and realities...

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 2:10-14

 

[Twilight Hue]

what do you mean

Books really don't / can't do anything if there isn't anything of substance to go with it.

Changing words will not make any difference if the object of those words remains non-existant.