2000 years ago, Jesus warned his early followers: “Not everyone who calls to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do my Father’s will may enter. On the Judgement Day many will say to me, ‘Lord, didn’t we prophesy, cast out demons, and do many miracles in your name?’ But I will say to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you that do evil!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23)
I would suggest that the thing which will condemn someone to hell, even though they profess to believe in Jesus, will be the person’s placing the Bible above God Himself. Fundamentalists have claimed for over a century that the Bible is the Word of God and is therefore infallible. This claim has no support whatsoever. Attempts to support it by references to the Bible are circular reasoning. Only God Himself should ever be seen as infallible, and since we have no direct contact with Him, we have nothing that may be considered infallible. The Bible, the Quran, and other religious books may be inspired by faith in God, but they are still human products, and are thus prone to error like all other human products. The Quran itself condemns the tendency of man to make partners with Allah, so should it be acceptable for any Muslim to make the Quran a partner with Allah?
In this physical world, there is NOTHING and NO ONE that may rightfully be called infallible!
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 
“I would suggest that the thing which will condemn someone to hell, even though they profess to believe in Jesus, will be the person’s placing the Bible above God Himself. Fundamentalists have claimed for over a century that the Bible is the Word of God and is therefore infallible. This claim has no support whatsoever.
Only God Himself should ever be seen as infallible, and since we have no direct contact with Him, we have nothing that may be considered infallible.”
Soooo…..if the Bible is just a collection of men in past times idea of what God was trying to say, then – what? Surely without the acceptance that the Bible is handed by God to man through divine inspiration, as God’s infallible word to His creation, then any old oddball doctrine – say gold plates from Joseph Smith, Jim Jones Socialism or Reverend Moon oddballness can simply claim God tells me things and this is truth. We have to have a measure by which doctrine is measured, or else we have the mess which people such as yourself who preach atheistic materialism. You’ll be telling us next we’re all stardust, LSD is good and we should hug a tree for Gaia (because God tells you so).
Harry
Soooo…..can you explain why the Bible should be seen as infallible, rather than the Quran, or Vedas, or the Book of Mormon? Indeed, I could claim divine inspiration for the very work above, and only your adherence to Biblical infallbiliy would make you deny it, not anything objective.
Nice try, though.
I would like to commend Dale on his excellent exposition of Matthew 7:21-23! It has rarely been said so well :-).
I also agree with Dale on the rest. Only G-d is infallible and has the right to judge.
Let me respond to Harry point by point:
“Soooo…..if the Bible is just a collection of men in past times idea of what God was trying to say, then – what?”
Indeed then what? Only a person who needs the threat of hell over him to act ethically and righteously would have to ask. The rest of us have no trouble living by what Torah says, because it makes sense or because it’s a good idea in itself. To us it really doesn’t matter if Torah came down directly from G-d to Moshe, or if it is a collection of edited rules for good living – what matters to us is G-d.
“Surely without the acceptance that the Bible is handed by God to man through divine inspiration, as God’s infallible word to His creation, then any old oddball doctrine – say gold plates from Joseph Smith, Jim Jones Socialism or Reverend Moon oddballness can simply claim God tells me things and this is truth.”
Of course, and they have every right to do so – because G-d is merely interested in what you DO – not how you came about what to do. Torah doesn’t need to be “handed by God to man through divine inspiration, as God’s infallible word to His creation” – because in the end it’s all about what we believe it to be, and what we do with it.
“We have to have a measure by which doctrine is measured…,”
The bitch about any Holy Scripture – be it Xtian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist – is that the only measure we have by which to measure it is BELIEF/FAITH. All we can scientifically establish about religious scriptures is an approximate time period of when it was first put to paper, where it was put to paper, and some times also by whom – but the actual objective truth or values of it’s contents cannot be established by science.
“…or else we have the mess which people such as yourself who preach atheistic materialism.”
So by what measure are you measuring yourself after you violated Torah witnessing false against your neighbor? It sure isn’t Torah.
“(Exo 20:16) (20:13) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
(Deu 5:20) (5:17) Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
I have known Dale for several years – and he does not preach atheistic materialism – nor has he ever done so as long as I have known him. He professes to be an agnostic – i.e he claims that the existence of G-d cannot be either proven or disproven. Rather than being a materialist he is very much an ethical/spiritual sceptic, which is far from being an atheist materialist.
You, Harry, on the other hand is a dreadful example for your badly hidden beliefs – actually proving Dale’s point right with every word you utter here.
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I just realized this myself. I would describe it this way: in believing that your interpretation is absolute you are deifying yourself, which is blasphemy. So fundamentalism is blasphemy. There’s really no logical argument against it. I wonder why it’s not common sense by this point.
I too was intimidated and scared to question the various doctrines.Now am getting the full picture and shall be living the rest if my life with more peace
Good! Keep reading entries from my blog about religion and see what you think.
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