Originally posted by Marinkatomb
What i'm trying to get at here, is that the Bible was written by man, not by God or Jesus. This interpretation of the afterlife is so human it scares me (and it's meant to!)

Man is obsessed with morality. The Bible is a book of Moral guidelines, in much the same way as a countries laws are Moral guidelines. Each presents it's own incentive to 'conform us), the same fear that prevents us from being compassionate, forgiving, divine beings?

let me get this right:

Assuming the bible was written by man then we, as man, have created hell. hell is a human thing, not a God thing.

Then, as hell does not exist that implies heaven does not exist either.


or something along those lines?

The logic is fine, but your first assumption-that the bible was written by man-is where your argument fails.

Essentially, you are claiming if god does not exist then heaven and hell do not exist either. If God exists, However...well, surely he's going to have some input into his word? I mean, it is his word after all...?

Originally posted by jaywill
The content of the book, its wisdom, its fulfilled prophecies in many instances, are contributing factors to our believing that it is inspired.

The belief in divine inspiration of the Bible is not based soley on a circular claim of inspiration.

I have to point out that those points only become apparent to people who already believe it is inspired thus making it circular too.
Anyone reading the Bible without first assuming it is inspired immediately realizes that any apparently fulfilled prophecies are only fulfilled because the writers wrote it in order to achieve that goal.

Such an strawman argument is a real insult to some perceptive and intelligent minds. In some case I do think some scholars were keener in intelligence than most of us participating in this discussion.

And men like Tertullian, Cyprian, Agustine, were not so naive to believe in inspiration solely on a circular claim from the Bible. The CONTENT of the Bible had for them the stamp of divine inspiration supporting the claim.
No, most Christians believe in the inspiration claim because without it the religion falls flat. My point was that the main justification I have heard for it was a circular one.