Can one find God without studying the Bible?

Dis-Member

I don't recall Jesus ever once telling people that they should even read the bible to find God.

He said nothing about 'taking in knowledge' either.

He didn't encourage people to read the Bible because 90% of people in his day couldn't read! The Bible was not read by most people, it was -heard- when someone else read it aloud. If your faith is then just based upon what another person has read to you is that not 'putting faith and trust in men', something the Bible itself tells us never to do.

Even today, if you want to study the Bible you will spend more time reading exegetics and commentaries than the Bible itself. Churches exist for the purpose of standardising belief, so they don't just exhort you to read the Bible, they also tell you what it means. This again is other men's thoughts and not God's. If everyone read it independently, churches would become debating societies.

Let me ask this. Do you think it's possible to 'know' God and Jesus without having an extensive theological library and being able to quote from it with ease? Is it all about reading and study? Endless dead intellectualism?

Is God only really only for the educated? Is the only way to know God and Jesus through reading a book that is so massively open to being misinterpreted and twisted out of shape as we here all know too well.

How do blind people find God and Jesus, or deaf people, or people with severe mental problems, or people that are just not very smart.

Can one find and 'know' God and Jesus through pure spiritual or emotional, personal experience alone?

DeWandelaar

You were fxxxed if you could not read... It is unfair in the first place that people should believe things purely because they are written. That is also why it can not be true :)

Edited for language, posting guideline 3 - jgnat

nicolaou

First, define what it means to 'know something'.

For example, I know that 2+2 will always equal 4. I also know that my wife loves me. Personal and emotional experience counts a hell of a lot in one case but amounts to NOTHING for the other.

Does 'knowing' something involve proof for you or is this just another woolly, ill-defined theistic version of knowing .. .

Phizzy

Why would anyone wish to find god, and which god anyway ? Thor is a good one.

The Bible is over 90% fiction, the god you find in there is 100% fiction.

confusedandalone

Why would you want to find the guy that wants to kill everyone he created for not making him happy beccause he made them incapable of making him happy?

cofty

Tammy will be along in a minute. Shall I copy-paste the "go to christ" speech now to save time?

Millions of people claim to know god through emotion and personal experience. They all disagree about what god likes and dislikes but when you examine it carefully you find that their god likes exactly the same things they do and vice-versa. Odd isn't it?

There was a scientific study a few years ago using MRI scanners to look at believers brains when they are asked ethical questions. The part of our brains that process what we think, and the part that processes what we think others think are different.

Can you guess what they discovered?

Turns out god is the ultimate sockpuppet.

jgnat

I am reminded of Paul's speech at Athens, "To the Unknown God" - Acts 17:16-34.

I am moved to a state of reverence and awe when I gaze on a mountain, for instance, or in to the endless depths of the stars.

DATA-DOG

Scripturally speaking, what was the purpose of the Law? A tutor, leading to the Christ. What did Gentiles do when they followed their conscience? They did the things of the Law. So can you know God without studying the Bible? That's a tough one. I suppose you could to an extent, you could know spirituality.

It's a great question because according to the writings that we now call the Bible, humans knew their creator in the beginning.

Cofty,

All that matters is what we do.

cofty

What we believe influences what we do.

DATA-DOG

Very true. That's why I hate organized religion and extremists.

I had a Great-Aunt who recently passed away. She was a Christian woman, she believed in God. She was a school teacher as well. She used to help all kinds of people. She even took a female student, who was a lesbian, under her wing. She helped this young woman and her partner monetarily, physically, emotionally, spiritually. That was quite brave in my Great-Aunt's generation. So her being a Christian influenced her actions.

You may have done the same actions for different reasons. So, in the end, it only matters what we do. We can claim any belief system or no belief system, but what are we doing?

Can one find God without studying the Bible?

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