How can we be sure that all religions are wrong?

@InfraBlue,

I try to avoid direct quoting but, no other way to settle this one. Read it in context.

The opening verse has God saying Job was a "perfect man".

Note that in vs 16 it was a messenger who said it was 'the fire of God' that burned them up. An understandable mistake since it was obviously a supernatural event (from Satan). Also note that God gave Satan the power to do these things, not that God himself did them.

Job 1:8-16 KJV
[8] And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? [9] Then Satan answered the Lord , and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? [10] Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. [11] But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. [12] And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord . [13] And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: [14] And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them: [15] And the Sabeans fell upon them , and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. [16] While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

Seeing as how I didn't say "Jehovah was the originator of Job's woes" it is your reading comprehension that is problematic along with your Bible.

No. Your claim was about "God".
Are you saying the fire from heaven was not from Jehovah?

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
Job 1:16 reads: “...the fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants..."
And you believe the fire was from the true God because?
InfraBlue wrote:
Where in Job does it say that Satan said the very best of men would turn away from God if things weren't going well, and God said, "You're on"?
An accusation against all men:
Quote:
But Satan answered Jehovah: “Skin for skin. A man will give everything that he has for his life. (Job 2:4)
In vs 6, Jehovah Gives Satan the permission.

It does say the fire of God, Elohim.

neologist wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
Where in Job does it say that Satan said the very best of men would turn away from God if things weren't going well, and God said, "You're on"?
An accusation against all men:
Quote:
But Satan answered Jehovah: “Skin for skin. A man will give everything that he has for his life. (Job 2:4)
In vs 6, Jehovah Gives Satan the permission.

The contention is between Satan and Job seeing as how the former is accusing the latter of being like any other man. God isn't objecting. He's giving permission, i.e. he's consenting to Satan's test of Job.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

Note that in vs 16 it was a messenger who said it was 'the fire of God' that burned them up. An understandable mistake since it was obviously a supernatural event (from Satan). Also note that God gave Satan the power to do these things, not that God himself did them.

This is pure conjecture not supported by the text itself.

1 Reply

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
Seeing as how I didn't say "Jehovah was the originator of Job's woes" it is your reading comprehension that is problematic along with your Bible.
No. Your claim was about "God".
Are you saying the fire from heaven was not from Jehovah?

I'm referring specifically to what Job 1:16 says, that the fire was from God, Elohim.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

Seeing as how I didn't say "Jehovah was the originator of Job's woes" it is your reading comprehension that is problematic along with your Bible.

neologist wrote:

No. Your claim was about "God".
Are you saying the fire from heaven was not from Jehovah?

InfraBlue wrote:

I'm referring specifically to what Job 1:16 says, that the fire was from God, Elohim.

Unless accompanied by a definite article, the term elohim does not always refer to the true God. It could apply to angels, idol gods, gods in general, even to men. In Job 1:16, it could apply only to the accuser.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

. . . This is pure conjecture not supported by the text itself.

I submit the conjecture is yours.

1 Reply

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Unless accompanied by a definite article, the term elohim does not always refer to the true God. It could apply to angels, idol gods, gods in general, even to men. In Job 1:16, it could apply only to the accuser.

That's only your dubious contention. The suggestion that, within this context, the messenger in the story would call Satan "God" is risible.

In Job 2:3 Yahweh tells Satan that Satan incited Yahweh against Job to ruin him without any reason.

Yahweh is not only consenting to Satan's test of Job, he's actively collaborating with Satan to test Job.

1 Reply

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
. . . This is pure conjecture not supported by the text itself.
I submit the conjecture is yours.

Where is it supported by the text?

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So, how is it that the Devil is ruling the world if not by God's permission, i.e. consent?

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@InfraBlue,

Apparently you have missed the point of Satan's allegation and the necessity of allowing time for its resolution.

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Every once in a while...I just gotta ask:

You people are being REAL?

You are not just kidding around to entertain us?

Really?

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@reasoning logic,

Then, how can we be sure that any one of hundreds of millions of religons is right?

Do you know how many people those religious people killed in the name of any God?

Some estimates it is more than 10 billion. Can you imagine that?

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Every once in a while...I just gotta ask:

You people are being REAL?

You are not just kidding around to entertain us?

Really?

Gollywhoppers, no, Frank.
The real fun is here.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

. . . In Job 2:3 Yahweh tells Satan that Satan incited Yahweh against Job to ruin him without any reason. . .

Quote:

And Jehovah said to Satan: “Have you taken note of my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth. He is an upright man of integrity, fearing God and shunning what is bad. He is still holding firmly to his integrity, even though you try to incite me against him to destroy him for no reason. (Job 2:3) - Emphasis mine

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

One thing that always helped me; is, try to break down things into basics. For instance; have you heard about the saying "Art imitates life?" Books as Movies follow a simple, and straightforward pattern.
1) Beginning.
2) Middle.
3) End.
Mihail Baryshnikov if I'm correct once said "Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun." Have you noticed how fun it is to read a book? or watch a movie? You know how they start, you know the struggles and worries that the main character goes through, and with that you're kinda able to predict how it'll end, nevertheless, you keep reading or watching just to confirm that what you were predicting is true, and most times it is, and when not, you find yourself greatly surprised, and you think to yourself "what an awesome book/movie!" am I right?
Using the same principle, you can dissect your problem for instance:
have you asked yourself:
1) Why Am I unhappy?
2) when did I started to feel unhappy?
3) how that happened?

For what I understand, you're trying to find the meaning of your life, and I'm not saying that I'm going to give you the meaning of your life. I just can give you the tools that made my life bearable so far, and I feel pretty good with what I have so far, but I'm not entirely happy, due that now, my flaw is that I don't know how to socialize with people that are not into looking for the reasons behind everything. and I'm using these tools to get there.
But enough of me, and going back to my point. you're following what I'm trying to propose you? I'm proposing you to find your trace back to the root of the problem of why you aren't happy. You started at the Beginning, and now you're in the middle, but you forgot how you end-up there in the first place, and you feel stuck( trust me, I've been there ) It always helped me to find my trace back to the root of my predicament, and meditate about it and retrace my way back to my middle. and it always jump-started my imagination and ingenuity to solve my predicaments, and predict how things were going to end. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work how it was suppose to but ends up working out or I just keep trying to figure things out using the principle in this post, and the principle in my previous post.

1 Reply

@JorgeMongelos,

Quote:

For what I understand, you're trying to find the meaning of your life, and I'm not saying that I'm going to give you the meaning of your life. I just can give you the tools that made my life bearable so far, and I feel pretty good with what I have so far, but I'm not entirely happy, due that now, my flaw is that I don't know how to socialize with people that are not into looking for the reasons behind everything. and I'm using these tools to get there.
But enough of me, and going back to my point. you're following what I'm trying to propose you? I'm proposing you to find your trace back to the root of the problem of why you aren't happy. You started at the Beginning, and now you're in the middle, but you forgot how you end-up there in the first place, and you feel stuck( trust me, I've been there ) It always helped me to find my trace back to the root of my predicament, and meditate about it and retrace my way back to my middle. and it always jump-started my imagination and ingenuity to solve my predicaments, and predict how things were going to end. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work how it was suppose to but ends up working out or I just keep trying to figure things out using the principle in this post, and the principle in my previous post.

I don't think you followed what I was saying. You proposed some measures for finding success/happiness in this world and suggested that I forget about looking to a "nonexistent God".

What I said is that I already found all the success and happiness there is in this world. It's been grand. I figured out all the answers to my 'predicaments' in this life already. My point was that I WANTED MORE!. I want the answer to life, universe and everything. Not just 'my life', screw 'my life' , I wanted the answer to ALL LIFE.

Your suggestions were all well and good for many of this life's little problems but they don't do squat for the big questions of life. Maybe you have never asked them?

I may not have all the details yet but I already found the basic answers. They came from that "nonexistent God" you told me to forget about.

1 Reply

@neologist,

This red herring does not address the question of how the Devil could rule the world without God's consent.

1 Reply

@neologist,

Quote:

Are you saying the fire from heaven was not from Jehovah?

I don't know what InfraBlue said about that but I said it was not from God. A messenger said it was from God but obviously he was mistaken. It was an understandable mistake since any supernatural fire might be assumed from God. In this case it was from Satan after he was given permission to distroy all Jobs possessions.

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
. . . In Job 2:3 Yahweh tells Satan that Satan incited Yahweh against Job to ruin him without any reason. . .
Quote:
And Jehovah said to Satan: “Have you taken note of my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth. He is an upright man of integrity, fearing God and shunning what is bad. He is still holding firmly to his integrity, even though you try to incite me against him to destroy him for no reason. (Job 2:3) - Emphasis mine

The New World Translation of your bolded text is a minority translation. Most of the other translations read either that Satan moved or is moving God to harm, ruin, destroy, etc. Job.

Young's Literal Translation
...and thou dost move Me against him to swallow him up for nought!

New International Version
...though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.

New Living Translation
...even though you urged me to harm him without cause.

English Standard Version
...although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.

New American Standard Bible
...although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.

King James Bible
...although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
...even though you incited Me against him, to destroy him without just cause.

New English Translation Bible
...so that you stirred me up to destroy him without reason.

JPS Tanakh 1917
...although thou didst move Me against him, to destroy him without cause.

American Standard Version
...although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

Douay-Rheims Bible
But thou hast moved me against him, that I should afflict him without cause.

Darby Bible Translation
...though thou movedst me against him, to swallow him up without cause.

New English Translation
...so that you stirred me up to destroy him without reason.

The International Standard Version reads: ...even though you have been urging me to overwhelm him without cause.

God's Word Translation reads like the NWT:
You're trying to provoke me into ruining him for no reason.

1 Reply

How can we be sure that all religions are wrong?

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