The cornerstone of all Christian belief is the bible.
Their claim is that the bible was written by God and is the sole source of truth. I am not going to dispute that today. its not my purpose.
No, the purpose of this little post is to question their interpretation of the bible. Being just mere men or woman how do they know that they have interpreted the meaning of the bible correctly.
Of course they have an answer for that. Their answer is always. ‘God told me”. In other words they are saying God spoke to them personally and told them how to interpret the passage they just read out of his book.
I am fine with that … until … They get it wrong!
Getting it wrong
As a topical example lets look at Californian preacher Harold Camping. He was the preacher who recently rose to prominence with his claim that the Rapture was to occur on May 21 2011. He is now advocating Oct 21 2011 as the correct date.
He came to the earlier claim based on his study of the Bible. Now assuming he is like every other christian I have ever met and I have met a lot. Then he believes he was right because God spoke to him or guided him in his study.
So and you can see where I am going with this, Why was he wrong?
Either…
- God made a mistake.
- God was not involved at all.
- God deliberately mislead.
God doesn’t make mistakes
Now of course God cannot make mistakes so we will discount the first possibility, A misleading God? no, which only leaves the second.
Christians are Genuine
If God was not involved did Mr Camping deliberately lie? or did he believe God was guiding him?
Again I draw on my experience of my time with Christians. That is that they are genuine. They genuinely believe in what they say and what is told to them by other members of the church and their elders.
Because they genuinely believe in what they say and what they interpret from the bible, and they genuinely believe that God speaks to them. Then I believe that both Mr Camping believed God guided him and Mr Camping was wrong, God in fact was not involved at all.
If such a devout christian as Mr Camping can be so wrong and still believe God guides his action. Then I must say he is delusional. Can their be any other conclusion?
So where does this leave Christianity as a whole? This is the point of my precis. They too believe God is guiding them, but as I have carefully explained above they can be wrong. Which sort of overwhelmingly points to them all being delusional. Don’t you think?
And the Bible?
So now I am going to break my my own little promise above. Ask any christian HOW they knows the bible is correct, and not just a collection of stories put together over time.
They will answer you. “Because God told them so”. But as I have already pointed out they are delusional. Then where does the bible stand as the basis of all truth?
I’ll let you the dear reader consider that question.