Who is really in charge of inspiration?

A message by Nuggin in the now-closed "Is The Bible Authoritative and Truly Inspired?" thread reminded me of a more general theological question which on the surface, appears to have no reasonably stable and strong answer. Perhaps some of the more religiously-minded debators here can give it a shot.For brief background: many if not all religions claim that their sacred texts and doctrines are inspired by the deity in question, divine in origin and worthy of the respect one gives to one's ultimate superior.On the other hand, many of these religions also feature some form of personified evil e.g. Satan who is notorious for playing tricks on the faithful (and indeed anybody providing the opportunity) or trying to twist them into signing over their souls to evil. These tricks and plots are sometimes quite devious, which makes one wonder exactly what limits could be placed on something supposedly tough and smart enough to have challenged a god and not been annihilated immediately. The question is this: how do the faithful know that their holy text is truly divine in origin, and not just the best trick ever devised by some evil god, demigod or other superbeing;
how do you tell who really inspired that scripture?Discussion preferably limited to methods and/or facts which are involved in determining the being(s) responsible for the above, and criticisms of said methods and facts.
I'm guessing Bible A&I or Bible Study; whichever is more appropriate.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add one more blank line.

Take it up with the people who believe that stuff. I don't believe the book fullstop, so criticising a belief derived from it or from some group associated with it means nothing to me. That is indeed the question.However, none of what you wrote after that answered that question. You study the Bible, and therefore you know that the Bible was inspired by your god. You completely ignore the point: how do you know it's actually your god and not a masquerading malignant? How could you tell that your god is real and true as compared to any other?"The Bible says so" is not a sufficient answer. I can answer it with "the Quran says so" or "the Vedas say so" or whatever other holy text comes up on Google with a section stating that its deity(ies) alone are the true ones.So, by what method can you distinguish the inspiration of that text as the one true god from the inpiration of any other text?

The serpent in Eden tricking Eve and then Adam into eating the fruit.

The temptation of Jesus (offering bread, "all the kingdoms of the world", etc.).
Is the first an example of playing tricks on the faithful, or is it not?
Is the second an example of trying to get someone to sign themselves over to evil, or not?

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And as for other religions -- because were you really so conceited as to think using a Biblical example meant I only wanted to hear about the Bible? -- how about Quran 38:80*, 7:15*: the devil will "beguile" anybody he can into living an evil life or disobeying the direct order of Allah. Also, 17:60* "... Satan promises them nothing but deceit".

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* give or take.
There's three. But I suppose since you aren't taking this too seriously, you won't really need more.

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You ask "But how do you know you are right?" I have evidence that I am on the right track. That is all I need - indications that I am going down the right road.

Believers in the Quran, the Vedas, the teachings of Buddhism, Sikhism, Daoism could easily give the same answer.
So such a method is inconclusive in determining whether it's the right god.

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Besides that, how do you know it is the God you say you believe in doing that? What tells you that it isn't the devil or Basement Cat or a repeat of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's intoxication making you feel good about doing something?

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What you are really talking about is tolerance, I think. I think a truly tolerant person is one who has a firm belief himself. I have met many a sloppy person who has no clue what to believe. They are simply clueless about the meaning of their lives. They fancy themselves as very tolerant.

No, I am not talking about tolerance. I am talking about how why any firm believer can be sure that their god(s) is/are the correct god(s) on the basis of "this book says so". I'll thank you not to drive this off-topic.

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You are still ignoring the fact that a) that book could have easily been written or inspired by the devil/Basement Cat/an immortal evil banana, and b) that anything you perceive as coming from the god you believe in can easily be a trick played by said devil/cat/banana.
So, once again: how do you tell that your god is the real or true one instead of just a deception?

As others have pointed out, jaywill, you've done nothing but beg the question."How do you know it is really God and not Satan?"
"Because God says so in the book he wrote."
"But how do you know it was really God?"
"Because he says he is God."
"Yes, obviously he does. But how do you know that he is really God?"
"Because he says he is and I believe him."Does this not seem a little silly to you?As for asking why Satan would "predict" his own failure: isn't one of his nicknames "the great deceiver"? There are these things called lies. It involves making shit up from your imagination, as opposed to a factual basis, to make somebody think something contrary to fact.Buz: apologies if this appears rude, but go away. I'm not interested in your "fulfilled prophecy" shit derailing this thread.
You may be interested to know that two-thirds of your holy book is the Torah and a substantial part of the Quran is a hodge-podge of both. That's at least three religions all sharing whatever prophecies are contained in their books. If one has them fulfilled, all of them do. Your particular cult doesn't have more of a monopoly than any other fundy literalist.

Hey dickwit, if you paid attention, I specifically asked in the original post that this be about methods and facts that demonstrate the inspiration for any and all holy texts to be who they say they are.
Not a place for him to trot out the same stuff he's apparently been trying for literally years wherever he had the chance.Even in the case that his viewpoint was relevant, I cleanly disembowelled his position that his book alone contained fulfilled prophecy and that his cult alone could use this as verification of their inspitration's divinity.If he wants to expound his views after being so easily dismissed, there are ways for him to do so, e.g. by starting a thread (AFAIK some already do exist). If you don't like my lack of subtlety in stating the above facts and wanting a straight answer to the straight question I asked, then you may as well get lost yourself.
I notice you rather entirely ignored the point which was directed specifically at you in that message.On topic. Please. Once again:

Very well then Buz, I'll indulge your incessant desire to push prophecy at people and claim it as fulfilled.Let's assume for the sake of argument that these prophecies are fulfilled and valid.
That still does not provide any evidence whatsoever to determine the person or entity that inspired those prophecies to be the god you worship.How do you know it is your god that really wrote those prophecies, and not Satan or the Devil or Loki or Basement Cat?

No, that is not the topic.We are questioning the identity of any inspiration, and assuming the inspiration where necessary for the sake of argument. Yes, indeed we are left with only circular reasoning. No, it's not something that requires deeper digging; it really is as simple as the circular logic being circular.Hence, how do we know it really is that god saying so, and not somebody pretending to be him/her/it? We must require something external, which nobody has yet presented.

Yet further dodging.How do you know it is actually God's heart? How do you know it is God's word?Relying on some form of circular logic ("the Bible is right ebcause the Bible says so") or subjective experience ("I know it's God because he told me he was God") is not sufficient.

The thread is in "Bible Study" because the forum doesn't have a general "Holy Text Study". While the example I used was of course Christianish, 'twas so because it's the first one to jump into my head.The question is intended to get people to think about their faith. The creotards and godbots here won't be shaken from their blind worshipping, but the ones who have a somewhat less tenuous grip on reality will begin to wonder: why do I believe this thing without any evidence?And they will see that out of dozens of different concepts and ideas and stories, they make one exception to the otherwise-solid rule of "evidence first, acceptance later". They will then start to wonder further: why that one exception? Many will continue to think it is because of some calling or some spirit entering them or merely because "it is the truth!".But a few, a rational few, will recognise that there really is no reason for that exception. And they will discard it in favour of thinking critically, of not going along with the fairy tales.
If naught but one person gets that, then that is still one more person managing to see the farce of faith for what it is.

Thank you for the enlightened condescension, CS.But no, the question is not equivalent to asking whether anything is real or not.You posit one supernatural entity with having done one thing, yet you have entirely no evidence of this action. You then claim that no, it could not have been another entity at all, again with no corroborating evidence.
You're the one who thinks some magical sky-fairy crept into a guy's head and convinced him to write a book a couple of dozen centuries ago, not me.I'm asking you how you know it was that sky-fairy and not another. Personally, I think the notion of sky-fairies is laughable in the extreme, but consider me curious as to why the mind would accept something despite not having a rational basis for it.
Seeing as you've admitted you can't and don't know, why are you so sure in your faith then? I seem to recall that children should be weaned away from the use of security blankets relatively early in life. But then again, acting like sheep seems to be a motif of Catholicism.

More likely, the product of a dozen years' attempted indoctrination and the continued pervasion in society; also given that it's one most people here would identify with easily. I suppose they do. But whose authority is the question. But then again, if I do find evidence showing something not to be factual, I'd change accordingly. Tentative acceptance of the facts when they can be/are consistent is somewhat the nature of rationality; dogma has a slight issue in that respect. I'm convinced that having faith in something without any form of objective external support is a bit silly, yes.
The fact that people believe is not so much the issue, but more the fact that they believe it is one thing when it could easily be another, quite different thing. Coupled with the idea that they base their argument on their belief it is the first thing. yes, 'tis nice to be lauded for one's effort every so often. As will a number of people more intelligent and supposedly more enlightened as well. Got no problem with somebody saying it's faith and leaving it at that; if they begin trying to tell me they know for sure directly after saying they can't know for sure, well, that would understandably be a good reason to get annoyed.
Am I to take it your answer to the question is also "we don't know" then?

If there are those who acknowledge that having faith means that they can't be sure -- such as yourself, obviously -- and wish to leave it at that, then fine by me.It's those who claim, either explicitly by statement or implicitly by arguing in support of the position, that they can and do know for sure, whom I wish to hear from. So far, it appears none have given anything to support their position vis. it is definitely -- if I may borrow the Dr's analogy -- Alice the nice girl and not Bob the psycho that did the graffiti.

Isn't the whole point of a discussion forum to discuss things?They make the claim, I'd like to see evidence for it. Exactly as you and many others would say if somebody claimed they had evidence 'disproving' evolution.

Except I am not questioning the mere fact that they have been "spoken" to, but also the identity of the speaker.How do they know it is who they think it is?
Were they programmed with some special secret code that would only recognise God? Is there some kind of devil-detector that only certain people are able to use? What exactly is the difference between the sound of God's voice and Satan's voice, or between Thor and Loki's voices, or between Zeus and Hades' voices?

Then perhaps you should ask the people who think they have got reasonable answers to pop in for a while. Because some of them happen to think we should accept their belief as fact on the basis of their evidence and reasoning. So if they want me to accept it, they need to provide that reasoning and evidence, or else do what you have already: admit they don't know and leave it at that.