Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
Mostly because the god as portrayed in the Bible is logically impossible, also in large part because "his word" is just a conglomeration of Hebrew and Near East folklore and mythology.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
Others can respond closer to how you want, because I am a theist, though not the same kind of theist as you present yourself to be. I teach Hebrew, and read the Bible in the original languages ... and it is an old anthology of religious writing, written by men (most likely). There is the question of inspiration, but I consider inspiration to be ordinary, no different than you being inspired to make this post here. And yes, I have been wrong about things in the past, in the sense that what I think continues to develop every day. Just don't expect anyone to arrive at any particular destination you expect.
It's telling that the Bible being God's word is the default position and arguing otherwise is not only something that must be justified, one must also consider the (presumably substantial) possibility that it is in fact God's word.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
I know the bible is not the word of god and that there is no god(s). They are both fictions. Did you ever consider that you could possibly be wrong about your belief that there is a god and that the bible is the word of that god?
Have you ever considered that Muhammad was God's chosen prophet? How about any of the countless thousands of gods you do not believe in, including the unlimited variations of that the Judeo-Christian god alone has available? Have you considered all of them? Any of them? Your religion offers nothing special that would justify special consideration.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
It is your claim, prove it!
If it is his word, i doubt he's worth my time.
If you wish to state that the babble is indeed the word of your god then, knowing that your god demanded that innocent babies be killed and little girls be raped, and you still champion said god, makes me think you are as sick a human as your god is as sick as a god.
If you wish to state that the babble is indeed the word of your god, then you have to admit that your god was completely inept in practically every attempt he made. For instance in more than one case it took him until the third try to defeat an opposing army at the lose of many lives of his "followers". A real god would not have lost even one soldier.
A real god would have convinced his followers that he was a real god and whenever he turned his back his followers would not have immediately fallen back into debauchery as if said god never really existed.
I can go and on......
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
Why don't you prove it is the words of your imaginary god?
Thanks for the responses.
@Shiranu - I agree that a god who is logically inconsistent is certainly a reasonable reason to dismiss that god. But can you give some more details on why you think the God of the Bible is logically inconsistent? I assume you're referring to the issue regarding suffering. But I think God would actually be logically inconsistent if there wasn't suffering. If God wasn't angry about people doing evil then He wouldn't be good. If He rewarded or overlooked evil then He wouldn't be good. If people never did evil but yet were suffering at the hand of God then there would certainly be reason to question God's goodness. But I think us questioning God's goodness based on our suffering (or others) is sort of like a murderer who is suffering in prison accusing the judge who put him there of being evil.
Also, how do you know that the Bible is just Hebrew and Near East folklore and mythology? Can you substantiate that claim?
@Hydra009 - I didn't mean to imply that it's the default position. However, the Bible makes very serious claims about your eternal destiny so I don't see how it's something that can be dismissed without confidence that it isn't what it claims to be. For example, somebody might come tell me that the train I'm about to board has ran out of pretzels. Whether or not that person is telling me the truth doesn't really matter much, because it's not that big of a deal whether or not I get pretzels during my trip. But if somebody tells me not to board the train because terrorists are on-board who are going to blow it up then I need to determine whether or not I should believe that message. The Bible gives an infinitely more serious warning regarding your eternal destiny.
@Mike Cl - Can you provide the reason(s) why you know that the Bible is fiction? And yes, of course, I've considered that the Bible isn't the Word of God. I didn't come to know that it is what it claims to be until my 30s.
@Blackleaf - Yes, I have considered other religions and their claims. The fact that there are many false claims about God is actually consistent with the Bible, since it warns throughout against this. I have found that only the God of the Bible is logically consistent. All other gods promise to overlook or reward evil. Such gods can't actually be good. But back to the question at hand...is your reason for dismissing the Bible that there are many religions?
@Cavebear - I am happy to provide evidence, but as I said, the Bible makes very serious claims that impact you. Unless you don't care if you suffer terribly forever you should have good reasons why you dismiss the claims.
@Mr.Obvious - Would it be correct to assume that this is based on the suffering you see in the world?
@aitm - I will address your first point for now But could you cite the passage where God commanded little girls to be raped? The people who God commanded to be killed were actually killing their own children (sacrificing them). And yet God was still patient with them for many years before executing justice upon them. As for the babies, it is certainly possible that God could've taken them to heaven, in which case they would not be upset in the least if their earthly lives were ended. But regardless, the Bible doesn't view babies as innocent. Everyone is born sinful, babies simply aren't able to express it like adults. You've probably noticed that you don't need to teach children how to lie, steal, or be selfish. But here's a question for you. If a scorpion stung your child and you discovered that there was a nest of scorpions in your house would you only kill (or relocate) the scorpion that stung your child? Would it be evil for you to kill the entire nest, including the babies? It would be foolish for you not to kill (or remove) the babies because they hadn't done anything wrong yet. You know what scorpions are, you don't have to wait for them to grow up...it is the same with sinners.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AMI didn't mean to imply that it's the default position.
If you were simply asking why people say X, that would be one thing. But the format of your "question" reveals a reversed burden of proof - that the negative claim must be justified while the positive claim apparently needs no justification. This is a serious logical error.
QuoteHowever, the Bible makes very serious claims about your eternal destiny so I don't see how it's something that can be dismissed without confidence that it isn't what it claims to be.
And how many other holy books with similarly very serious claims do you seriously consider?
QuoteFor example, somebody might come tell me that the train I'm about to board has ran out of pretzels. Whether or not that person is telling me the truth doesn't really matter much, because it's not that big of a deal whether or not I get pretzels during my trip. But if somebody tells me not to board the train because terrorists are on-board who are going to blow it up then I need to determine whether or not I should believe that message. The Bible gives an infinitely more serious warning regarding your eternal destiny.
So, the more dire the claim, the more plausible the claim?
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
This applies to you as well. Who is to say that you're right about this god stuff?
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM
@aitm -But could you cite the passage where God commanded little girls to be raped?
No, it's in the babble, read the whole thing instead of just the versus your pastor reads to you.
QuoteThe people who God commanded to be killed were actually killing their own children (sacrificing them).
Bullshit, nothing in the babble describes those people as sacrificing their own babies.
QuoteAnd yet God was still patient with them for many years before executing justice upon them.
Bullshit, mere opinion. Nothing in the babble suggests such.
QuoteAs for the babies, it is certainly possible that God could've taken them to heaven, in which case they would not be upset in the least if their earthly lives were ended.
Bullshit, what kind of crap do you think we will buy into? You are just making shit up.
QuoteBut regardless, the Bible doesn't view babies as innocent. Everyone is born sinful, babies simply aren't able to express it like adults.
Bullshit, only the new testament comes up with that crap, the rest of your argument is simple nonsense.
QuoteYou've probably noticed that you don't need to teach children how to lie, steal, or be selfish.
Wow, quite the brilliant hypothesis there, the fact we have to teach children to share and be kind to your fellows is more evidence of our history through evolution than your monstrous god.
QuoteIf a scorpion stung your child and you discovered that there was a nest of scorpions in your house would you only kill (or relocate) the scorpion that stung your child? Would it be evil for you to kill the entire nest, including the babies? It would be foolish for you not to kill (or remove) the babies because they hadn't done anything wrong yet. You know what scorpions are, you don't have to wait for them to grow up...it is the same with sinners.
Wow again, that is the most moronic stupid comparison I have ever heard of. You must be the star of sunday school. Do they still give kool-aid and cookies when you sing songs?
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM@Blackleaf - Yes, I have considered other religions and their claims.
Somehow I doubt that you gave any other religion equally serious consideration as Christianity. You were raised as a Christian, weren't you? If you were raised a Muslim, you'd be just as certain in your religion as you are now.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AMThe fact that there are many false claims about God is actually consistent with the Bible, since it warns throughout against this.
The existence of other religions is evidence for your religion? That's a serious leap in logic there.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AMI have found that only the God of the Bible is logically consistent. All other gods promise to overlook or reward evil. Such gods can't actually be good.
Other gods overlook and reward evil? What are you smoking? Your god doesn't reward good and punish evil. Your god punishes everyone who doesn't believe in him, and he rewards everyone who does believe in him. Good and evil have nothing to do with that. Matter of fact, your god conveniently considers every human being (who he designed himself, BTW) to be inherently flawed and deserving of Hell by default. The only way to be saved is to believe in Jesus, in which case he will IGNORE the evil in you. You know what other religion uses belief as the only criteria for salvation? Islam. No thanks. I wouldn't worship a god who thinks that gullibility and luck in choosing the right religion are more important than goodwill toward fellow human beings.
Furthermore, what does any of this have to do with logic? God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself? How is that logical?
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AMBut back to the question at hand...is your reason for dismissing the Bible that there are many religions?
My list of reasons for my lack of belief in the Bible and the Christian God grows longer every year. Here are a few:
1. I do not believe in anything without evidence. In fact, if you have evidence, it isn't belief any more. It is simply acknowledging the facts. So beliefs supported by evidence logically cannot exist.
2. The Bible is inconsistent within itself. I mean, Jesus, the first two chapters of Genesis don't even agree with each other.
3. The Bible is inconsistent with several fields of science. From the age of the earth to how censuses are made, the Bible has been repeatedly shown to be wrong.
4. Omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible with free will, which has some serious consequences. If God is not omnipotent, then evil is the result of his failure of a design. If God is not omniscient, then evil was an unpredictable consequence of his design, and he is fallible just like every other human being. If God is both omniscient and omnipotent, then he purposefully designed the world to be full of evil, and he is necessarily malevolent. Take a look at Romans 9, where Paul addressed this problem. He said that there is no free will. We are predestined for Heaven or Hell, before we are even born. And his solution to the problem of evil is hilarious. "Who are you to talk back to God?" Wow. Just wow. So God will do whatever he wants with us, and we're just supposed to accept it.
5. The God of the Bible is evil. Imagine if there were a superhero with the same moral compass as the Christian God. Just imagine Superman standing outside a bank that is being robbed.
Chief: "Superman, why are you just standing there?"
Superman: "They haven't asked for my help yet. I won't help until they ask me to help them."
"They don't even know you're here! How could they? Besides, you could just swoop in and save everyone in an instant! Why do you need permission?"
"I will not interfere with free will."
Lois Lane: "Help, Superman!"
Chief: "Listen! One of the hostages called for you! Aren't you going to help her?"
Superman: "In my good and perfect timing."
*Gun shot*
"Oh my god! They shot one of the hostages! Why aren't you helping them!?"
"Look, you've just got to trust that I know what's best."
"Best? How is any good going to come from this? One of the hostages is dead!"
"Now he is in a better place, where he will no longer suffer. You can thank me later."
"Oh, gee! Thank you, Superman for allowing an innocent man to be shot to death! You know what? Fuck it. We're going in. Waiting for you to help is like waiting for random chance to fall in our favor. It's like you don't even exist or something!"
Cop: "Uh, Chief...? Who are you talking to?"
making an argument about whether or not god is good, is not the same argument as whether or not the Bible is god’s word. Which do you want to talk about?
The Bible is an anthology of religious writing put together by humans. As you would expect there are errors and contradictions in it. If I cut a book in pieces and gave each piece to different people and 50years later their grandchildren got together and put the pieces together, there wouldnt be any contradictions because they were all written by the same person. Maybe you won’t believe that errors exist unless you see them with your own eyes. There are several lists on the internet which show the actual verses that are in question... and they have been posted a few times already in this website.
Is the god of the Bible good? Aitm mentioned here and other posts what the god of Israel told them to do in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. forced marriage, making girls into sex slaves, etc., ..., killing 50 kids for making fun of a bald man. You cant say that was for the time of the old testament. Isaiah says “I am the Lord God and I change notâ€. That means all of the evil that god condoned or ordered to be done in Deuteronomy and Leviticus is still supported by god today.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM
Thanks for the responses.
@Mr.Obvious - Would it be correct to assume that this is based on the suffering you see in the world?
Oh no. Not at all. That's a completely different reason to think he's not worthy of my time. It's also valid, yes. but not the reason for this
The bible being his word, as being written by one author, due to it's own inconsistencies and contradictions as well as it's tendency for cruelty, immorality and violence (and the condoning thereoff) makes me not want to spend one minute with the author, if I could avoid it.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
Can you show me where the Bible claims to be the word of God?
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM
However, the Bible makes very serious claims about your eternal destiny so I don't see how it's something that can be dismissed without confidence that it isn't what it claims to be.
Again, where in the Bible does it claim that the Bible is God's word?
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God."
John 1:1
Is the Bible God? If not, then the Bible is not "the word" of God.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM
how do you know that the Bible is just Hebrew and Near East folklore and mythology?
In the case of the Catholic Bible, it is. The religious writings of the middle east, the druids of western Europe, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt were gathered together by order of the Roman Emperor Constantine. He didnt have any interest in fact checking and he didnt do it because he was interested in religion. He cut the Catholic Bible out of whole cloth to serve his own interests
I read a book call 101 Myths of the Bible (https://archive.org/details/101MythsOfTheBible) that tells me all I need to know to affirm the mythical nature of the Bible. At least the Old Testament, and the New Testament is no better.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM
Thanks for the responses.
@Mike Cl - Can you provide the reason(s) why you know that the Bible is fiction? And yes, of course, I've considered that the Bible isn't the Word of God. I didn't come to know that it is what it claims to be until my 30s.
Bfiddy, you came here with your claims. I'll not do all the work for you--so, give me some reasons why you think there is a god and why the bible is not simply a work of man.
For me to think someone/thing is real I need to see some evidence of it. I have not seen any evidence of god(s). And that lack of evidence is evidence that there is no god(s). Nature itself, is a proof of the non-existence of any god(s). on this planet all life is dependent upon life to survive--in order for me to live I have to kill--or I die. Even the most strict vegan still has to kill plants to live. A kinder and gentler god could have come up with a much better and fair system than this. This is just a tiny portion of one idea--so, share with me some evidence of your god's existence.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 03, 2018, 02:10:26 PM
Bfiddy, you came here with your claims. I'll not do all the work for you--so, give me some reasons why you think there is a god and why the bible is not simply a work of man.
For me to think someone/thing is real I need to see some evidence of it. I have not seen any evidence of god(s). And that lack of evidence is evidence that there is no god(s). Nature itself, is a proof of the non-existence of any god(s). on this planet all life is dependent upon life to survive--in order for me to live I have to kill--or I die. Even the most strict vegan still has to kill plants to live. A kinder and gentler god could have come up with a much better and fair system than this. This is just a tiny portion of one idea--so, share with me some evidence of your god's existence.
Even for Christians who reject Young Earth Creationism, there's a problem with the belief that God directed evolution. If that were true, then God was not only incapable of or unwilling to create the final product from the start, but he decided to go the most despicable and roundabout way of getting to his end goal. Evolution is a system driven by death. Natural selection pressures life to evolve in response to a harsh environment that is constantly trying to kill it, and always eventually succeeds in doing so. What kind of a god would create such a system?
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 03, 2018, 01:28:26 PM
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God."
John 1:1
Is the Bible God? If not, then the Bible is not "the word" of God.
Not "word" but "Word" ... and "Logos" in the original. A technical gnostic term. Johannine and Pauline theology is clearly, gnostic aka kabbalah. To understand it, if one wants to take the time, requires study of gnosticism/kabbalah. Of course for most people, in most circumstances, there is no reason for making the effort at understanding. It that even an option for a nihilist? An existential nihilist would say that meaning is not objective ... aka something that can be verified by a committee of experts (except Biblical exegetes do this all the time, more or less). Scholarship however isn't a science, it is a humanity. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and the committee only agrees on that beauty ... if they are coming from a similar POV.
In Sunni Islam, the Quran fulfills the same purpose as Jesus in the Johannine theology, as the imams fulfill the roles of elders in that Messianic Jewish community. In Sunni Islam the Quran is allowed to interpret itself. In Shia Islam, the Quran doesn't interpret itself, but the ayatollahs are an inseparable part of the revelation ... exactly like in Orthodox/Catholic Christianity. Low Church Protestanism might have not happened, without the example of the synagogue and the mosque (clergy lite). There is a cultural continuity from the 1st thru 7th century CE.
Of course there is no particular reason for anyone to accept any of this theology. It remains entirely speculative. The Sefer Yetzirah is an early work of kabbalah, where the universe is constructed, metaphysically, out of the Hebrew language, one Hebrew letter at a time. In that view, the whole Hebrew Bible is just one long word (early manuscripts had no punctuation). If Jesus is the Word ... that Word ... then Jesus is a book, not a person at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_Yetzirah
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 03, 2018, 02:34:29 PM
Even for Christians who reject Young Earth Creationism, there's a problem with the belief that God directed evolution. If that were true, then God was not only incapable of or unwilling to create the final product from the start, but he decided to go the most despicable and roundabout way of getting to his end goal. Evolution is a system driven by death. Natural selection pressures life to evolve in response to a harsh environment that is constantly trying to kill it, and always eventually succeeds in doing so. What kind of a god would create such a system?
The Mystery of the Cross ... is all about this ... that Life and Death are one and the same. So the claim is, you can't have one without the other.
If (a big IF) the Bible isn't chock full of Contradictions (http://nullgod.com/index.php?topic=5.0), then it is at least the most confusing thing ever written by man or God - whom the Bible (in 1 Corinthians 14:33) says is not the author of confusion. So if God isn't the author of confusion then he can't possibly be the author of the Bible.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 03, 2018, 03:09:44 PM
If (a big IF) the Bible isn't chock full of Contradictions (http://nullgod.com/index.php?topic=5.0), then it is at least the most confusing thing ever written by man or God - whom the Bible (in 1 Corinthians 14:33) says is not the author of confusion. So if God isn't the author of confusion then he can't possibly be the author of the Bible.
It is an anthology by many authors. What a given author contributed was edited, perhaps more than once. So you have to expect a mess. Now Paul may have thought that he wasn't confused, but you will have to cross ;-) examine him on that when you get the chance. His supposed letters were edited as well.
Reality isn't Vulcan ... ambiguity, delusion, confusion etc are all normal.
Quote from: Baruch on March 03, 2018, 03:28:30 PM
It is an anthology by many authors. What a given author contributed was edited, perhaps more than once. So you have to expect a mess. Now Paul may have thought that he wasn't confused, but you will have to cross ;-) examine him on that when you get the chance. His supposed letters were edited as well.
Reality isn't Vulcan ... ambiguity, delusion, confusion etc are all normal.
Yes, I know that, and you know that, and others here know that - but bfiddy100 doesn't know that.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 03, 2018, 03:44:02 PM
Yes, I know that, and you know that, and others here know that - but bfiddy100 doesn't know that.
Which is why I post ... for lurkers, not the usual suspects ;-)
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
Oh, that's easy. The sheer number of direct internal contradictions means it cannot be either logically complete or logically consistent. Even setting that aside, the lack of corroboration from the archæological record suggests it's little more than a collection of millennia-old fairy tales and campfire stories.
If you assume that a god is a perfect being, then his/her/its/their word should be perfect. Well, the so-called word of this god says that bats are birds (except when they're locusts), that pi is exactly three, that there's nothing wrong with slavery, and can't agree on the events surrounding the death and alleged resurrection of Jeshua bar-Joseph.
Not a ringing endorsement of the book. The Harry Potter series was more internally consistent.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be?
Because an all knowing, all powerful god would have at least got basic facts right.
Since there is no God, then the Bible cannot be God's word. QED
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 04, 2018, 05:16:18 PM
Since there is no God, then the Bible cannot be God's word. QED
Correct. But my posts are the word of a demigod. G-d is speculative, opinions will differ.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God.
...
I do not claim to
"know that the Bible isn't the Word of God" (your words). Accordingly, your assumption is wrong, at least for me and for many others too. I believe that the probability of the Bible being the Word of God is quite low. Similarly, I believe the probability of the existence of
"a God" (again, your words) is also quite low, and the probability for that God to be the Christian God to be lower still. All of these likelihoods can have different strengths, and their values can change when new relevant information is available.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
...
I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God).
...
I'll give you three of the numerous reasons:
1) The actual empirical evidence indicates the Bible was written by many different humans over a long period of time and complied into the most common collection by other humans about 200 years after the last book was written. The writers and compilers (including those who revised, added to and redacted in later years and centuries), for the most part, were exposed to certain religious beliefs as children by trusted adults. In addition, family and local societal peer pressure were placed on them for their entire lives to maintain the particular tenets and dogma from the particular religion in question. The books of the Bible contain these same religious tenets and dogma. All other books written during these times were also composed by humans. Many of them were literary and contained fictional stories from their own religions, local legends and regional myths. Nearly all of the books in the Bible follow this same literary form. There is likely actual facts in parts of the stories (e.g., Samual and Sarah had a child named Jeb). They also contain fanciful inventions (e.g., the bird spoke to Dimiatus and told him of his fate), exaggerations (e.g., the army had 10,000,000 horsemen) and similar literary devices for the time.
This is a quite plausible explanation of the what the Bible actually is.
2) Many of the stories in the Bible have been demonstrated to never have occurred. Examples include the Noachian Flood, the Tower of Babel (regarding the conflation of language among humans) and the Exodus. Those stories which have not been demonstrated to not have occurred have not been demonstrated to have occurred. The only evidence which supports such fanciful claims as the sun standing still, the dead being resurrected, one must believe in Jesus to be saved from annihilation and an afterlife in Heaven or Hell come from the stories themselves (or from similar stories from other religions' books), from statements and other writings from humans who themselves believe the stories' contents as true in the first place and/or from apologists who typically use lies, misrepresentations and a host of logical fallacies to defend the merely asserted claims. This evidence is quite paltry and unreliable. Since the fanciful claims have not been demonstrated to have occurred, the claims can be tentatively rejected in full. Rational discourse 101.
3) Human societies have changed since the times of the Bible's authorship. The scientific method provides an excellent process for investigation and development of actual and tentative knowledge. Memetic evolution has improved moral/ethical behavior. The knowledge and ethics/morals contained in the Bible is, in large part, obsolete and indicative of the cultures of that time. Indeed, due to the long time it took for the books of the Bible to be written, and other factors such as the location of the writings and the different societies in which a particular author was placed, similar changes are found in the ethics and morals contained in the surrounding stories.
Assuming a particular God contains the character trait of remaining unchanged, the changes in the Bible regarding the various deities presented are at odds with that unchanging character. On the other hand, a more parsimonious and mundane explanation is simply that the stories are literature written by different people at different times and in different places.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
...
I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion....
It's not a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of probability, although as regards some items, the probability is so high (that the item is a fiction) that it approaches actual knowledge.
And yes, of course I am open to the possibility that I may be mistaken in my probability analysis.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
...
especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human).
...
Whether I have been incorrect in other probability analyses is not relevant to another particular analysis, provided the methodology is done well.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM
Thanks for the responses.
@Cavebear - I am happy to provide evidence, but as I said, the Bible makes very serious claims that impact you. Unless you don't care if you suffer terribly forever you should have good reasons why you dismiss the claims.
I'll leave your replies to the others for them to respond to... But you argument to me both really grinds my gears AND amuses me.
The fear of eternal punishment is a hallmark of most religious arguments for believing in a deity. That, IF YOU DON'T you will be PUNISHED horribly and forever! That's a "benevolent deity? I wouldn't take that crap from a Crazed Sadist, and surely, you would argue that your Deity is better than a Sadist...
Now first, please understand that I don't believe in any deity and I do not expect punishment from one. I live my life without assuming there is one one.
But, really, what sort of Deity are you believing in? An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent one that punishes lesser creatures for not understanding it perfectly? Something that would subject creatures just learning how to think to torture for failing to be equal in comprehension?
Sounds like a crazy idea to me.
Quote from: Cavebear on March 05, 2018, 12:33:46 AM
The fear of eternal punishment is a hallmark of most religious arguments for believing in a deity. That, IF YOU DON'T you will be PUNISHED horribly and forever!
Yeah, that's ad baculum logic (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum) right there. The fact that our lowkey proselytizer had to stoop so low speaks volumes.
Suffice it to say that demanding that someone say that they love you or you'll break their legs doesn't win any true affection. It's simply abusive, manipulative behavior Hell threats are like this but just taken to a much more vile (yet oddly, more socially acceptable) level.
I should also add that I would need a reason to think there was a god in the first place before I'd even consider the possibility that his/her/its word might be in a book, any book. Asking why I don't accept the Christian bible as the word of their god is about three or four questions late; you first need to demonstrate the existence of your god before we get anywhere near whether that book is an accurate record of his/her/its rules and actions.
For that matter, why don't you accept the Vedas, the Avestas, the Tripiá¹aka, the Quran, Dianetics, the Principia Discordia as divinely inspired?
All reasons you don't accept them are just as applicable to the Christian Bible.
I bet he doesn't believe in the Shariyat Ki Sugmad either. That's the holy book of Eckankar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckankar). It's at least as valid as the Bible for containing Truth.
I bet he doesn't ever return to this thread. Typical religious nut--answer my questions--I don't need to answer yours.
I assume he was afraid his faith would be shaken. Only those with weak faith fear those with no faith.
I would expect a perfect god to have a better understanding of basic physics and cosmology.
At least some understanding...
Presented with facts, most theists vanish back under the rock (of ages?) from whence they came.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 05, 2018, 01:29:10 PM
I bet he doesn't believe in the Shariyat Ki Sugmad either. That's the holy book of Eckankar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckankar). It's at least as valid as the Bible for containing Truth.
I am rather fond of the Bhagavad Gita myself. It has a longer pedigree.
Quote from: Baruch on March 05, 2018, 07:21:17 PM
I am rather fond of the Bhagavad Gita myself. It has a longer pedigree.
They are all fiction, BAD mythology, and wretchedly inaccurate history.
Quote from: Cavebear on March 08, 2018, 08:12:21 AM
They are all fiction, BAD mythology, and wretchedly inaccurate history.
Philistines hate all art (I don't mean ancient Palestinians either). Write your own novel ... I promise not to read it.
Hi Everyone,
Sorry for the delayed response…as you can see there was a lot to respond to. Thank you for the responses. I appreciate the conversation.
@Hydra009 â€" I have considered the serious claims of other religions, although it seems that maybe only Islam could be considered comparably serious. I dismiss the teachings of Islam because the god described there can’t be good. Such a god acts contrary to the truth and rewards evil. Therefore, he can’t be trusted, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not.
No, I wasn’t saying that the more dire the claim the more plausible. In a risk analysis, however, you consider the impact and the likelihood. If the impact is sufficiently low then you can dismiss the risk without consideration of the likelihood. However, if the impact is very high then the risk can’t be dismissed unless you’re sure that the likelihood is sufficiently low.
@aitm â€" I agree with you that most ‘Christians’ don’t pay much attention to their Bibles, unfortunately. I asked you to cite the passage because there is no such passage in the Bible regarding commanding little girls to be raped. There is a passage, however, that says a man should be put to death if he rapes someone: “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die†(Deut 22:25). As for God being patient with the people it is shown in Genesis 15:16: "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." God did not allow His people to destroy them for many years. Regarding child sacrifice to Molech by the Canaanites it is not only documented in the Bible but also external sources. But you asked about the Bible, so Leviticus 18:21 says: “You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.†And is followed in Leviticus 18:24 by: “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean…â€
@Blackleaf â€" Even if I was raised as a Christian, I don’t see how this is a valid argument. Surely, you know people (or at least are aware of people) who believe differently than they were raised. I would guess that a lot of people in this forum were raised Christian, so then why aren’t they Christians? Why are there many people who were raised Muslims, but are now Christians?
The God of the Bible most certainly rewards good and punishes evil. The God of the Bible doesn’t ignore any evil. As it says about God, He: “…will by no means clear the guilty…†(Exodus 34:7, ESV). Every evil act will be punished by God. However, because He is kind, merciful, and loving, He transfers the guilt of His people to His Son, the only One who can pay the price for it, so that His people are seen as blameless in His sight. God is so kind, in fact, that He commands everyone to repent and receive this forgiveness and have immeasurable joy forever.
You say you don’t believe anything without evidence, but that is simply false. What evidence do you have that your memory is trustworthy? None, and yet you trust it. You may claim you trust it because it works, but how do you know it works? You’re relying on your memory to trust that it works. Given that you were wrong about this perhaps you’re wrong about not only God’s existence, but His goodness as well.
Your claims that the Bible is inconsistent with science is only a statement that the Bible is currently inconsistent with something that is inconsistent. The Bible was inconsistent with science when it said that spontaneous generation occurred. If the people believed the Bible (like Louis Pasteur did) then they would’ve known they were missing some important information and that maggots only come from flies, not meat.
Your superhero analogy fails because we aren’t innocent victims. Unfortunately, I think many churches have done a really poor job (i.e., unbiblical) of presenting the true condition of people along with what God is like. They have done this because they’ve wanted to tell people what they want to hear and this has reinforced the problem, which is that you believe you’re a good person…as the Bible says, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes…†(Proverbs 16:2, ESV). Your analogy fails for this reason. An accurate analogy would be to say that a bunch of criminals broke into a house and were trashing the place while stealing everything valuable and when the cops entered to arrest them you ask this superhero of yours why he isn’t doing anything to save the criminals.
@Mr. Obvious â€" Could you give an example of a contradiction in the Bible as well as an example of it condoning immorality?
@Unbeliever â€" Sure, I can show you where it claims to be the Word of God. It states: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,†(2 Timothy 3:16, ESV).
@Mike Cl â€" The God of the Bible didn’t create a world in which people and animals needed to kill other people and animals to survive. This was a result of man’s rebellion against his perfect Creator. You also mentioned something interesting that all life depends on other life to survive. How does that fit with Darwinian evolution? It would make sense from a creationist perspective, however, where all life was created at around the same time. As for evidence, the fact that anything exists is evidence that God exists. You will have to agree that if anything exists it means that something has always exists, unless you wish to be illogical. What is it that you propose has always existed that has led to our existence today? Additionally, looking at life and concluding that there’s no evidence of a Creator is like looking at the most advanced computer software and information storage system in the world and saying that there’s no evidence that someone designed it. Do you think it’s possible that the reason why you don’t see the evidence is because you’ve believed the lie that God isn’t good and therefore you blind yourself to the truth that is all around you?
@trdsf â€" I know it’s popular to claim that the Bible isn’t consistent with the archaeological record, but those claims have been found to be false over and over again (e.g., the Hittite people, the Roman census, etc). I would be interested to hear about an archaeological finding that truly contradicts the biblical record. Lack of findings isn’t a reason to dismiss something. I’m sure you’d argue this as well if I said that bats were specially created because there isn’t any evidence in the fossil record of them evolving (which there isn’t, BTW).
As for the Bible calling bats birds, it doesn’t actually do so. Translations of the Bible do this, but the Hebrew word being translated is owph, which means “fowl/winged creature,†so it includes birds, bats, and yes, even locusts, as you mentioned.
As for the Bible claiming that pi is exactly 3 it does no such thing. The claim you’re referring to is in reference to 2 Chronicles 4:2, which says in the ESV: “Then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.†You may not be familiar with the concept of significant figures, but they indicate the measurement resolution (i.e., accuracy). In this passage we’re dealing with 1 significant digit and therefore the circumference of 30 is perfectly consistent with the diameter of 10. It would actually be wrong to say 31.4, since that would imply a more accurate measurement of the diameter was taken.
The Bible says there’s nothing wrong with slavery? The Bible actually commands that people should be put to death for enslaving people against their will: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.†(Exodus 21:16).
You were wrong about all 3 of those. But I suspect you never really thought about them too much and just happily accepted them as true because it fit your desires. But as I’ve been asking, if you were worng about those things is it possible that you’re also wrong about God’s existence and kindness?
@Jason78 â€" which basic “facts†did the Author of the Bible get wrong?
@sdelsolray â€" I’m curious how you think it has been demonstrated that the Genesis flood never occurred. The fact that we have sedimentary rock with fossils all over the world is exactly what we would expect if there was a world-wide flood.
@Cavebear â€" I can certainly understand not liking the idea of “Do this or be punished…†but if you think about it, if God is good there simply must be consequences for doing evil. If God is evil or immoral then it would be consistent to think that He would reward or ignore evil. But the better God is the more He must hate evil. I don’t believe that God punishes people for simply not understanding Him perfectly. God punishes people for doing wicked things. Are you claiming that you’ve never done anything wrong that you knew was wrong?
@Hydra009 â€" God does, in a sense, say to love Him or He will break your legs. But if God is infinitely lovely then it is infinitely right to love Him and infinitely wrong to hate Him. So what God is saying is that if you do evil you will be punished. Do you desire evil to be rewarded?
@trdsf â€" As I’ve mentioned, the reason I reject other religions is that the god(s) they present are not good and can’t be trusted. They lie, act contrary to the truth, and reward evil. If any of those gods exist then there’s no hope in trusting in them anyway.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
@Unbeliever[/b] â€" Sure, I can show you where it claims to be the Word of God. It states: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,†(2 Timothy 3:16, ESV).
OK, so you figure that the word "scripture" is synonymous with "the Bible"? So if a writing is not in the Bible it could not be considered to be scripture?
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
I dismiss the teachings of Islam because the god described there can’t be good. Such a god acts contrary to the truth and rewards evil. Therefore, he can’t be trusted, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not.
The God portrayed in the Bible also cannot be good, which is one of the reasons I dismiss it as being worthy of praise or worship, even if it did exist, which gladly it does not.
What the Bible's God is Really Like (http://nullgod.com/index.php?topic=164.0)
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
@aitm â€"I asked you to cite the passage because there is no such passage in the Bible regarding commanding little girls to be raped.
When the babble says to go into the village and slay every man and woman but the young girls who have not known a man you may keep to yourself means pretty much what it is sir. You think maybe, that means they are invited to come over for supper and play a board game?
That's in the 31st chapter of Numbers, in case anyone's keeping score.
(http://mindprod.com/image/religion/circular.jpg)
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
Hi Everyone,
Sorry for the delayed response…as you can see there was a lot to respond to. Thank you for the responses. I appreciate the conversation.
@Cavebear â€" I can certainly understand not liking the idea of “Do this or be punished…†but if you think about it, if God is good there simply must be consequences for doing evil. If God is evil or immoral then it would be consistent to think that He would reward or ignore evil. But the better God is the more He must hate evil. I don’t believe that God punishes people for simply not understanding Him perfectly. God punishes people for doing wicked things. Are you claiming that you’ve never done anything wrong that you knew was wrong?
Wow, you sure got great responses from the creme d' creme of the atheists here, LOL! But I'll just answer my own part...
Let's start with your assumption that there is a god. Oops, you can't give evidence for that, can you? Well let's try a 2nd approach. That good and evil can be defined in terms of religious adherence. Hmm, a majority of the world disagrees with the SPECIFICS of what good and evil is religiously.
Another way to look at its that the consequences of evil should be punished. I agree. But I don't depend on a deity to tell me what is evil. And if we got really deep into the weeds, you probably wouldn't either. But humanity decides what is good and evil (and I may disagree with some on my fellow humans about that myself).
I was once forced to attend an ethics class. I told the instructor that my ethics were better than his were. When he objected, I pointed at the contractor-provided plate of donuts at the back of the room and mentioned that I hadn't taken one. That really bothered him ALL DAY and well it should have. I can be a real bastard about stuff like that!
"The better God is"? I am howling with laughter... You admit god improves (meaning he WAS imperfect - and think about that) or that he never was and isn't omni all-that-stuff...
"Are you claiming that you’ve never done anything wrong that you knew was wrong?" You mean like not believing in a deity? But I know what you mean. Or do I? What do YOU mean by "doing something wrong".?
How do you KNOW I'm not God testing you NOW to confess the wrongs you have done in your life? Are you SURE you shouldn't confess to them right here? I DEMAND YOU CONFESS ALL YOUR SINS TO ME HERE AND NOW. And most of them won't really be sins from MY POV. I'm THE FORGIVING TYPE, AFTER ALL. And I'll forgive you the minor transgressions without a nanosecond's thought...
Besides. II ALREADY KNEW YOU WOULD DO ALL THAT STUFF. Its OK, I forgive you.
And you KNOW it is ME because I can tell the difference between "its" and "it's" . In ALL languages...
I'm away from home, so I don't have time to type a full response yet, but I'll comment on two points.
First, you know a theist knows they don't have a leg to stand on when they change their definition of evidence. First you want us to accept your weak "evidence," such as when you use the Bible as proof of itself, then when it suits you, you go to the opposite extreme. Rather than accepting weak evidence, you question the very reliability of our senses themselves. You can't have it both ways. You can't lower the bar for yourself and then raise it to an impossible level for your opposition. Either admit that you have no evidence or hold yourself to common sense standards as the rest of us.
Second, if you really believe that the Biblical creation myth is literally true (which even most other Christians have the common sense to consider nonliteral), you just have no basis in reality. Evidence against that is overwhelming.
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 08, 2018, 06:08:11 PM
Rather than accepting weak evidence, you question the very reliability of our senses themselves.
After all, we can't even read the Bible except with our unreliable senses.
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on March 08, 2018, 03:53:38 PM
(http://mindprod.com/image/religion/circular.jpg)
Simpletons, have simple theology. Smarter people, have smarter theology. Circular logic, if not contradictory, is iron clad. But then nobody here is a real Vulcan anyway.
Of course doing anything a book or writing tells you to do ... is being a simpleton. That is why we can pretty much ignore the MSM or the Constitution as well. Writing is only fit for the bottom of the bird cage.
^ I'm pretty sure this is an example of Dunningâ€"Kruger. I'm just not sure if it is the internal illusion or the external misperception part.
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on March 08, 2018, 07:38:10 PM
^ I'm pretty sure this is an example of Dunningâ€"Kruger. I'm just not sure if it is the internal illusion or the external misperception part.
Geeks and other autism sufferers are all Brites. Their self assessment of how genius they are ... is simply simpleton.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
@Mike Cl
1-- The God of the Bible didn’t create a world in which people and animals needed to kill other people and animals to survive. This was a result of man’s rebellion against his perfect Creator.
2-- You also mentioned something interesting that all life depends on other life to survive. How does that fit with Darwinian evolution? It would make sense from a creationist perspective, however, where all life was created at around the same time.
3-- As for evidence, the fact that anything exists is evidence that God exists. You will have to agree that if anything exists it means that something has always exists, unless you wish to be illogical. What is it that you propose has always existed that has led to our existence today?
4-- Additionally, looking at life and concluding that there’s no evidence of a Creator is like looking at the most advanced computer software and information storage system in the world and saying that there’s no evidence that someone designed it. Do you think it’s possible that the reason why you don’t see the evidence is because you’ve believed the lie that God isn’t good and therefore you blind yourself to the truth that is all around you?
1--Have you read the bible?? If you have then you, like all other christians, love to cherry pick. Gen 1 tells us that god created man and women at the same time and that 'we' pronounced them good. Gen2 tells us that god created man (Adam or man) and man was lonely so he used (??) Adam's rib (very creative for the creator of the universe--did he run out of material to use???) to make a woman. If your fictional god is supposed to be all powerful, all knowing, all seeing (yada, yada, yada........) then when he created Eden he and all that populated it, he knowingly created the serpent and the evil it would introduce because of the flawed nature of the humans he created. The serpent is not to blame, god is, for the serpent did not create evil, god did and the serpent was only doing what it had to do. And Eve was the one who created the flaws within herself, god is--and she was only doing what she had to do because that is how she was created. When the tree of knowledge was breached, as god knew it would be, he simply continued with his plan and installed nature as we see it now. God did all of that on his own (well, maybe he delegated some of that to the mysterious 'we' of Gen. 1--who knows, god is so 'mysterious').
2--Evolution is simply a fact and has been and is being, demonstrated by the minute of every day, year, decade, etc. I'm not going to do all the work for you, but simply Google 'evolution proof' and expose yourself to some actual facts. And no matter how much and sincerely you wish to think all live was created at the same instance, look at a few scientific facts and try to make room for actual data in your brain and not wishful thinking.
3--That anything exists is proof of the existence of god???? Really? Which god? Thor? Jupiter, Saturn, Isis, The Great Raven....................which one? How do you know? Any proof? It is quite easy to see that a god is not needed for 'stuff' to exist. We don't 'know' all of the steps or in total detail how the universe started or how life began, but we know much, much more about it than was known 2000/3000 years ago and will know more in the future. To understand a little of what that process is one has to get past the 'god did it' stage and use a little critical thinking.
4--Poor, poor analogy. We can trace the progress of the computer from before there were computers to now. We know how they were created and by whom. We know what makes them tick, inside and out. On the other hand, who or what created god? Super god?? And there simply is not a scrap of empirical data to support any god. The reason I don't see any evidence for god is not that I'm blind (you accuse me of being blind????? :))))))))), but that none exists. I have searched and researched for most of my life and have wanted to find your god, or any god, but none presented itself--and for good reason--there is no god(s). Have you bothered to really look at your god created nature??? Simply go into your own back yard and watch spiders eat its prey alive. Your back yard is full of creatures eating other creatures because they have no choice. It is either kill and eat or die for that is where biological energy comes from--killing and death. (Actually that does reflect your bibical god) You have to gather energy for your body to operate--without it you die. In order to live you must kill (or rely on others to do it for you)--no choice in that. All who live in the photosynthetic system must kill, except for the plants--they can gather energy directly from the sun. Could your god have fashioned a system that allowed all creatures to gather energy directly from the sun--sure, but apparently your god was not interested in that, for he seems to really love killing. Or, at least, he loved seeming humans within that system. But not all life on earth is tied to the energy of the sun. There is another system that operates at the bottom of the oceans of the world where sunlight have never penetrated. Life exists near and on volcanic vents that spew forth heat and chemicals. Life is there and does not need sunlight and does not have to kill to survive. So, your god did create another system of gathering energy to live--he just chose to make it so that humans must live in the environment that enforces killing and death. Some god you love.
All that you 'believe' is a fiction created by men to control men like you. And they have succeeded beyond all of their expectations; much to the determent of human kind! Read your bible--and don't cherry pick, but read all of it.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 09:25:48 AM
then when he created Eden he and all that populated it, he knowingly created the serpent and the evil it would introduce because of the flawed nature of the humans he created. The serpent is not to blame, god is, for the serpent did not create evil, god did and the serpent was only doing what it had to do.
If I may be so presumptuous, let me preempt a reply: nothing in Genesis indicates that the serpent is anything but a serpent; nothing to support the claim that it is actually Satan/The Devil. It is only ever refereed to as a serpent, it is called livestock and all wild animals and its punishment (crawl on belly, eat dust, crush head/strike heel) only makes sense if the serpent is a serpent.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PMHowever, if the impact is very high then the risk can’t be dismissed unless you’re sure that the likelihood is sufficiently low.
The starting point for me is likelihood. I dunno about you, but I don't start with WWIII in anticipating my pizza store's potential threats. I start with more hum-drum stuff like theft and fire. I'm weird like that.
As far as religious doomsday and hell and all that stuff goes, what's the likelihood of that? All we really have to go on are (some offense intended) nutbags preaching doom and gloom. The perpetual "end is nigh".
And then there's threats of hell by people from many religions who seem as sure of their own claims as they are that the others are false. (Coincidentally, they were indoctrinated as children into this stuff)
What's the likelihood that they're correct? Probably less than you think.
P.S. - How'd you fare during the latest rapture prediction? That's some seriously dire stuff right there, so surely it must be a smart idea to take it seriously and sell all your stuff. Or did you continue on with your life without skipping a beat like I did? You might actually hold my position without realizing it. I just apply it more consistently, that's all.
You have ignored the far bigger problem I pointed out:
there is absolutely no reason to even consider your bible to be the words of any god until you have first demonstrated that your god actually exists. You can't get around that one. Without that, your bible is just stone age fairy tales and campfire stories.
But, if you insist...
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
@trdsf â€" I know it’s popular to claim that the Bible isn’t consistent with the archaeological record, but those claims have been found to be false over and over again (e.g., the Hittite people, the Roman census, etc). I would be interested to hear about an archaeological finding that truly contradicts the biblical record. Lack of findings isn’t a reason to dismiss something. I’m sure you’d argue this as well if I said that bats were specially created because there isn’t any evidence in the fossil record of them evolving (which there isn’t, BTW).
As for the Bible calling bats birds, it doesn’t actually do so. Translations of the Bible do this, but the Hebrew word being translated is owph, which means “fowl/winged creature,†so it includes birds, bats, and yes, even locusts, as you mentioned.
As for the Bible claiming that pi is exactly 3 it does no such thing. The claim you’re referring to is in reference to 2 Chronicles 4:2, which says in the ESV: “Then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.†You may not be familiar with the concept of significant figures, but they indicate the measurement resolution (i.e., accuracy). In this passage we’re dealing with 1 significant digit and therefore the circumference of 30 is perfectly consistent with the diameter of 10. It would actually be wrong to say 31.4, since that would imply a more accurate measurement of the diameter was taken.
The Bible says there’s nothing wrong with slavery? The Bible actually commands that people should be put to death for enslaving people against their will: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.†(Exodus 21:16).
You were wrong about all 3 of those. But I suspect you never really thought about them too much and just happily accepted them as true because it fit your desires. But as I’ve been asking, if you were worng about those things is it possible that you’re also wrong about God’s existence and kindness?
@trdsf â€" As I’ve mentioned, the reason I reject other religions is that the god(s) they present are not good and can’t be trusted. They lie, act contrary to the truth, and reward evil. If any of those gods exist then there’s no hope in trusting in them anyway.
Wow, I'm not sure if this is more horrifying for it's sheer arrogance, or its sheer ignorance.
As for the archeological record: Eden didn't happen. The flood didn't happen, and the version in Genesis was a part copy of the earlier Gilgamesh epic. The slavery in Egypt and the Exodus didn't happen. The Babylonian captivity didn't happen in the way it was described in the Old Testamentâ€"and that it happened in any form says nothing about the veracity of the rest of your bible: that would be like inferring that because London exists, the Harry Potter books must all be true since they mention London. The historicity of Jeshua bar-Joseph is deeply ambiguous at best, there being
zero contemporaneous accountsâ€"and again, even if it were demonstrated there was a historical figure two millennia ago, that would have no bearing on whether or not he was actually divine: the analogy here would be inferring that since Troy existed historically, all the gods in the
Iliad are real. The four gospels which are alleged to be contemporaneous accounts (or at least copies of reported contemporaneous accounts) are all in deep conflict with each other as to not only the sequence of events, but as to which events even happened.
Bats and birds? Well, let's go to the source:
Quote from: Leviticus 11:13-20
13And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls ; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 14And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; 15Every raven after his kind; 16And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 17And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, 18And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, 19And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. 20All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
Seems pretty clear. Also, fowl
creep on all fours. Factually incorrect. Period, end of statement.
As for pi -- clearly you have no idea how either significant digits or basic engineering work, and/or your god is too stupid to know that specifying either the diameter or the circumference is sufficient and it's
never necessary to specify both. "A line of thirty cubits specifies its circumference" automatically gives its diameterâ€"9.55 cubitsâ€"and "ten cubits brim to brim" automatically specifies its circumferenceâ€"31.4 cubits. You will note, of course, that 30 and 31.4 are
not equivalent, even to your sloppy "one significant digit".
And as for slavery, that's a pretty sorry excuse for a cherry-pick since the rest of Exodus 21 is all about who to enslave and how to enslave them, and some rules about what you can and cannot do with your propertyâ€"not your employees, your property. Exodus 22 declares that being sold into slavery is the punishment for a thief who cannot make restitution. The New Testament is no better, with Jesus and Paul both admonishing slaves to be good servants to even cruel masters. All I can do here is point you at what your book actually says (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/slavery.html). Which I expect you will simply dismiss out of hand because you've made up your mind already, but your willful ignorance won't be on my hands.
In any case, if you believe in a god who can order us not to kill and not to lie and not to covet, why was he unable to order us not to own people? That's a slam-dunk, morally. There's no way you can spin, interpret, cherry-pick that. If you want to argue that morality is morality, then either slavery has always been wrong and your bible gets it wrong,
or that your bible gets it right and there's nothing morally wrong with slavery. If you go down the path of 'it was okay then but it's not now' then you have just endorsed both moral relativism, and admitted to believing in a non-omnipotent, non-omnibenevolent god.
So. Now that it's (further) demonstrated you're wrong, what does that do
your faith?
Quote from: Poison Tree on March 09, 2018, 11:08:21 AM
If I may be so presumptuous, let me preempt a reply: nothing in Genesis indicates that the serpent is anything but a serpent; nothing to support the claim that it is actually Satan/The Devil. It is only ever refereed to as a serpent, it is called livestock and all wild animals and its punishment (crawl on belly, eat dust, crush head/strike heel) only makes sense if the serpent is a serpent.
Okay--what the bible says and what people believe it says are often quite different. Whatever the role of the serpent was, it was created for that purpose by the bibical god. BTW, Satan/The Devil was a creation of the bibical god. So, if evil is supposed to flow from that source, it was a source created by god and god must be happy with that part of his creation since he allows it to exist. God is either all knowing, all powerful or not. Can't have it both ways.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 12:39:49 PM
Okay--what the bible says and what people believe it says are often quite different. Whatever the role of the serpent was, it was created for that purpose by the bibical god. BTW, Satan/The Devil was a creation of the bibical god. So, if evil is supposed to flow from that source, it was a source created by god and god must be happy with that part of his creation since he allows it to exist. God is either all knowing, all powerful or not. Can't have it both ways.
Read Job ... G-d can have it both ways, and make you rot in Hell for it was well ;-)
Yes, people have a mythic view of a mythic book. Not too well informed. Also, in Hebrew, the word for snake and serpent are different, it only sounds similar in English. Technically, serpent means dragon. Not necessarily a big dragon, but definitely one that helps virgin girls go bad ... that is why we have the Medieval iconography of St George rescuing the maiden from the dragon. This is also the myth (probably from Canaan as well) of Perseus saving Andromeda from the Kraken.
St George and the Dragon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon
Perseus vs the Kraken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpgIJUh9D4
And before that, it is the Canaanite myth of Ba'al vs Yam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal_Cycle
And of course this figures into the Medieval Christian view of Jesus vs Satan ... since Jesus is Ba'al of Canaanite myth.
And then it shows up in King Kong ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVeF_E6M12A
Artists recycle old material, and this is a canonical example lasting 4000 years.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 12:39:49 PM
Okay--what the bible says and what people believe it says are often quite different. Whatever the role of the serpent was, it was created for that purpose by the bibical god. BTW, Satan/The Devil was a creation of the bibical god. So, if evil is supposed to flow from that source, it was a source created by god and god must be happy with that part of his creation since he allows it to exist. God is either all knowing, all powerful or not. Can't have it both ways.
That is a straw man argument. Are you the Scarecrow?
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 01:03:14 PM
That is a straw man argument. Are you the Scarecrow?
Could be. Have to talk to Oz to see. Since you are a demi-god you aught to know. Oh, let me check my Bugs Bunny Oracle................
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 01:03:14 PM
That is a straw man argument.
Is that really a straw man argument, given the definition of that fallacy?
QuoteStraw man occurs when someone argues that a person holds a view that is actually not what the other person believes. Instead, it is a distorted version of what the person believes.
Okay. Time for the full reply.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
@Blackleaf â€" Even if I was raised as a Christian, I don’t see how this is a valid argument. Surely, you know people (or at least are aware of people) who believe differently than they were raised. I would guess that a lot of people in this forum were raised Christian, so then why aren’t they Christians? Why are there many people who were raised Muslims, but are now Christians?
It's relevant because it shows how you are biased in your thinking. Or do you deny that people's beliefs are influenced by their parents and their social environments, especially during childhood? Yes, many of us grew up Christian, and we changed our minds for various reasons. Many of us, no doubt, know more about the Bible than you do. And I have no doubts that if you had grown up in a Muslim majority country, raised by Muslim parents, growing up with Muslim friends and family, you would be a Muslim. That kind of brainwashing affects the way you think. When I was a Christian, I thought I was open minded. And for a Christian fundamentalist, I was. But it wasn't until after I lost my faith that I realized just how restricted handicapped my thinking really was. If you ever have a deconversion experience, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
The God of the Bible most certainly rewards good and punishes evil. The God of the Bible doesn’t ignore any evil. As it says about God, He: “…will by no means clear the guilty…†(Exodus 34:7, ESV). Every evil act will be punished by God. However, because He is kind, merciful, and loving, He transfers the guilt of His people to His Son, the only One who can pay the price for it, so that His people are seen as blameless in His sight. God is so kind, in fact, that He commands everyone to repent and receive this forgiveness and have immeasurable joy forever.
Saying something doesn't mean jack shit if your actions say the opposite. The Bible claims that the God of the Bible is just, but it also says, "He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). In other words, when bad stuff happens to you, it's not because he is punishing you. So he doesn't punish evil or reward good in this life, so what about the afterlife? Well, as I had already pointed out, good works do not matter when it comes to which afterlife you get. Either you believe in God without any evidence (because if you had evidence, it wouldn't be belief), and you go to Heaven, or you don't believe in the right god (or any of the countless gods available to choose from) and you go to Hell. That isn't rewarding good and punishing evil. That's rewarding a lucky guess and punishing unlucky guesses and nonparticipation.
And yes, I know that there are verses in the Bible that contradict all of this stuff. That is because the Bible is full of inconsistencies. One book in the New Testament will say that works don't matter, only faith, while another book says that faith is useless without works. Contradictions like these are why apologists have jobs. It's up to them to make sense of the unintelligible by making shit up and twisting verses in knots to make them say what they obviously don't actually say.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
Your claims that the Bible is inconsistent with science is only a statement that the Bible is currently inconsistent with something that is inconsistent. The Bible was inconsistent with science when it said that spontaneous generation occurred. If the people believed the Bible (like Louis Pasteur did) then they would’ve known they were missing some important information and that maggots only come from flies, not meat.
Evolution is not the only subject of science that discredits the Bible. But yes, it absolutely proves the Bible wrong. Thanks to the fossil record, we now know that the species that currently exist on earth make up only a tiny fraction of one percent of every species that has ever existed. A common tactic that creationists use is to point to the Cambrian Explosion and say, "How is it that life suddenly diversified that quickly?" And they dismiss the whole of evolution based on that. But to be a Creationist, you must believe that Moses carried every single species on the earth on a single boat, and that after those living things got off the boat, they diversified into countless species (several time more than occured in the Cambrian Explosion), and then 99.9% of those species died, all within the span of a few thousand years. Now which sounds more likely, that speciation took hundreds of millions of years to produce all the countless creatures found in the fossil record as well as all the estimated 8.7 million species alive today species (which again don't even account for 0.1% of every species that ever existed), or that all of that happened within the span of 6000 years? The latter is utterly ridiculous, and I sincerely hope you have enough brain power to see that.
If you're interested in educating yourself, and you want to know what the evidence of evolution actually says, here's a good video series for you:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXJ4dsU0oGMLnubJLPuw0dzD0AvAHAotW
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
Your superhero analogy fails because we aren’t innocent victims. Unfortunately, I think many churches have done a really poor job (i.e., unbiblical) of presenting the true condition of people along with what God is like. They have done this because they’ve wanted to tell people what they want to hear and this has reinforced the problem, which is that you believe you’re a good person…as the Bible says, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes…†(Proverbs 16:2, ESV). Your analogy fails for this reason. An accurate analogy would be to say that a bunch of criminals broke into a house and were trashing the place while stealing everything valuable and when the cops entered to arrest them you ask this superhero of yours why he isn’t doing anything to save the criminals.
No. My analogy is just fine. It's yours that is absolutely stupid. And yes, what you're describing is exactly what my church taught me to believe at a young age, unfortunately. You seem to have this typical Christian idea that we unbelievers don't understand it right. If only we knew the Bible better, like you do, if only we were taught "accurate" theology... No. We know exactly what you're talking about, and we've heard it before. God says that we are deserving of Hell just by existing. We are criminals regardless of whether or not we have committed any crimes. In my analogy, Superman sees evil taking place, and despite having both the knowledge and the power to stop it, he chooses to do nothing. In the same way, God watches as people are murdered, raped, abused, cheated, robbed, and otherwise victimized, and he chooses to do nothing about it. Now for your "correction" of my analogy to work, every single person in that bank would have had to have been someone who had committed a crime before. Crimes which Superman also ignored beforehand. And you're telling me that the criminal record of those people means that Superman is justified in watching them be victimized? So for the sake of your argument, maybe the hostage who was shot to death was a sex offender. Does that make it okay for Superman to allow him to be shot to death? Does his life no longer have value because of his previous transgression?
This is another way your experience as a Christian has warped your view of reality. You've been programmed to see every human being as deserving of eternal torture. You think that every human being is vile and unworthy. Imagine looking at a newborn baby and saying, "You deserve to burn in Hell forever and ever because you're not perfect." What a sickening worldview that is.
And one more thing, who the hell's house is being robbed in your analogy? If it's another human, then the victim must still be a criminal because all have fallen short of the glory of God. So that can't be the case, or else your analogy wouldn't make any sense. Does the house belong to God? Is God so weak and vulnerable that people can do actual harm to him? Talk about ridiculous.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 09, 2018, 03:39:20 PM
Is that really a straw man argument, given the definition of that fallacy?
QuoteA straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
Did anyone say that G-d is omnipotent or omniscient or omni-anything in this string? Other than the OP of course at some point (but not in the first post, I checked). Yes, atheists imagine an impossible G-d, then claim logic makes that G-d impossible. Theists make similar mistakes. Why can we not have an option for a G-d who isn't omniscient or omnipotent or omni-anything? The theologians imagine such a G-d, but I would rejoinder that theologians are idiots.
Why would you accept the definition of any term (in any language) by idiots? Of course that will lead us to etymological nihilism, that language in fact has no meaning. How can I tell if someone (including myself) is an idiot, if I am one? People assume that people are intelligent, I see no reason to accept that assumption.
I can define a Russian as a 12 ft tall person ... and then claim that no Russians exist, because nobody can show me any person that tall. i may or may not actually believe that Russians are 12 ft tall ... I could just be rhetorical. If I believe that proposition, then I am an idiot. If I am rhetorical, then I am just being an argumentative asshole.
Similarly if we accept logic (but there is no reason other than prejudice to do so), I could define something that is logically inconsistent as another straw man ... so that I can ride to the rescue and destroy my own Golum (Jewish version). The only logically true statement I know, is the Liar's Paradox. Any statement by any human, is the equivalent of saying "What I am now saying is false".
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 09, 2018, 06:04:00 PM
This is another way your experience as a Christian has warped your view of reality. You've been programmed to see every human being as deserving of eternal torture. You think that every human being is vile and unworthy. Imagine looking at a newborn baby and saying, "You deserve to burn in Hell forever and ever because you're not perfect." What a sickening worldview that is.
Quote from: Jonathan Edwards, in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 1741
The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathesome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.
And yet, in the book of Job, even Satan was allowed into the presence of God (twice!), so God could make a bet with him!
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 06:05:38 PM
Why can we not have an option for a G-d who isn't omniscient or omnipotent or omni-anything?
Then why call it God?
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 06:05:38 PM
so that I can ride to the rescue and destroy my own Golum (Jewish version).
If it's the Jewish golum you're referencing, should the word be capitalized? I wonder if Adam would have been a golum?
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 06:05:38 PM
Did anyone say that G-d is omnipotent or omniscient or omni-anything in this string? Other than the OP of course at some point (but not in the first post, I checked).
If the OP (bfiddy100) stated this opinion, then I don't see how the mention of it could be considered a straw man, since the OP obviously holds that belief.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 09, 2018, 06:33:53 PM
And yet, in the book of Job, even Satan was allowed into the presence of God (twice!), so God could make a bet with him!
Last time I checked, Jonathan Edwards wasn't G-d, or even Paul. But Paul as a Jew of his time, would have believed in the Devil. Jews weren't exactly monotheist, and for most of history, neither have been Christians.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 12:39:49 PM
Whatever the role of the serpent was, it was created for that purpose by the bibical god. BTW, Satan/The Devil was a creation of the bibical god. So, if evil is supposed to flow from that source, it was a source created by god and god must be happy with that part of his creation since he allows it to exist.
Oh, absolutely. But it is even worse with the serpent being an actual serpent. First, it stops apologists from trying to kick the ball into the long grass by blaming everything on Satan's free will. Secondly, it demands an explanation for the talking serpent. Serpents don't talk. Loosing the power of speech is not listed as a punishment for the serpent. Did god specially endow this serpent with speech? Specifically to tempt Eve? And then punish it and its descendants for doing what god commanded?
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 09, 2018, 06:35:25 PM
Then why call it God?
I define Hillary as omnipotent. The D candidate wasn't omnipotent ... so that candidate wasn't the real Hillary.
I love it when materialists pontificate on metaphysics. It is like the Pope pontificating on marriage.
Quote from: Poison Tree on March 09, 2018, 10:49:18 PM
Oh, absolutely. But it is even worse with the serpent being an actual serpent. First, it stops apologists from trying to kick the ball into the long grass by blaming everything on Satan's free will. Secondly, it demands an explanation for the talking serpent. Serpents don't talk. Loosing the power of speech is not listed as a punishment for the serpent. Did god specially endow this serpent with speech? Specifically to tempt Eve? And then punish it and its descendants for doing what god commanded?
So are you now going to quote predestination to us? That G-d created the serpent, and Eve and Adam. And they are sock puppets for G-d, the serpent, and Eve and Adam all did exactly what G-d wanted them to do (for real), and then G-d punished them for being sock puppets?
Muslims have a different story of Satan's fall, and it is just as fictional. Why aren't you all arguing about Harry Potter?
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 09, 2018, 06:39:33 PM
If it's the Jewish golum you're referencing, should the word be capitalized? I wonder if Adam would have been a golum?
Good question ... Adam was certainly a golem (no, it isn't a name, it is a type). Gollum is the specific guy from Lord of the Rings. In rabbinic myth, a golem is a homunculus made of clay (Adam means made of earth). A rabbi activates it by placing the secret name of G-d, on a scroll, and attaches it to the forehead of the homunculus. Not as powerful as G-d creating Adam, but basically a medieval version of a robot, like Gort, who protects the Jewish community. Of course it always goes awry, being even more imperfect than Adam. And it has to be destroyed by removing the scroll from its forehead. Of course this is the origin of the Mary Shelly story ... she updated for the German Enlightenment. Frankenstein is an actual village in German Silesia, before WW II. AI, scifi robotics, autonomous vehicles are the up to date version of human hubris, and Jewish magic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem
Quote from: Poison Tree on March 09, 2018, 10:49:18 PM
Oh, absolutely. But it is even worse with the serpent being an actual serpent. First, it stops apologists from trying to kick the ball into the long grass by blaming everything on Satan's free will. Secondly, it demands an explanation for the talking serpent. Serpents don't talk. Loosing the power of speech is not listed as a punishment for the serpent. Did god specially endow this serpent with speech? Specifically to tempt Eve? And then punish it and its descendants for doing what god commanded?
That does seem very god like, doesn't it? :)
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 11:02:29 PM
That does seem very god like, doesn't it? :)
You judge G-d, G-d judges you. Fair, isn't it?
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 10:52:15 PM
So are you now going to quote predestination to us? That G-d created the serpent, and Eve and Adam. And they are sock puppets for G-d, the serpent, and Eve and Adam all did exactly what G-d wanted them to do (for real), and then G-d punished them for being sock puppets?
for the christian god how else could it be?
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 09, 2018, 06:42:06 PM
If the OP (bfiddy100) stated this opinion, then I don't see how the mention of it could be considered a straw man, since the OP obviously holds that belief.
Not only the OP is posting here.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 11:04:28 PM
for the christian god how else could it be?
1000 forms of Christianity. Which god? Jesus the blond blue eyed hillbilly cat fishing buddy who handles rattlesnakes on Sunday?
I understand you only know fire breathing Baptists in your youth, but you have to lay off the fire water.
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 11:04:19 PM
You judge G-d, G-d judges you. Fair, isn't it?
I hope you know that your G-d, or any god, is simply a fiction. So, as I can do with any fiction, I can judge it. And I find your fictional G-d to be just that--fictional; and not that good of a fiction at that.
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 11:05:28 PM
Not only the OP is posting here.
Are you arguing in favor of the legitimacy of the Bible, or are you just derailing the thread?
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 11:08:12 PM
!000 forms of Christianity. Which god? Jesus the blond blue eyed hillbilly cat fishing buddy who handles rattlesnakes on Sunday?
I understand you only know fire breathing Baptists in your youth, but you have to lay off the fire water.
Wait a minute--that's my question.
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 09, 2018, 11:09:59 PM
Are you arguing in favor of the legitimacy of the Bible, or are you just derailing the thread?
come now--derailing, of course.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 11:08:53 PM
I hope you know that your G-d, or any god, is simply a fiction. So, as I can do with any fiction, I can judge it. And I find your fictional G-d to be just that--fictional; and not that good of a fiction at that.
The President is a fiction (the office) .. the person in it is playing a role, like King Lear in a play. The person is real, the role is not. So the President can't have you arrested, because a fiction can't do that? Well when a fiction is embodied (as a person who has assumed office) they can throw your butt in jail. G-d is embodied, that is the real truth behind Christianity, that Judaism and Islam are in denial about. Not that Christians understand what they have. They allowed Greek atheist philosophers to define what theology is.
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 09, 2018, 11:09:59 PM
Are you arguing in favor of the legitimacy of the Bible, or are you just derailing the thread?
If you know me, you know i agree that the Bible is wrong. All human writings are. All humans are. We are not the Truth, we are the Lie. Spawn of Satan himself. And no, I don't think I am derailing the thread. I don't agree with the OP, I am a heretic.
But I may have been awkward in my choice of words ... what I meant was, there is only one OP, but more than the OP is posting here. I wasn't arguing that this was my string.
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 11:11:29 PM
The President is a fiction (the office) .. the person in it is playing a role, like King Lear in a play. The person is real, the role is not. So the President can't have you arrested, because a fiction can't do that? Well when a fiction is embodied (as a person who has assumed office) they can throw your butt in jail. G-d is embodied, that is the real truth behind Christianity, that Judaism and Islam are in denial about. Not that Christians understand what they have.
You keep insisting that there is something real about your G-d, and it is, and remains, a fiction. No analogies work, for it is like trying to make Bugs Bunny real, when Bugs is simply a fiction. Neither the president nor the office are fiction; and no god is real. You do have a hard time with fiction and reality. Scared by a nightmare of G-d and you think that makes it real. Okay....................
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 09, 2018, 11:17:30 PM
You keep insisting that there is something real about your G-d, and it is, and remains, a fiction. No analogies work, for it is like trying to make Bugs Bunny real, when Bugs is simply a fiction. Neither the president nor the office are fiction; and no god is real. You do have a hard time with fiction and reality. Scared by a nightmare of G-d and you think that makes it real. Okay....................
You are a fiction, in your own mind. You aren't who you say you are, or who you think you are. Because as an ape, you have no intelligence. None of us apes do. People only think the Presidency is real, because we agree to a common delusion. If tomorrow, we woke up, without the idea of the Presidency, it would no longer exist (as a delusion). All human culture is agreed to delusion (like what is the correct side of the road to drive on). Not only homosexuality is a delusion, so is heterosexuality. Those are names for ideas that people have about human behavior, but all our ideas are wrong.
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 11:22:30 PM
You are a fiction, in your own mind. You aren't who you say you are, or who you think you are. Because as an ape, you have no intelligence. None of us apes do. People only think the Presidency is real, because we agree to a common delusion. If tomorrow, we woke up, without the idea of the Presidency, it would no longer exist (as a delusion). All human culture is agreed to delusion (like what is the correct side of the road to drive on). Not only homosexuality is a delusion, so is heterosexuality. Those are names for ideas that people have about human behavior, but all our ideas are wrong.
:rolleyes:Uh...............Okay...........................
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 03, 2018, 11:21:58 AM
If God wasn't angry about people doing evil then He wouldn't be good. If He rewarded or overlooked evil then He wouldn't be good.
I am curious if you know that the god of the Bible tells us that he created both good and evil
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 03, 2018, 12:02:05 PM
The Bible is inconsistent within itself. I mean, Jesus, the first two chapters of Genesis don't even agree with each other.
case in point:
Genesis 1:20-21 god commanded the water to bring forth birds
Genesis 2:19 god made birds from the ground
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 03, 2018, 01:51:39 PM
I read a book call 101 Myths of the Bible (https://archive.org/details/101MythsOfTheBible) that tells me all I need to know to affirm the mythical nature of the Bible. At least the Old Testament, and the New Testament is no better.
I am enjoying reading this... currently on myth#56
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
The God of the Bible didn’t create a world in which people and animals needed to kill other people and animals to survive. This was a result of man’s rebellion against his perfect Creator.
There is no place in the Bible that says such a thing. Just another example of a busy-body theologist.
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 08, 2018, 02:31:51 PM
@Jason78 â€" which basic “facts†did the Author of the Bible get wrong?
I'm not going to start quoting that infernal book chapter and verse to you. If you'd like to know more, read the skeptics annotated bible (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/).
It's an absolutely roaring read, full of little tidbits of information about all the stuff god got wrong. Including a few of his more horrific atrocities.
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 11:22:30 PM
You are a fiction, in your own mind. You aren't who you say you are, or who you think you are. Because as an ape, you have no intelligence. None of us apes do. People only think the Presidency is real, because we agree to a common delusion. If tomorrow, we woke up, without the idea of the Presidency, it would no longer exist (as a delusion). All human culture is agreed to delusion (like what is the correct side of the road to drive on). Not only homosexuality is a delusion, so is heterosexuality. Those are names for ideas that people have about human behavior, but all our ideas are wrong.
Maybe....Just maybe..............I am the only thing in the universe that I am sure is not fiction. I do exist. For a brief moment. Maybe you are the fiction created by me; you and your g-d are a fiction of my mind. So, I expect to hear a resounding 'Thank You!' issuing forth from you and your G-d; maybe, just maybe the second I die, you two do to.
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 10, 2018, 09:42:32 AM
Maybe....Just maybe..............I am the only thing in the universe that I am sure is not fiction. I do exist. For a brief moment. Maybe you are the fiction created by me; you and your g-d are a fiction of my mind. So, I expect to hear a resounding 'Thank You!' issuing forth from you and your G-d; maybe, just maybe the second I die, you two do to.
So then, you are a 17th century French philosopher? Incroyable! I think Freud convincingly debunked Monsieur DesCartes.
Auditions from supposed deities ... are probably hallucinations. In which case, please apply that to our conversation, between two demigods ;-) But if people can hallucinate, how can we know we aren't hallucinating now? My certainty or yours, that I am not hallucinating ... based on a recent personal encounter with another person who was hallucinating ... empirically shows me that we can't tell the difference when the chips are down. Though my sense of "reality" is quite similar to yours ... I am can be more skeptical of myself.
Where is my two 'Thank Yous'????
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 10:50:54 PM
I define Hillary as omnipotent. The D candidate wasn't omnipotent ... so that candidate wasn't the real Hillary.
I love it when materialists pontificate on metaphysics. It is like the Pope pontificating on marriage.
Is that what I did - pontificate?
Quote from: Baruch on March 09, 2018, 10:52:15 PM
Why aren't you all arguing about Harry Potter?
Because the fans of Harry Potter aren't threatening to take over our government and rule us with the laws of Harry Potter. Fans of Jesus are so threating us, they want the laws of God to be the law of the land, and
they will never stop until it is so (http://nullgod.com/index.php?topic=45.0).
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 10, 2018, 01:24:36 PM
Because the fans of Harry Potter aren't threatening to take over our government and rule us with the laws of Harry Potter. Fans of Jesus are so threating us, they want the laws of God to be the law of the land, and they will never stop until it is so (http://nullgod.com/index.php?topic=45.0).
As a 60s revolutionary then ... perhaps you need to get some rhetorical bomb strapped on? I expect Europe will become entirely Islamic ... but this doesn't bother me as much as it bothers pr126. See ... I understand your objection is political. But then it belongs in the politics section ;-)
I would think it very interesting, on Bizzaro Earth, if J K Rowling instead of Hillary Clinton was a politician, and she was trying to convert everyone to Hogwartism ;-) I find most politicians to be threatening, but I don't lose sleep over it.
Quote from: Baruch on March 10, 2018, 02:40:47 PM
I find most politicians to be threatening, but I don't lose sleep over it.
Good, I'm sure you need as much beauty sleep as you can get. Does it help?
The Bible is not the word of God. We have the many serious contradictions. The two creation stories of Genesis. And the contradictions of the tales of Jesus and his alleged resurrection. And many more, serious and trivial. Archaeology has demonstrated conclusively that the tales of the Exodus and genocides in Canaan are lies made up by some billy goat herder priests. If there was a God who somehow inspired writings, the nonsense of the Bible is hard to explain. By the time the billy goat herders decided to write their history, they had forgotten their true history. We get a few glimpses of that from Egyptian sources. And again, archaeology. If the Bible had any truth in it that came from God, we would have a far different history than that presented to us. Much of what is supposedly the word of God is just downright silly. Tales in Exodus that prescribe a hair dressing for the priests that anybody else who copied it were to be executed. Israelites were allowed to sell their teen aged daughters into concubinage. God had nothing better for us? What the Bible means to one is decided by what filters one uses when reading it. Most people filter out the nonsense and obvious contradictions. But some of us insist on noticing these glaring examples that demonstrate that a supremely wise and good God had nothing to do with this book of falsehoods and nonsense.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 10, 2018, 03:03:30 PM
Good, I'm sure you need as much beauty sleep as you can get. Does it help?
I am definitely prettier than you ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on March 10, 2018, 09:44:55 PM
I am definitely prettier than you ;-)
Oo! We should have a forum beauty contest.
Quote from: Cheerful Charlie on March 10, 2018, 05:19:03 PMArchaeology has demonstrated conclusively that the tales of the Exodus and genocides in Canaan are lies made up by some billy goat herder priests.
Ah, but they're metaphorically true and/or parables about ...uh... freedom from bondage, which is obviously an allusion to America's independence from british rule and present day abortionists. So you see, this supposed refutation of God's Word only strengthens it.
And far as everything else in the bible, we could sit here all day and talk about what stories have their facts wrong if you look at it in a hyper-literal, reductionist way (except the stories meant to be taken literally, those are 100% literal) but at the end of the day, the bible has a bunch of great arguments going for it:
*
popularity - what better way is there to explain Christianity's meteoric rise to prominence than its inherent truth? Imagine a middle-eastern religion springing up from nothing to millions of followers. No, not that religion, the other one. Nope, not that one, either. Yeah, the cross one. That one is special.
*
conviction - who would die for a lie? *quickly hides a picture of ISIS*
*
consistency - ??? writers, one consistent message - sure, there are some parts that seem like contradictions, but a closer reading that takes into account the full context, mastery of several archaic languages (a trivial task), and consultation with the unbiased bible scholars over at thebibleistruth.com reveals that no such contradictions exist.
(btw, I'm being incredibly sarcastic here)
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God. I'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
The bible, like any scripture, is filled with errors and contradictions , both internally and with reality. There is nothing in the bible or the way it was formed that is sufficient to convince a reasonable person that it is the word of some magic skydaddy.
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 10, 2018, 10:34:59 PM
Oo! We should have a forum beauty contest.
Green guy with red anime hair ... you win ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on March 10, 2018, 09:44:55 PM
I am definitely prettier than you ;-)
That's a very low bar under which to limbo, though!
Oh, yeah, the RCC decided that limbo doesn't actually exist.
Quote from: Hydra009 on March 10, 2018, 11:02:59 PM
(btw, I'm being incredibly sarcastic here)
I'm sure glad you told us that, 'cause I'd never have guessed! ;-)
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 11, 2018, 05:32:35 PM
That's a very low bar under which to limbo, though!
Oh, yeah, the RCC decided that limbo doesn't actually exist.
That is because the Pope never vacations in the Caribbean ;-)
Religious texts are always moronic. I can't understand how anyone can read them and not ROTFLOL!
Quote from: Cavebear on March 12, 2018, 01:38:04 AM
Religious texts are always moronic. I can't understand how anyone can read them and not ROTFLOL!
Yes. My point was, if there was a God, an infinitely wise and knowledgeable God who sent true and worthy revelations to us,our supposed holy books would not be collections of nonsense, lies, and ignorance. Recent rises in Nones and non-believers suggest a lot of people just no longer believe the nonsense of Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon et al. People are catching on.
From time to time, religion sees shifts in it's habits of thought. Death of polytheism for example, starting about 2000 years ago. Could it be we might see the beginnings of the death of mythology based religions?
Quote from: Cheerful Charlie on March 12, 2018, 05:01:48 AM
Yes. My point was, if there was a God, an infinitely wise and knowledgeable God who sent true and worthy revelations to us,our supposed holy books would not be collections of nonsense, lies, and ignorance. Recent rises in Nones and non-believers suggest a lot of people just no longer believe the nonsense of Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon et al. People are catching on.
From time to time, religion sees shifts in it's habits of thought. Death of polytheism for example, starting about 2000 years ago. Could it be we might see the beginnings of the death of mythology based religions?
One can only hope...
Quote from: Cheerful Charlie on March 12, 2018, 05:01:48 AM
Yes. My point was, if there was a God, an infinitely wise and knowledgeable God who sent true and worthy revelations to us,our supposed holy books would not be collections of nonsense, lies, and ignorance. Recent rises in Nones and non-believers suggest a lot of people just no longer believe the nonsense of Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon et al. People are catching on.
From time to time, religion sees shifts in it's habits of thought. Death of polytheism for example, starting about 2000 years ago. Could it be we might see the beginnings of the death of mythology based religions?
Scifi religion and neb-paganism are here. Political ideology is always available as a backup.
Quote from: Baruch on March 12, 2018, 06:38:43 AM
Scifi religion and neb-paganism are here. Political ideology is always available as a backup.
You did note that he said "if there was a god" right?
Quote from: Cheerful Charlie on March 12, 2018, 05:01:48 AM
Could it be we might see the beginnings of the death of mythology based religions?
If I were to make a friendly bet on that, I'd say we will just see a new mythology spring forth.
Yesterday's religious truths comprise today's mythology. Jesus will take his rightful place next to Thor, and the spiritually minded will latch onto some other nonsense.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 11, 2018, 05:36:19 PM
I'm sure glad you told us that, 'cause I'd never have guessed! ;-)
It was in response to a newish person who might not be be familiar with my brand of sarcasm.
Quote from: Blackleaf on March 10, 2018, 10:34:59 PM
Oo! We should have a forum beauty contest.
I'll go first.
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/popeye/images/d/d1/Poopdeck_Pappy.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161029220650)
Quote from: SGOS on March 12, 2018, 10:13:03 AM
If I were to make a friendly bet on that, I'd say we will just see a new mythology spring forth.
Yesterday's religious truths comprise today's mythology. Jesus will take his rightful place next to Thor, and the spiritually minded will latch onto some other nonsense.
The ones who NEED a deity will find one. But my hope is that they will eventually die out like flat-earthers. And I think the analogy is valid.
Quote from: Cheerful Charlie on March 12, 2018, 05:01:48 AM
Yes. My point was, if there was a God, an infinitely wise and knowledgeable God who sent true and worthy revelations to us,our supposed holy books would not be collections of nonsense, lies, and ignorance. Recent rises in Nones and non-believers suggest a lot of people just no longer believe the nonsense of Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon et al. People are catching on.
From time to time, religion sees shifts in it's habits of thought. Death of polytheism for example, starting about 2000 years ago. Could it be we might see the beginnings of the death of mythology based religions?
I am voting for you to be right!
Quote from: Mike Cl on March 12, 2018, 10:30:13 AM
I am voting for you to be right!
I would hope for the death of politics, if the cost wasn't so damned high ;-( I find political ideology to be personally threatening, more than religious theology ... but that is my hobby horse.
Quote from: Baruch on March 10, 2018, 09:44:55 PM
I am definitely prettier than you ;-)
"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception." - Groucho Marx
:cheesy:
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 03, 2018, 01:09:13 PM
Can you show me where the Bible claims to be the word of God?
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on March 12, 2018, 10:25:10 AM
I'll go first.
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/popeye/images/d/d1/Poopdeck_Pappy.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161029220650)
I'm sorry...do you think you can compete with my lovely face? Eh? Back off jack.
edit: hey...sumbitch my av's gone........sheeesh
Quote from: Cheerful Charlie on March 12, 2018, 08:19:42 PM
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
This was covered in reply#48, to wit:
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 08, 2018, 02:49:12 PM
OK, so you figure that the word "scripture" is synonymous with "the Bible"? So if a writing is not in the Bible it could not be considered to be scripture?
Quote from: bfiddy100 on March 02, 2018, 11:08:13 PM
Hello. I assume that you would say that you know that the Bible isn't the Word of God, even if you might not say that you know there isn't a God.
I do not claim to know, with absolute certainty, that there is no god. My position is that theists, have not met their burden of proof, to support their claim, that a god
does exist.
My atheism is a provisional position, not a dogmatic one.
QuoteI'm hoping that you'll tell me why you are so confident that the Bible isn't what it claims to be (i.e., the Word of God). I'm also curious if you're open to the possibility that you may be wrong about your conclusion, especially considering that you've been wrong about things that you thought you were right about before (just like every other human). Thanks in advance for your response.
I am confident for a number of reasons.
A god inspired or authored book, would not contain: so many internal contradictions, so much scientific nonsense, would not condone slavery, would not look almost exactly like every other ancient book of mythology, etc, etc.
A god, that wants to communicate his message to all of humanity, would not choose to do so, by waiting decades or longer before having fallible humans write it down on little pieces of parchment susceptible to being lost, destroyed, edited, full of copy errors, etc.
He would not have it written in languages he would not would die, or be misunderstood by future generations.
He would not only communicate his message to a very small area, to a small group of mostly illiterate people, while the rest of the world continues in their ignorance, inventing false religions.
At least a god with omniscience would not do these things.
Of course I am open to being wrong. It was my openness to being wrong, which lead me to deeply study the source of my theistic beliefs, (historically, logically, rationally), to come to the conclusion that my beliefs were not supported by evidence or valid and sound logic.
One of my main motivations in life, is to have as many true beliefs as possible, and as few false beliefs as possible.
All it would take to change my mind, is demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic.
Knowing what you don't know (a list of them) is a good plan. The problem with epistemology, is that what we love to argue about, isn't facts (aka what we know) but all the other stuff (aka what we don't know). So I know how many fingers I presently have on my right hand. But the fact that I know that, isn't all that interesting. I would much rather know ... What is Life? or some such.
Quote from: Simon Moon on March 13, 2018, 02:12:28 PM
I do not claim to know, with absolute certainty, that there is no god. My position is that theists, have not met their burden of proof, to support their claim, that a god does exist.
My atheism is a provisional position, not a dogmatic one.
I am confident for a number of reasons.
A god inspired or authored book, would not contain: so many internal contradictions, so much scientific nonsense, would not condone slavery, would not look almost exactly like every other ancient book of mythology, etc, etc.
A god, that wants to communicate his message to all of humanity, would not choose to do so, by waiting decades or longer before having fallible humans write it down on little pieces of parchment susceptible to being lost, destroyed, edited, full of copy errors, etc.
He would not have it written in languages he would not would die, or be misunderstood by future generations.
He would not only communicate his message to a very small area, to a small group of mostly illiterate people, while the rest of the world continues in their ignorance, inventing false religions.
At least a god with omniscience would not do these things.
Of course I am open to being wrong. It was my openness to being wrong, which lead me to deeply study the source of my theistic beliefs, (historically, logically, rationally), to come to the conclusion that my beliefs were not supported by evidence or valid and sound logic.
One of my main motivations in life, is to have as many true beliefs as possible, and as few false beliefs as possible.
All it would take to change my mind, is demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic.
You presume an understanding of a deity, which is impossible, of course. By which I mean, arguing against a deity by debating one is arguing with that which doesn't exist.
Quote from: Cavebear on March 15, 2018, 02:58:37 AM
You presume an understanding of a deity, which is impossible, of course. By which I mean, arguing against a deity by debating one is arguing with that which doesn't exist.
That isn't a bad point. Arguing logically about non-existent things (say Hogwarts) is a kind of silly exercise, isn't it? This is why theists and atheists are ... wasting their time. But humans have nothing better to do than waste their whole lives on trivialities.
Quote from: Baruch on March 15, 2018, 05:08:50 AM
That isn't a bad point. Arguing logically about non-existent things (say Hogwarts) is a kind of silly exercise, isn't it? This is why theists and atheists are ... wasting their time. But humans have nothing better to do than waste their whole lives on trivialities.
Quote from: Clarence DarrowWe are born and we die; and between these two most important events in our lives more or less time elapses which we have to waste somehow or other. In the end it does not seem to matter much whether we have done so in making money, or practicing law, or reading or playing, or in any other way, as long as we felt we were deriving a maximum of happiness out of our doings.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 15, 2018, 01:47:22 PM
I have certainly gotten happiness and personal satisfaction out of life. And it ain't over yet...
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 15, 2018, 01:47:22 PM
I will take William Jennings Bryan over Clarence Darrow any day.
In single combat?
Quote from: Cavebear on March 15, 2018, 03:19:40 PM
I have certainly gotten happiness and personal satisfaction out of life. And it ain't other yet...
I am happy for you because I don't have what the ancients called the "evil eye".
Socrates would say the the unexamined life isn't worth living. But having examined life, I find it isn't worth living (for my sake anyway). It may be worth living in service to someone else. We provide service to countless people, even by just being consumers.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 15, 2018, 06:25:01 PM
In single combat?
The movie portrayed Darrow as being pretty cynical ... like you would expect a defense lawyer defending a guilty party to be. Scopes was guilty, and was convicted. Though on that occasion I don't think that William Jennings Bryan added much to the prosecution.