spin

And trying to ignore facts.

There really isn't that much. After one rules out the exodus as a rewrite of the Hyksos tradition, the wandering in the desert as a farce with millions of people sharing watering holes that hardly supported a few dozen, the conquest that simply didn't happen, as archaeology shows the same people were there before and after the reputed times for a conquest, the lack of knowledge of the arrival of the Philistines, the impossibility of the kingdom of David, there's very little left. A Samarian kingdom which was harried by Damascus and then defeated by the Assyrians leaving room for the emergence of a Judean kingdom for less than two hundred hundred years.

You mean they couldn't do research about their own land? You are bending over backwards to scrape together something that seems vaguely rational.

Why don't you consult a few scholarly books?


spin

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Robert Byers: Inspiring and preserving inerrant texts presumes that whoever inspired them wanted people to have access to them. As it was, millions of people died without hearing the Gospel message because God refused to tell them about it. In addition, during Old Testament times, God turned his back on most the rest people in the world. Of course, a much better explanation is that the Jews appointed themselves as God's chosen people. If that is true, it easily explains why God turned his back on most of the rest of the people in the world.

In the first century, why did God have a preference for people who lived closer to Palestine? No one who lived in China in the first century heard the Gospel message, at least as far as we know. No loving God would show favoritism based upon geography.

Kosmin and Lachman wrote a book that is titled "One Nation Under God." The authors provide a lot of documented evidence that shows that in the U.S., the primary factors that influence what people believe are geography, family, race, ethnicity, gender, and age. Those factors are obviously secular factors. Kosmin and Lachman show that a much higher percentage of women become Christians than men. This means that either God discriminates against women, or that that is to be expected since women are generally more emotional than men are, and since emotions are an important part of religous beliefs. The authors also show that when people become elderly, they are much less likely to change their minds no matter what they believe. This means that either God discriminates against elderly skeptics, or that it is genetically normal for elderly people to become set in their ways.

If the God of the Bible does not exist, that explains why chance and circumstance determine what people believe, not God. If the God of the Bible does exist, you need to explain why God chose to mimic a naturalistic universe regarding why people believe what they believe. If God frequently mimics a naturalistic universe, how are people supposed to know that he exists? Fossils and sediments are sorted in ways that are convenient for skeptics. Even some evangelical Christians geologists have stated that a global flood did not occur, and that the earth is old. In my opinion, a loving God would not go out of his way to mimic a naturalistic universe to the extent that the God of the Bible has, assuming for the sake of argument that he exists, which takes a lot of assuming.

It is quite suspicious that it is frequently possible to predict where God will choose to reveal himself to people in ways that result in people becoming Christians. For instance, it is possible to predict that each year, a far smaller percentage of Syrian children who have Muslim parents will become Christians than children who live in the U.S. who have Christian parents.

James says that if a man refuses to give food to a hungry person, he is vain, and his faith is dead, and yet God refused to give food to hundreds of thousands of people who died of starvation in the Irish Potato Famine. How do you account for that?

Why do you suppose that God inspired James to write that? It could not have been because God wanted everyone to have enough food to eat. If God provided food for Adam and Eve, and manna for the Jews, and if Jesus fed some people out of compassion, which the New Testament says that he did, why has God refused to give food to millions of people who died of starvation? If the God of the Bible exists, it appears that he is more concerned with HOW people get enough food to eat than he is with THAT they get enough food to eat. The same goes for the spread of the Gospel message. It appears that God is more concerned with HOW people hear the Gospel message than he is with people HEARING the Gospel message.

Of course, none of that makes any sense. What does make since is that if a God exists, he is not the God of the Bible. No moral, rational God would act like the God of the Bible acts. It is not possible to use logic and reason and conclude that fundamentalist Christianity make sense.

How do you explain God breaking his promise to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a compensation for Nebuchadnezzar's failure to defeat Tyre?

sonofone

Wow Johnny I am a Christian and enjoyed your post.Very thought provoking.I feel it is acceptable to ask questions as you have and if I or know one else has adequate answers to them,then I suppose you are within your right to come to your own conclusion.

For the record I do not hold out the bible to be inerrant.I discovered this painfully and most shockingly almost 15 years ago after reading a book who wrote the bible.This book was not even written as an afront to the bible or the Christian faith,yet it turned my world upside down after reading it.

After studying history in college and discovering the flood story of Homer predated the flood account of scripture,yet it is identical in nature also spun me around.

Having said this it is too late for me to become anything other than what I am.I am a Christian who both believes and am in love with God:huh: I can both understand and appreciate why you and many others like you are the exact opposite.

squiz

It is never too late
I guess it all comes down to how much you value truth and honesty over the status quo.

Johnny Skeptic

If you had been born in another century, and had been raised by Muslim parents, you probably would have said the same thing from a Muslim perspective. The best evidence indicates that time, chance, and circumstance determine what people believe, not God.

If the Bible said that God will send everyone to hell, you would reject it because that would not appeal to your emotional self-interest. That proves that you are not as interested in what the evidence IS as you are in what the evidence PROMISES. This means that logic and reason cannot be used to lead a person to fundamentalist Christianity. If faith is all that there is to it, one person's faith is as valid as another person's faith.

Since you are not an inerrantist, how do you determine which parts of the Bible are true, which parts are false, and which parts might be true of false?

sonofone

I suppose I don't attempt to prove what parts of the bible are true or false.The book I mentioned reading for instance mentions the whole book of Deuteronomy as false.

Faith in God is not easy to come by,I attend a church now where I am at odds with almost everything they believe,and we read the exact same bible.There are times where I wish my brain was as shut down as some of theirs appear to be.It would make for a much more peaceful existence.

I believe in God and the Christian faith in general primarily on or because of faith.If I used pure logic as a means to establish my basis for belief,I suppose I would be left believing in little to nothing.

First off I am extremely limited in my thinking,so using my brain as a means to formulate my belief system would be a risky and unfruitful proposition.I choose to yield as best I can to the mind of God which is best explained through the bible,although in my humble opinion is not a book that is without flaws.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you this,I'm just making an admission.There's passages of scripture that refer to the sun standing still,and the sun revolving around the earth,clearly those verses are problematic to say the least in light of the fact that this is an impossible occurrence.

In the final analysis all of us have to make choices that make sense on some level for us.The thought that I would believe differently if raised in a different culture is not lost on me.

I feel more of a need to affirm what you are saying rather than debate it as I am lover of truth.I feel no need or onus to represent myself as Gods attorney,I am merely an individual just as you hoping to make sense of my existence,and in doing so make the best choices I can.

For me right now ,in this moment, I have a strange peace that defies all logic and reasoning in the belief of the Christian God.I have little choice other than take the bible that defines and accompanies my faith with it,warts and all.:angel:

Johnny Skeptic

What is wrong with agnosticism? I am an agnostic.

If free will does not exist, you do not have a choice. If free will exists, you have a chioce.

Regarding "For me right now, in this moment, I have a strange peace that defies all logic and reasoning in the belief of the Christian God," there are in fact logical and reasonable explanations for that. First of all, you live in a predominantly Christian country. If you had been raised by Muslim parents in Syria, you would probably be a Muslim today. Second of all, it is quite natural to have a peaceful feeling that is caused by the belief that not only you will have another life after death, but a very comfortable eternal life after death. I was a fundamentalist Christian for over 30 years. I greatly enjoyed the hope of one day enjoying a comfortable eternal life. However, I one day realized that the God of the Bible probably does not exist. Then I became an agnostic. I did not like losing the hope that I had, but I knew that a peaceful feeling that was not based upon true claims was not worth feeling no matter how peaceful it was. Many non-Christian theists have peaceful feelings too. How are your beliefs any more valid than their beliefs are?

Do you believe that the God of the Bible will punish non-Christians for eternity without parole?

I recommend that a moderator split this post and transfer it to the GRD Forum.

sonofone

I really enjoy this line of questioning from you John and I am quite surprised that I did not pick up the fact that you were once a Christian.I do not believe that freewill exist,at least not by it's strict definition.

I realized John prior to joining this forum that I have absolutely no new information to bring that would persuade an atheist or agnostic to forsake the error of his ways and follow me.:banghead: I have come to a place in recent weeks where I am not threatened by those who think differently from me.

For most of my twenty-seven years of being a Christian,I spent it fighting other Christians on theology and doctrine.After reading the book on who wrote the bible,I found myself in no mans land.I had no intentions on ever studying the bible critically.I was thrown into it accidentally.

So John you are dealing with a man that is in a journey,that continues to evolve,however I have not found sufficient reason to abandon my Christian roots.I can't argue against your statements concerning the reasons I believe the way I do.

I don't have answers to the tough questions like will God punish those eternally who do not serve him,or what makes my belief any more valid than someone else's.

I could tell you what the bible says,though I suspect you are not in need of a lesson on scriptures.If anything I'm sure you could teach me a thing or two.

As for me not being an agnostic,I don't have the luxury to be one. I started out with God based solely on faith that is as real as the scripture which says that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.My faith is my evidence and my proof.

I know reasonable,logical thinking people do not like the word faith,as it is the default card if you will of a person who lacks the ability to prove their beliefs with facts.I promise you that I do not attempt to use it as such here.It is genuinely my reason for believing in a God and yes even a bible which I humbly say has problems.

You could come up with evidence that proves without any shadow of doubt that would cast down all proper reasoning that the bible is anything but a hoax and I would still believe in God.As I said in an earlier post,it's too late for me to be anything else.I love God and thats just it.He's real for me.

Like the saying goes what you eat won't make me fat.If you choose not to believe I can only hope for your sake that you have chosen well.

Johnny Skeptic

And non-Christians have come to a place where they do not feel threatened by the God of the Bible.

I do not mind when you mention faith, but I wish to say that mentioning faith is not useful since all theists have faith. Stating that you have faith will not change anyone's mind. The Gospel writers and Paul certainly used lots of arguments other than faith.

You said:

I replied:

So, your comment that your peace "defies all logic and reasoning in the belief of the Christian God" was not correct, and had simple, logical explantions.

I wish to add that if the universe is naturalistic (I am not saying that it is), genetics has caused all biologicial lifeforms, including plants, to try to survive. When a lifeform becomes intelligent enough, meaning humans, it is quite natural to want to survive forever, but not just forever, but forever in comfort.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to sonofone:

I said:

You did not answer the question. Please do so.