Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Fortuna · 01-23-2005, 04:46 PM

This thread actually fatigued me while reading it. My comments are in regards to an outline a few posts up, where we find a statement of 2 premises for the writing of the biblical texts for application to Occam's razor. Quoted here ;

Quote:

I think that the Razor can be better summarized as follows:

1,)This book was written by human beings.
2.)This book was written by an all powerful, invisible, undetectable supernatural entity in the sky.

Option two is an ipso facto multiplication of entities. You are adding an entity ("God") to the equation and the question of whether it violates the Razor boils down to whether such an entity is necessary (we'll set plausibility aside for the moment).

In order to prove necessity you would have to show some reason that option 1 is not possible. If no reason can be shown why humans could npt have written the book then we have an unnecessary multiplication of entia and a violation of the Razor.

The author comes to the proper conclusion, but I think the initial statement of the competing premises might be better stated as follows ;

1)This book was written by human beings, recording myths, legends,stories and history of his time and locale.

2) This book was written by human beings, recording myths, legends, stories and history of his time and locale and while composing their texts these authors were divinely inspired, or in a state of inspiration of a divine origin.

Now, I believe that in this presentation, the issue is stated more accurately. I do not believe that even the firmest of believers thinks that a god literally put the pen to the paper. I dont believe that is implied by divine inspiration.

This eliminates an objection from an earlier poster who claimed that the entire #2 statement (the one including divine inspiration) is completely eliminated by removing the idea of divine inspiration as an extranneous hypothesis. In this outline of the issues, when the extranneous hypothesis is removed, #2 simply reduces to #1.

There is nothing extraordinary or unreasonable about premise #1. Further, premise #1 is wholly contained in #2, with only the addition of the idea of divine inspiration.

Now, in applying Occam's razor it is more apparent that #2 includes a statement that is extranneous and un-necessary to explain the origins of the text. further by simple elimination of it, #2 becomes #1.

The burden of showing that #2 is more correct than #1 is now even more difficult than independently proving the idea of divine inspiration. In the posts in this thread thus far, I have not seen a clear definition of divine inspiration, much less a proof of it.

I say "even more difficult " above because, by this presentation, even if divine inspiration gains theory status by some proof of concept, it is still un-necessary to explain the texts, so that a much more specific case for these specific texts must now be made.

Good luck on that.

Toto · 01-23-2005, 05:06 PM

The discussion of Sheshbazzar's religious beliefs has been split off here and will be moved to GRD as a more appropriate forum.

Sheshbazzar · 01-23-2005, 06:02 PM

:rolling: I just love this thread, The subject says a lot. :rolling:

BSM · 01-24-2005, 07:01 AM

Fortuna,

If you read the entire thread you should get an award!

Quote:

Now, I believe that in this presentation, the issue is stated more accurately. I do not believe that even the firmest of believers thinks that a god literally put the pen to the paper. I dont believe that is implied by divine inspiration.

No, it is not. However, as you pointed out, there is no clear definition of "divine inspiration". In fact, we have two basic views:

1) The biblical literalist buys into this version:

Quote:

These Scriptures are sufficient to show what the Bible claims for itself. Paul says: “All Scripture is given by inspiration.�? Peter says: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by Holy Spirit.�? Luke says: “The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake,�? and he says David spake “this Scripture.�? The Bible is, indeed, the Word of God, is divinely inspired and is, therefore, authoritative and reliable. God’s revelation as given to men is perfect, for Paul says: “All Scripture–profitable–that the man of God may be perfect.�? If all Scriptures are profitable in perfecting men then the Scriptures must be perfect, for an imperfect rule could not produce perfect conduct. Yes, the Bible claims to be inspired. Excerpt from here.

2) Keith's view which is shared by many liberal Christians. Namely, that despite still being divinely inspired by God, due to man being an imperfect pen, somehow mistakes crept into the Bible. However, it's overall message is in tact. See Methods Used to Interpret the Bible.

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The burden of showing that #2 is more correct than #1 is now even more difficult than independently proving the idea of divine inspiration. In the posts in this thread thus far, I have not seen a clear definition of divine inspiration, much less a proof of it.

I say "even more difficult " above because, by this presentation, even if divine inspiration gains theory status by some proof of concept, it is still un-necessary to explain the texts, so that a much more specific case for these specific texts must now be made.

You are correct. Moreover, irregardless of a liberal or conservative definition of divine inspiration, as you noted in accordance with the razor: "it is still un-necessary to explain the texts."

As I have said before, I have no issue if you want to chalk up your belief in the Bible, God, etc., to faith. What does get annoying and ponderous is when theists try to make the evidence say something that it is not possible or needed.

~BSM

Fortuna · 01-25-2005, 08:34 PM

Dear BSM,

Not to be disrespectful, but those definitions of "divine inspiration" dont seem to help or explain very much. First of all, I'm sure you recognize that if that argument were to be applied to the modern bible,(as I think the definition is trying to do), it suspiciously sounds like it is a circular argument, i.e. "this text is inspried because it says it is inspired". Analogous to me saying something like, "I'm a psychic because I claim to be a psychic" (just an example, nothing more).

But, on closer inspection, that isn't really applicable either, because the bible didnt exist at the time these quotes were made. However, Jewish scripture certainly did (at least, Torah and Prophets). If you would bear with me, allow me totry to illustrate this on a case by case basis, using what you quoted to me..

Quote:

These Scriptures are sufficient to show what the Bible claims for itself. Paul says: “All Scripture is given by inspiration.�? Peter says: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by Holy Spirit.�?

OK, but at the time when Paul wrote this, what was considered scripture ? The answer must refer only to Jewish scriptures at the time, namely the Torah and the Prophets. He may or may not be referring to the Wisdom literature, because it wasn't officially Jewish scripture yet. He might also be referring to books like Enoch and some others, and it is even more unclear if these weres considered scriptural at the time. Could Paul also be referring to his own epistles ? I have doubts about that. As I understand it, the NT gospels didnt exist yet, so surely he could not be referring to those either.

Peter, (I assume this is from Peter's epistles) on the other hand, is later than Paul, and might be referring to one or two of the gospels, and maybe to some of the genuine Pauline epistles, but even that isnt clear. The safest assumption is to believe that he also is referring to the Torah and Prophets, and possibly to other Jewish texts.

Quote:

Luke says: “The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake,�? and he says David spake “this Scripture.�? The Bible is, indeed, the Word of God, is divinely inspired and is, therefore, authoritative and reliable. God’s revelation as given to men is perfect, for Paul says: “All Scripture–profitable–that the man of God may be perfect.�? If all Scriptures are profitable in perfecting men then the Scriptures must be perfect, for an imperfect rule could not produce perfect conduct.

Finally, we get to something more specific. Here Luke is referring to the texts of David (traditionally, Psalms I assume).

But then, we have a wierd construction, inthat it reverts back to Paul, which we already mentioned above.

Is it me, or is this paragraph poorly constructed, or some disparate opinions not blended together well ? Chronologically, Paul came first, then Luke, then Pater, correct ? So, why does sequence of thoughts start with Paul, to Peter, to Luke, and then back to Paul ??? (I apologize BSD, but I am confused by this, maybe it was an ancient literary convention or something, or just a miswritten blend of sentences from different sources.)

OK, like a teacher, I am going to try to correct this paragraph. Here is my (first) attempt at reconstruction (I feel like I'm correcting a High School writing class assignment ) ;

First Reconstruction / Correction

Quote:

These Scriptures are sufficient to show what the Bible claims for itself. Paul says: “All Scripture is given by inspiration�? and that “All Scripture–profitable–that the man of God may be perfect.�? If all Scriptures are profitable in perfecting men then the Scriptures must be perfect, for an imperfect rule could not produce perfect conduct.

Luke says: “The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake,�? and he says David spake “this Scripture.�? God’s revelation as given to men is perfect.

Peter says: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by Holy Spirit.�?

OK, now I think I've organized that paragraph chronologically. Notice that I left out These Scriptures are sufficient to show what the Bible claims for itself" and "the bible is, indeed, the word of God, is divinely inspired and is, therefore, authoritative and reliable". I left tose sentences out because the "Bible" didnt exist at the time these statements were made, so this is surely an error. The "bible" didn't become a reality until the 4th or 5th century, at least in a form fairly close to the form it is today.

This goes back to a point we both seems to agree on, that it is difficult to define what divine inspiration is, much less to prove it.

And, I very much appreciate you quoting to me the conventional view of it to assist my understanding of it. All I have tried to do is to try re-arranging it chronologically to see if it becomes more clear and/or logical, and it has proven to be futile.

To summarize my findings thus far, we cannot apply any of these statements of inspiration to the "Bible", for two simple and obvious reasons ;

1 The "Bible" didnt exist when these quotes were made, therfore they could no apply to it.

2 If we do apply it regardless of #1, it results in a circular argument.

Again, I apologize for muddying the water.

Any ideas you might have to clarify would be greatly appreciated.

Fortuna

BSM · 01-26-2005, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Dear BSM,

Not to be disrespectful, but those definitions of "divine inspiration" dont seem to help or explain very much. First of all, I'm sure you recognize that if that argument were to be applied to the modern bible,(as I think the definition is trying to do), it suspiciously sounds like it is a circular argument, i.e. "this text is inspried because it says it is inspired". Analogous to me saying something like, "I'm a psychic because I claim to be a psychic" (just an example, nothing more).

Fortuna, you are far from disrepectful and I do enjoy intelligent discourse! I also agree that those definitions are extra baggage as it were (i.e., they are really not needed). However, they do illustrate that Christians can't agree on what inspired means. Morever, they are circular.

Quote:

But, on closer inspection, that isn't really applicable either, because the bible didnt exist at the time these quotes were made. However, Jewish scripture certainly did (at least, Torah and Prophets). If you would bear with me, allow me totry to illustrate this on a case by case basis, using what you quoted to me

Right. However, I was refering to some form of the modern Bible.

Quote:

OK, but at the time when Paul wrote this, what was considered scripture ? The answer must refer only to Jewish scriptures at the time, namely the Torah and the Prophets. He may or may not be referring to the Wisdom literature, because it wasn't officially Jewish scripture yet. He might also be referring to books like Enoch and some others, and it is even more unclear if these weres considered scriptural at the time. Could Paul also be referring to his own epistles ? I have doubts about that. As I understand it, the NT gospels didnt exist yet, so surely he could not be referring to those either.

Peter, (I assume this is from Peter's epistles) on the other hand, is later than Paul, and might be referring to one or two of the gospels, and maybe to some of the genuine Pauline epistles, but even that isnt clear. The safest assumption is to believe that he also is referring to the Torah and Prophets, and possibly to other Jewish texts.

Finally, we get to something more specific. Here Luke is referring to the texts of David (traditionally, Psalms I assume).

But then, we have a wierd construction, in that it reverts back to Paul, which we already mentioned above.

Is it me, or is this paragraph poorly constructed, or some disparate opinions not blended together well ? Chronologically, Paul came first, then Luke, then Peter, correct ? So, why does sequence of thoughts start with Paul, to Peter, to Luke, and then back to Paul ??? (I apologize BSM, but I am confused by this, maybe it was an ancient literary convention or something, or just a miswritten blend of sentences from different sources.)

OK, like a teacher, I am going to try to correct this paragraph. Here is my (first) attempt at reconstruction (I feel like I'm correcting a High School writing class assignment ) ;

OK, now I think I've organized that paragraph chronologically. Notice that I left out These Scriptures are sufficient to show what the Bible claims for itself" and "the bible is, indeed, the word of God, is divinely inspired and is, therefore, authoritative and reliable". I left tose sentences out because the "Bible" didnt exist at the time these statements were made, so this is surely an error. The "bible" didn't become a reality until the 4th or 5th century, at least in a form fairly close to the form it is today.

I'm not sure where you got those scriptural quotes (from the thread or from a link in the thread) and I'm rushed and don't have the time to dig back into the thread.

Quote:

This goes back to a point we both seems to agree on, that it is difficult to define what divine inspiration is, much less to prove it.

Yes, and after reading your earlier post I think this is all that is needed to be said!

Quote:

And, I very much appreciate you quoting to me the conventional view of it to assist my understanding of it. All I have tried to do is to try re-arranging it chronologically to see if it becomes more clear and/or logical, and it has proven to be futile.

To summarize my findings thus far, we cannot apply any of these statements of inspiration to the "Bible", for two simple and obvious reasons ;

1 The "Bible" didnt exist when these quotes were made, therfore they could not apply to it.

2 If we do apply it regardless of #1, it results in a circular argument.

Again, I apologize for muddying the water.

Any ideas you might have to clarify would be greatly appreciated.

Before I can agree or disagree I need to know where you got those quotes. I skimmed the thread but don't have time to go link jumping.

Regardless, at this point I think what you said earlier pretty much sums up what can be said:

1)This book was written by human beings, recording myths, legends, stories and history of his time and locale.

2) This book was written by human beings, recording myths, legends, stories and history of his time and locale and while composing their texts these authors were divinely inspired, or in a state of inspiration of a divine origin.

Now, I believe that in this presentation, the issue is stated more accurately. I do not believe that even the firmest of believers thinks that a god literally put the pen to the paper. I dont believe that is implied by divine inspiration.

This eliminates an objection from an earlier poster who claimed that the entire #2 statement (the one including divine inspiration) is completely eliminated by removing the idea of divine inspiration as an extranneous hypothesis. In this outline of the issues, when the extranneous hypothesis is removed, #2 simply reduces to #1.

There is nothing extraordinary or unreasonable about premise #1. Further, premise #1 is wholly contained in #2, with only the addition of the idea of divine inspiration.

Now, in applying Occam's razor it is more apparent that #2 includes a statement that is extranneous and un-necessary to explain the origins of the text. further by simple elimination of it, #2 becomes #1.

The burden of showing that #2 is more correct than #1 is now even more difficult than independently proving the idea of divine inspiration. In the posts in this thread thus far, I have not seen a clear definition of divine inspiration, much less a proof of it.

I say "even more difficult " above because, by this presentation, even if divine inspiration gains theory status by some proof of concept, it is still un-necessary to explain the texts, so that a much more specific case for these specific texts must now be made.

Bottom line: divine inspiration (regardless of how you define it) is not needed to explain the present-day Bible. In accordance with Occam's Razor, claiming such is un-necessary. Claiming "faith" is fine. However, it is not a defensible position.

~BSM

llamaluvr · 01-29-2005, 12:58 AM

Phew, I missed a lot....sorry, loooooong week!

Okay, hopefully once for all, the Razor...

Diogenes got it right, Fortuna did it better, but I feel like the statements themselves are now wrong.

If we're simply talking about how the words of the Bible got onto paper, YES Occam's Razor can eliminate God from the picture. Any human or set of humans is capable of putting words down on a page (provided they can read and write, I suppose). But the model shouldn't be about how, in general, they came to be (I don't see why anybody would argue that men didn't stick the pen to the paper), but why. The statements should be more like:

1) The Bible is a compilation of history, myths, experiences, etc written by men as an attempt to explain their world (or some similar reason).

2) The Bible was written due to and through inspiration from God, for the instruction of men and the revelation of his redemptive plan, etc.

Gosh, if I'd have known that's all you were talking about, I wouldn't have labored the point. That the Bible could have technically been constructed solely by men is an intuitive enough point that the razor hardly even needs to be unsheathed. Sorry!

Quote:

Originally Posted by BSM

Getting the facts straight may prove difficult considering that God apparently deceives. See Morgan's Fatal Biblical Flaws which you apparently have refuted.

I'm assuming you're talking about the few in the middle. I've done Jeremiah 8:8 earlier in the thread.

2 Thes. 2:11-12- if you read before (maybe starting from verse 5, even starting as late as verse 10), These people reject the truth and THEN get the delusion. It's essentially God leaving them to their own devices. Essentially God is honoring the wishes of those who accept him and reject him. At any rate, these people got the truth, as verse 10 clearly explains.

Ezekiel 20:25 is the same thing. Just go one verse earlier, and you find out that they rejected God, so he gave them over to what they wanted instead. If you really want to sin, why should God keep you from doing so?

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Funny, as I have pointed out in several posts to you, this seems to be a problem within Christianity itself. Furthermore, define "valid". I assume by valid you mean coming to the same presupposed conclusions as you? Regardless, there are many other religions that say the same of their texts.

I don't see how this is such a huge problem for Christianity. Like any book, the Bible can be sorted into premises and conclusions, and can be analyzed from there.

An argument is valid if the conclusion cannot be false if all the premises are true. Something isn't valid if it agrees with me- it is valid if it agrees with the text, which supplies the premises.

For instance, concluding that Jesus didn't need to die for man to have salvation would be an invalid conclusion, if the premises were the truth statements regarding atonement from the Bible. Such a position requires that many premises regarding God's justice be false. Yet many people hold to this. That is improper utilization of the truth ( the truth being what is actually written in the Bible (not saying it's true or not, but it is truly written in the Bible)).

This also applies to extrabiblical premises and conclusions. For instance, in another thread I have frequented, somebody said that Adam and Eve did not exist (and therefore the Bible is wrong). If we take all the premises from science pertaining to that, we are still going to find that that conclusion could still be false even if all the premises that are available to us are true.

Such a person doesn't need a "better" Bible- they need to do some truth trees (or just think about it more; I wouldn't actually want to do truth trees for any of these problems! ;-) ).

If somebody actually only forms valid conclusions from the Bible, I can't guarantee that they'll be a Christian. But I have seen about a 0% rate of conversion among people who hold invalid conclusions on such key doctrines.

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Or, do you refuse to believe that there is any possibility of anything being logically inconsistent or unsound in the bible?

I haven't exhaustively researched it, because that would more than a few lifetimes. For various reasons, I take this by faith. However, at this point, folks trying to point out contradictions to me are about 0 for 1000. If there's a real one, frankly, I'm incredibly dissapointed that nobody's pointed it out to me yet.

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Actually it is in my opinion. In particular, the part where I say "little or no variation between them". Moreover, whether my hypothetical example gave us manuscripts with "little" (say 99% agreement) or "no" (meaning total agreement) it would change many words in the Bible. Were either the case Don et al would be out of business with their errancy lists and you wouldn't have to try and aplogize for them.

Um, but we do have 99% agreement...

Quote:

Originally Posted by llamaluvr

Okay, here's some quick and dirty math. Let's assume that the average scripture fragment contains 15% of the New Testament. The New Testament has about 181,000 words, so now there's 5400 * .15 * 181000 = 146610000 words to look at. Let's take the high estimate of 300,000 differences. So, 146610000/ 300,000 = 488.7. Now, we have one difference for every 488.7 words. That means that these fragments are 99.8% similar. That's pretty good. Most Christian resources only claim 98-99% similarity. Perhaps that means that maybe I should use 5%, instead. With that, it's still at 99.4%, so maybe it's even lower than that.

But there's lies, damn lies, and statistics. We really don't know how they count a difference. How are they counting them between different language translations (not all of these early manuscripts are Greek)? The vast majority of languages do not have one-to-one correspondance, so you have to change things just to be able to express the same concept when translating. Often, when you translate, you end up "forking" the text, providing one translation that is literal, and another that focuses on conveying the concepts in a fashion more reasonable for the new language.

Most of these differences are minutiae, such as phrasing or punctuation, so it would be interesting to have a count of how many of them actually matter. Also, there's the added advantage of having 5400 manuscripts- if you have 5 copies, and 4 agree in one place, that helps.

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I again disagree. The evidence is sorely lacking and only gets worse the deeper one digs.

Meh...a difference of opinion...some see pearls, others swine...certainly, it's a topic too big to explore right now. I'd point out pluses, you'd point out minuses, and we'd basically end up right where we already are.

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Ah, the blame the copyist argument again. The ONLY defense that you have is to fall back on your faith. Again, we have no originals period. So, since you having nothing to compare to how do you know a word of it is true? We quite literally have thousands of documents and no absolutely certain way of knowing which ones have copyist errors and which are correct. So, aside from direct revelations from God to EACH human, all we are left with is physical evidence, our faith, and educated opinions (which can vary from egghead to egghead). Faith doesn't cut it for me anymore and I for one am going to side with my interpretation of the evidence.

(unsheathes Occam's Dagger of Entity-subtraction (+5 attack))

Take two possible descriptions of how the scriptures were inspired:

1) God breathed the words into the writer, and he applied the pen to paper in the manner that God prescribed.

2) God breathed the words into the writer, and he applied the pen to paper in the manner that God prescribed. Later, somebody copied the work.

The copyist gets slashed; he is irrelevant to how scripture was inspired, because he took no part in the inspiration.

Again, you could be a copyist. You could intentionally copy the Bible incorrectly. God wouldn't stop you. You still wouldn't have any part in the inspiration or lack thereof. You came on AFTER the inspiration. Just because it's a holy book doesn't mean you're somehow magically not allowed to use it as toilet paper.

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No, it's ducking my question. The simple fact of the matter is that Christians cannot agree on what "inspiration" is, nor can they agree on how to interpret God's message. Moreover, these are not minor differences nor can they be chalked up to theological diversity. Second, your mission is to "make disciples of all nations" so it seems to me that it does have relevance. You have thousands upon thousands of fundamentalists and biblical literalists who do not agree with "The Translation According To Keith." In fact, some of those groups would say that you have been deceived and are bound for hell because of it. So, once more: the fundamental Baptist, or a Christian who believes in "King James Onlyism" would say that divine inspiration and innerency are directly related to the other: The perfect and error-free text is proof of God's inspiration, God's inspiration is the reason for the perfect text. In short, there are no mistranslations because it is not possible due to divine inspiration. So, your energy might be better served in convincing members of your own religion to get on the same page, as opposed to fencing with eccentric atheists.

Someone can have differing opinions on these matters and still be a diciple. I'm not a Southern Baptist, for crying out loud! ;-) There's no hellfire for anybody just because they don't agree about my stance on inspiration. The simplest story of being saved occurs in Luke 23:39-43. As far as we know, that criminal had a just a tiny bit of doctrine. But, it was apparently the bare minimum, because Jesus said he was saved. Anybody who believes what that guy believed is a Christian.

That said, I'm talking about this stuff because it came up in discussion. Your beliefs are only relevant inasmuch they contribute to your responses. I wouldn't have big tent revivals to talk about this stuff to Christians or athiests or anybody else. If the subject came up with a Christian, I'd probably be talking to them about at least as long as I've been talking to you (notwithstanding all the time I'm not actually posting), and I'd be saying the exact same things.

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How I feel about it is a moot point. However, according to your own dogma you DO have a mission. Seems to me it might be easier to convert the partially converted Christians to the Gospel According To Keith, as opposed to converting atheists that do not have "a valid grasp on the scriptures [sic] we have."

If I'm actually trying to convert anybody, you really ought to report me. I'd do it if I saw somebody proselytizing here; it's against the rules, and I want to respect your turf.

BSM · 01-29-2005, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Gosh, if I'd have known that's all you were talking about, I wouldn't have labored the point. That the Bible could have technically been constructed solely by men is an intuitive enough point that the razor hardly even needs to be unsheathed. Sorry!

Not hardly if you claim "divine inspiration", re-read the thread if you like. Regardless, I've said all that I care to say about the razor or the Bible.

Quote:

For instance, concluding that Jesus didn't need to die for man to have salvation would be an invalid conclusion, if the premises were the truth statements regarding atonement from the Bible. Such a position requires that many premises regarding God's justice be false. Yet many people hold to this. That is improper utilization of the truth ( the truth being what is actually written in the Bible (not saying it's true or not, but it is truly written in the Bible)).

Oh come now, I've seen scholars argue that Jesus thought he was going to die in his own time sans the Jewish Messiah persona. As for "not saying it's true or not, but it is truly written in the Bible", well, that sounds nonsensical to me.

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If there's a real one, frankly, I'm incredibly dissapointed that nobody's pointed it out to me yet.

Whether you submit it here or publish it elsewhere, I'm sure that many of us eagerly await your essay that contradicts the contradictions.

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Um, but we do have 99% agreement...

And I have some beach front property in Nebraska that I'd like to interest you in...

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Again, you could be a copyist. You could intentionally copy the Bible incorrectly. God wouldn't stop you. You still wouldn't have any part in the inspiration or lack thereof. You came on AFTER the inspiration. Just because it's a holy book doesn't mean you're somehow magically not allowed to use it as toilet paper.

How can you prove inspiration? Moreover, as I have pointed out ad nausium, Christians can't agree on what inspiration is. In fact, you don't even need the razor to axe this. All you need to do is read Hume because all you are left with is faith.

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Someone can have differing opinions on these matters and still be a diciple.

Right. However, some of those disciples see Keith going to hell because he has the wrong doctrine.

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If I'm actually trying to convert anybody, you really ought to report me. I'd do it if I saw somebody proselytizing here; it's against the rules, and I want to respect your turf.

I was being facitious. Nonetheless, I think our discussion has played out. I'm starting to feel like Benny Hill at the end of his show. The only problem is that I'm NOT being chased by pretty women.

Regards,

~BSM

BSM · 01-30-2005, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Take two possible descriptions of how the scriptures were inspired:

1) God breathed the words into the writer, and he applied the pen to paper in the manner that God prescribed.

2) God breathed the words into the writer, and he applied the pen to paper in the manner that God prescribed. Later, somebody copied the work.

The copyist gets slashed; he is irrelevant to how scripture was inspired, because he took no part in the inspiration.

Again, you could be a copyist. You could intentionally copy the Bible incorrectly. God wouldn't stop you. You still wouldn't have any part in the inspiration or lack thereof. You came on AFTER the inspiration. Just because it's a holy book doesn't mean you're somehow magically not allowed to use it as toilet paper.

First, there are a few more possibilities to your hypothetical example:

1) God breathed the words into the writer, and he applied the pen to paper in the manner that God prescribed [words mine: with no mistakes, EXACTLY word-for-word as God dicated].

2) God breathed the words into the writer, and he applied the pen to paper in the manner that God prescribed. Later, somebody copied the work [words mine: with mistakes, ommissions, contradictions, & additions].

3) God did not breath the words into the writer. Rather, as Fortuna has wrote: This book was written by human beings, recording myths, legends, stories and history of his time and locale.

Premise 1 is not defensible given the fact that we no originals to compare to. Moreover, even if we did, we have no objective way to determine if these words did indeed come from God, or if the writer just made them up (which only begs the question: If God truly wants to save us from eternal torture, why does God not reveal himself to everyone and be done with it).

Premise 2 is also not defensible. Whether or not their are contradictions, most biblical scholars would agree that their are mistakes, ommissions, and additions to the so-called word of God; irregardless, we have no objective way to determine if these words did indeed come from God, or if the writer just made them up. Nor, for that matter do we have any of the originals (And it still begs the question: If God truly wants to save us from eternal torture, why does God not reveal himself to everyone and be done with it).

Given the evidence (or lack thereof) the reasonable conclusion seems to be that Premise 3 is true. Moreover, the contradictions (which you say are not contradictions), mistakes, ommissions, and additions are readily explained if the Bible has no supernatural inspiration.

It seems to me that you are trying to say that at one time there were perfect copies that man latter incorrectly transcribed. Considering that we have no originals how do you know this? Second, even if we did have originals how can you prove divine revelation?

So, I repeat myself:

The ONLY defense that you have is to fall back on your faith. Again, we have no originals period. So, since you having nothing to compare to how do you know a word of it is true? We quite literally have thousands of documents and no absolutely certain way of knowing which ones have copyist errors and which are correct. So, aside from direct revelations from God to EACH human, all we are left with is physical evidence, our faith, and educated opinions (which can vary from egghead to egghead). Faith doesn't cut it for me anymore and I for one am going to side with my interpretation of the evidence.

Regards,

~BSM

Jobar · 01-30-2005, 03:14 PM

01-23-2005, 06:02 PM	#53
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	Biblical ignorance :rolling: I just love this thread, The subject says a lot. :rolling:

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01-23-2005, 05:06 PM	#52
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	The discussion of Sheshbazzar's religious beliefs has been split off here and will be moved to GRD as a more appropriate forum.

01-30-2005, 03:14 PM	#60
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525

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