Demigawd

As an agnostic, I fully concede that there may or may not be a supreme being. However, I find dogmatic statements as to the nature and desire of a supposed creator of this vast universe to be quite repugnant and ironically arrogant.

Quote:

In a nutshell, i accept I could be wrong, but I'm not holding my breath on anyone ever being to able to disprove my beliefs during my lifetime anyway.

Falling upon Pascal's Wager demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of your faith. If all you can do is ignore contradictory evidence while blissfully asserting your "beliefs", then you are no better than any other proponent for a particular religion. That includes Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Pagans, etc.

rlogan

Thank you Magus, for responding. You're keeping up with quite an inquest.

So, some writers had inspiration. Some just wrote verbatim from God.

Now, in your view were the various books written down by an author and then not subsequently changed? Or alternatively, they were not themselves redacted versions or merged versions of something else? (Some here are fans of "Q" theory, probably)

This isn't an argument. Just a line of inquiry. Thank you again.

Magus55

So much anger.

Magus55

I don't believe any of them were changed short of translation not being to able to conform ancient hebrew perfectly to English.

Demigawd

So, God could whisper his intent into the ears of the biblical authors, yet He (tm) left it up to further generations to translate those wishes correctly or not, regardless of that whole Tower of Babel feisco?

rlogan

Very good.

Yes, so much anger. Sometimes you are viewed as a threat.

Sometimes it is that you simply will not accept something so obvious to them. That is maddening.

I was a fundie gospel singer and I know the power of fundamentalism.

I am going to suggest, but in kindness, that if the Ark were in the Quran instead of the Bible - that you might dismiss it on the basis of the various issues raised here? The science and engineering aspects?

Tod

Originally posted by Magus55
Just as you are not convinced of the evidence of the Bible or God (i know you claim there is no evidence, but archaeology has confirmed tons of events in the Bible).

There is no archaeological evidence to support any of the extraordinary claims in the Bible. The fact that some ordinary claims have been supported doesn't mean that all, or even most, of the Bible is supported! Particularly the extraordinary claims.

Here is some of the archaeological evidence that supports claims of the Bible: The Moabite Stone, which confirms the existence of king Mesha in II Kings 3 and 4. The Black Obelisk, which supports the actual existence of Jehu. The discovery of coins from ancient Israel that refer to the House of David, which some claims supports the existence of David, etc.

But the fact that the Bible is correct when it says Jehu was an actual character doesn't mean that the other parts of the Bible are true, or even the accounts of Jehu! It confirms only that Jehu was actually a human being. The same in the other two cases.

Let me give you this scenario: I have a story written in the nineteenth century I claim is inerrant in every detail. The story is set in Lincoln County, New Mexico, in the 1870's. It says the Sherriff's name is Brady. It says the governor's name is Lew Wallace. It says the president's name is Hayes. It says there is an outlaw running around called Billy the Kid. It goes into great detail about the Indians inhabiting the area at the time, and it is all true. All of these claims are supported as historically true.

However, the story also claims that the main character was abducted by aliens and taken back into time where the character was actually Jesus Christ. The apparent miracles and resurrection were the result of alien technology.

Do you believe it? Why not, history and archaeology supports many of the claims in the story, and using your reasoning, this must be support for the validity of the entire book!

Obviously, such logic is flawed. The fact that some parts are supported by archaeology does not support the validity of the rest of the book, especially the extraordinary claims. Many fiction books are set in historical settings, and get many details correct. That isn't evidence that the stories are true.

What of those archaeological finds that have contradicted the Bible? Farrell Till once provided an excerpt from an article in Biblical Archaeology Review, "Joseph A. Callaway 1920-1988." Nov/Dec 1988, p. 24, emphasis added:

The evidence from Ai was mainly negative. There was a great walled city there beginning about 5,000 B.C., more than 1,800 years before Israel's emergence in Canaan. But this city was destroyed about 2,400 B.C., after which the site was abandoned.

Despite extensive excavation, no evidence of a Late Bronze Age (1,500-1,200 B.C.) Canaanite city was found. In short, there was no Canaanite city here for Joshua to conquer.

Archaeology has wiped out the historical credibility of the conquest of Ai as reported in Joshua 7-8. The Joint Expedition to Ai worked nine seasons between 1964 and 1976 ... only to eliminate the historical underpinning of the Ai account in the Bible.

The archaeologist heading this nine-year expedition was the subject of the article, Joseph A. Callaway, a conservative Baptist professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The same results were found in Kathleen Kenyon's excavation of Jericho. Her conclusion was that the walls of Jericho were destroyed around 2,300 B.C., over a thousand years before Israel arrived in Canaan.

Does archaeological evidence against specific biblical claims negate all claims in the Bible? No (although they are evidence against infallibility in the text), and in the same sense archaeological support of a specific claim doesn't justify all claims in the Bible. Evidence for a biblical claim is only evidence for that claim, not others.

Each claim of the Bible must stand on its own, verification of one doesn't offer support for all of its claims.

Biff the unclean

No, no, boy; it isn't angery. It's only contempt.
I save my anger for those who are worth it.

davidm

Magus, I could be mixing you up with someone else, but I distinctly seem to recall that in another thread, you conceded that evolution might be true for animals, but not for people.

Did I get that right?

If you said that, doesn't that alone put you at odds with a literalist interpretation of the Bible?

I mentioned this to you before, but never got a response: The Bible says absolutely nothing about a whole host of issues, like, for example, the computer that you're using to post here. What does that tell you? Maybe God, if he exists, wants people to use their brains to find out about reality, rather than spoon feeding us information? Maybe he thinks free inquiry is part of free will?

Calzaer

Heathen Dawn/Emotional? Is that you? *peers closely*