trendkill

A self-serving and unconvincing argument. Self-serving because it is culturally-biased (an American identifies the purposes of religion as being best-fulfilled by Christianity? Really?), and unconvincing because it argues from practicality and ignores the difficulties with a realistic view of religion (and I am not talking about Biblical contradictions here).

lpetrich

Metacrock's latest Big Statement makes me perplexed. He accuses us of criticizing only the "verbal plenary" model of divine inspiration. Which seems to me like he's saying "What big words I know!". Looking at his list of possibilities, I'm surprised that he did not include the possibility that Biblical errancy is also divinely inspired as a warning that we ought not to be too literal-minded about that book.

He claims that

most of the Internet atheists claims to "contradictions in the Bible" are based largely on not understanding metaphor or literary devices

but he ought to explain exactly how "metaphor" and "literary devices" explain the Bible's more serious contradictions. The two creation stories of Genesis are very different -- in the first of them, God is very happy about what he has done, while in the second of them, one imagines that God must be very exasperated. And the orders of creation are very important to the storylines of each of them.

Jesus Christ's Matthew and Luke genealogies contradict each other; how are they "metaphors" or "literary devices"?

The resurrection accounts contradict each other in major details; take Dan Barker's Easter Challenge and see.

Metacrock makes the argument that the NT's background details imply overall accuracy. Let us see where that argument takes us. Greek mythology gets a lot of Mycenaean details correct, like Mycenaean places (Knossos, Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Troy, ...), the mazy nature of the "Palace" of Knossos and its connection with bulls, bronze armor, boar's tusk helmets, and chariots in battle. The Odyssey describes the Laestrygonians as living in a long rocky bay with steep slopes that gets nearly 24-hour daylight -- a good description of a Scandinavian fjord in the summer. And all this is older than the times of the more reliable parts of the Bible.

But according to Metacrock's argument about the New Testament, that would mean that the Olympians exist and ought to be worshipped.

And as to religion being "ultimate concern", I wonder how one determines "ultimate concern". So if one's concerned with leadership, one's a worshipper of Zeus, while if one's concerned with business, one's a worshipper of Hermes, etc.

And using "problematic" as a noun -- ick.

mirage

OK thanks. I have to agree with a couple of the other posters though, in that I would need to have already decided which parts I want to believe before any meaning could be extracted. The triumph over death of some self sacrificing saviour is about as mythological as you can get. Clearly you need to believe that the myth is true here.

Clearly you need to believe that in some sense God did create man and woman, and the "evils" of the world are in some sense related to our free sinning actions.

Clearly you do need to believe in some sort of covenant with the Jews.

Clearly you need to believe that Jesus represents some sort of new covenant with all mankind.

How do you know to believe these bits as central truths instead of fanciful embellishment? It seems to me, simply because otherwise the whole thing would be a pointless story. I can't see any other reason to single out these themes as true. They are pure myth (I use the word not to imply falsehood here).

Metacrock

you are just now dimly begining to wake up to a phrase i've said to you for many years. Yes, they wrote different things and they were edited together. And the eiditers lived together in a big house like a commune and shred all their possessions. And every night they had people stand up and recite the same sotries about Jesus that had been learning all year. And the eye witnesses and the older members said "no, got it wrong on that point,not exactly the way it was."

You need to be aware of these developments. read Luke Timothy Johnson, The Net Testament Writtings.

Metacrock

Well that just depends. If I'm right, God exists so you shouldn't be an atheist. You should come into the community of belief. You should care what it has to say because it offers answers to everything in life (or most of the important stuff--you know).

Metacrock

Why would you associate Chritsainity as American? It's been all over the world for 2000 years. It's been in India and China since the time of Christ. It has about seven major divisions that are as different from American culture as Poloneisian is from Irish.







what is not practicle or realistic about my view? It's looks to me like it's the most reailstic view you can find, becasue it takes the writtings for what they are on their face, and doesn't try to impose upon them anything that isn't claimed in them. :down:

Metacrock

So if you went to a doctor and the doctor used some medical terms would you go "why are you using the right terms? You should call it, face breakout sickness thing instead of small pox, becasue I don't know the techncial terms." What kind of person thinks that knowing big words is bad and makes you wrong? A person who doens't knkow the words, right? so why are you so inconfident in your vocabulary? Every single time someone uses a term you don't know you have to play this game. Why don't you by a thesoreus (that's a big book with different wrods in it).









So you are saying mistakes are put in the text so we wont be fundies? It didnt' work.






Can't you just get the little wheels turning? It should be pretty obvious, since the account we have of genesis splices together two earlier accounts, that's the deal,it's readcted.








they don't contradict. L = Mary, M = Jo. Why do you people have such a hard time with that? The Jews didnt' like women. So they said women can't be in charge. So they didn't use them in geneologies unless they were real famous. So they call Mary's line Jo's line beause he was adopted into it, which wa a common practice, called "son in law."









No they don't contradict. They can easily be harmonized. In fact I have harmony of them on my site.





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No that's bull. There are a lot of inacrinisms in Greek myth. In The Odyssey there's both dowery and bride price, and in the Illiad there aer several periods represented by the armor described. The Illiad began as a Hytite Poem.

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No it doesn't. Why can't you just read the theroy and apply it, instead of making a fool of yourself? The things you are saying are chilidsh and little. why can't just look at the place that this aspect serves in my theory and thin of it analogously instead of just making up bull shit because you don't understand it.




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trendkill

Because it's the dominant religion of American culture, and you are American. You are a product of Christianity, either directly, indirectly, or both. It is not at all surprising that you interpret the purpose of religion in terms of Christianity, and conclude that it is the best.


It's practical. Too practical; it's all about the results of belief rather than justifications for it.

Vinnie

esponse to the first half of Meta's page:

Yes, the bible is presented as the Christian standard. But many or most Christians view its contents as factual and accurate. So much so that they have harmonization procedures like "interpret one passage in light of other passages". This force-fitting method is based upon the assumption of inner consistency.

I also must note that in the other thread someone mentioned something about Catholicism and their view on scripture. I agree the official Catholic picture is not inerrancy but my father and grandmother are Catholic and they accept the Bible more in the modern fundamentalist sense as its details being true and written by God.

This is the religion of the masses, especially the American Masses where poll results show significant people still believe in many of the incredible biblical stories.

So pointing out errors and contradictions--which do exist--are useful to the atheist who wants to counter Christian views. Many Christians often believe in hell, are anti-homosexual, have outdated Puritan morals and villify those notl ike them to different degrees.

Its also found in the Bible. Moses and the stone tablets. Moses and the OT Law. All the prophets speaking "the direct commands of God". Jesus in the Gospel of John was pretty much making top-down utterances IMO.

But the Bible consists of a wide diversity of books so it does not fit for all books. Some made top-down claims and some didn't. They were all of them canonized.


I have to disagree but tenatively. If you mean skeptic annotate Bible errors well then yes, many of those are based upon a very wooden literalism but they are supposed to be as they "read the Bible as fundamentalists do" on purpose. But I don't but I can still raise a very huge number of contradictions.

In the NT alone I could list eons of sayings from Jesus with different and wording (that is not a mere vaguary of memory but a theological redaction). I could raise a number of errors regarding Judas Iscariot, his death and other circumstances. The contradictory portraits of John the baptist in the gospels. The infancy narratives have contradictions. The passion narratives have contradictions. In one instance Jesus is saying "obey the law of Moses it will NEVER abolish" in another he is declaring all foods clean. The different posture of the Gethsemane prayer.

For an example of differences in the passion that are redaction and not vaguaries of memory:

In Mark Jesus --greatly disturbed-- asks that the cup be taken away. In John Jesus literally scoffs at the heretical notion of asking that the cup be taken from him.

In Mark Jesus is seized or captured and the disciples run. In John Jesus lets the soldiers accompany him to his glorification and lets his disciples go free.

In Mark it is Jesus who is prostrate on the ground. In John it is the arresting pary (a detachment of soldiers, their commander and Jewish leaders) who all fall to the ground.

In Mark, Pilate interrogates Jesus. In John, Jesus interrogates Pilate.

In Mark, a painfully human Jesus is granted assistance carrying his cross. In John, the serenely transcendental and always-in-charge-Jesus requires no assistance at fulfilling the cup the father poured for him.

In Mark Jesus is offered a drink. In John Jesus says, "I am thirsty" an someone brings him a drink.

In Mark, Jesus lets out a loud cry and breaths his last breath. In John, knowing that all is fulfilled, Jesus chooses to give up his spirit.

As John Dominc Crossan Observes, "Two radically different interpretations of the same event[s]. Mark descibes the Son of God almost out of control, arrested in agony. fear, and abandonment. John describes the Son of God in total control, arrested in foreknowledge, triumph, and command." (BOC, p. 142)

All this is the summary from this article I wrote :
http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/easter1.html

There are a very large number of inconsistencies in the text. If we add in other things like historical concerns: we get geography errors, false attributions, wierd fulfilled prophecies, false undertanding of Jewish customs.

Plus, even John Meier who well--I could very much call on your side in NT has ripped to shreds many many many of the miracle accounts of Jesus in his second volume on historical grounds. And he writes with an imprimatur and nihil obstat IIRC.

I think you underestimate the actual number of errors in the text. THis is understandable since you are favorable to this text and its your groups chosen stance. I am not favorable to it and its errors therefore stick out more to me. But they are most certainly there and there is a lot of them.

Yes but there were DIFFERENT communities. Most early Christians only shared one common belief and it dealt with Jesus and his resurrection. But still SOME denied this message though. The gospel of Thomas uses the words as the vehicle for salvation, not his death. Also, I note that Paul in the fifties argued against a similar group of Christians in 1 Corinthians. This is very much discernable in the text and I wrote an article on it based off of Koester's Analysis in Ancient Christian Gospels entitled "Wisdom in Corinth".

We must also note that if we look at al the Jesus sayings extant and test them such a thing seems probable as well. Jesus gave teachings and others instead of viewing his death as the great soteriological event, used his words. What we see is that one of both of these may be creations//developments after the fact of his crucifixion.

At any rate, there was the whole very intense debate as to the law (food laws) and regarding Gentiles and so forth. The gospels do not represent the community. They represent the community whose views won. But even the gospels have competion. John laughs at synoptic notions and presents a radically different communities image of Jesus than the synoptics. Matthew and Luke though ark was inadequate so they took his text, altered, redacted, omitted from and added a heck of a lot to it and presented a Jesusm ore consistent with their views. For example, in Gethemane in Mark Jesus is sort of out of control He "falls to the ground". Luke decides not have Jesus under such mental duress and changes it to "Jesus knelt". There are other such softenings in the Garden account as well and I documented them on my site. Not to mention the whole scene is patterned//ripped off the OT.

You also write about the community producing the Gospels.

THe gospels are not eyewitness texts.
They are late (68-105), anonymous texts and havehigh levels of inter-dependence.

They are not unique. Are we up to like 30 something gospels now in the first 150 years after the events ca 30 c.e. Many of these present radically different images of Jesus. Some are devlopments off of others. But all sorts of groups and Christians were tracing themselves to apostolic authority and claiming to be true Christians(tm).

But yes, their popularity grew over time. In essence, these books won.

This is over-simplifying intensely. The bible-history was "conventional wisdom for everyone" for a long while. No Christian seriosuly doubted the creation story or the Exodus or other things. And if you find one or two who did I will nto retract my statement. You know what I mean unless you read me with a wodden literalism. But the Biblical stories were background knowledge. No one had grounds to question the Ark story or the Exodus or the creation account or this or that. Once certain fields clashed with Biblical statements and "history" it became neceassary for one side to tighten down in its beliefs.

Many decided in light the inevitable modernity that they would hold to these books while others decided they didn't need to. We must also remember that most Christians throughout the last 17-18 centuries probably could not read at all. Only the ones in charge could.

This is what Marcus Borg distinguishes. In the past the people were "natural literalists" in that the Bible was conventional wisdom of the time. Today they have to be "conscious literalists" in that the Bible is no longer "conventional wisdom". So we have to be careful to distinguish between conscious and natural literalism. The biblical acounts and many other beliefs were taken for granted until the rise of modernity and intelelctual pursuits which ultimately overturned them.

Yes but as we established and yo uagreed to, none of these models are tenable. They work down as well with the top one being utterly deplorable intellectually to the bottom one being better--but still indefensible.

Skeptics cannot understand it because they see so much cretivity, so many errors, so much diversity within Christianity and Christian doctrine that it makes little sense to speak of "core doctrine". Even if there was some core doctrinal agreement the skeptics still says "so what?" A few texts agree on a view things. Why does that make it inspired or to be accepted? Its like saying a few Jewish texts agree on monotheism, therefore they are inerrant in regards to major theological assertions? Of course not. You still have to come up with a reason for whatever partial inerrancy you advocate.

This simply CANNOT be done and that is initially why I blasted revealed religions in the other thread.

This a better view. The Bible is not revelation but a human recording of revelation in that God interacted with the world through Jesus and the prophets. Okay, so this model is way more consistent with the Biblical text but need I remind you that these erroneous and historical skeptical Biblical books are the only real basis we have for making any claims about historical relaity 2000 years ago. How does the Christian know that the gospels are a record of God's revelation? Naturally they have to believe God revealed himself in Jesus 2000 years ago. So how do they believe//know this? They have to reconstruct it from the texts they admit are filled with errors and the like. We are going to take a "human written text" (as the model posits) and one with a high level of creation (I can easily document this), one with a significant number of erros, one with a very clear idological axe to grind and accept certain miraculous storie and account?

All of critical scholarship essentially stands in opposition to this model. There are so many different portraits of Jesus because no one knows what he really said and what his essential mission was. Thats because our source material is so suspect. But its this same problematic source material that must be used to show that Jesus was something more than an ordinay Jew 2,000 years ago. Since this can't be done the whole foudnation for this model is non-existent.

But yes I understand the logistics of the model. An artist is inspired by a mountain. The artist is there. It sees the beautiful mountain and paints it. God interacted with the world and people experienced this and "wrote about it". But the problm is you are positing 1) God spoke through the prophets and htis needs to be evidenced and 2) God offered a one-off historical revelation of hismelf in Jesus and this has to be demonstrated for the view to be tenable. In light of all my studies of NT research this is not EVEN remotely tenable on historical grounds. Its apologetics failing to keep up with critical history.

Yeah but anything can be revelation in this sense. The Koran, Shakespeare and so on. Do you think the Bibl is the only work that inspires such inenr experiences? Hell, I can make an argument for Buffy the vampire slayer mythology and call it revelation in that its an inner experience. The show REALLY does move me in a way that nothing else does. Its mythology is brilliant to me.

I have no problem with the inner-experience model because its veery generic and it does not lend itself to much criticism to begin with. It is certainly consistent with the current picture of the bible but yes the Bible may be a "true myth" as are other things and thats fine. The Bible speaks to a lot of people on a deep level. That is a "true myth" in that the experience is real for them. But that does not mean its events are true or I should be anti-homosexual because my chosen "true myth" is homophobic. I need to recognize the nature of my mythology and have a better means of determining my morality and worldview than "God said it" or "my myth says it".

See my whole understanding of this is that the myth doesn't need to be true at all to have value. The whole Jesus story could be a fraud and the inner experience model would still work. Why, we are religious creatures and well the myth speaks to a lot of people. Its a foudnational narrative for a lot of people and humans are pattern seeking story tellers by default.

But this model is not a "REVEALED" model in the sense I use reveal in. Its an experiental model.

"Ick" on the fundy model

Yeah but this can occur whether there is or isn't a god, or whether a text is or isn't special. Thats my point, atheists will grant these models because we realize religious experiences are common place. Many of us have even been in similar positions. But these experiences do not evidence our beliefs. They are just community experiences. Some atheists want to be in a different community just as Christians have their own different communities and Muslims, Jews and so forth have theirs.

Some of these models don't even require the existence of God or anything. I think we can all agree on the concept of a "true-myth", well at least I can anyways. My major problem comes when you start mixing historical apologetics nto it and claim my myth has history that is the product of a direct revelation of God through his interaction with the world. Defending such a statement just can't be done.

The proboem is "Revelation as Doctrine" and "Revelation as History" are very problematic to justify. The other two are more generic "true-myth" based experience models. I can see how you can easily merge them as they fit but the VERY first thing you have to do is ground the "revelation as history" model. That is, where the argument for your religious belief then would seem to start--with Jesus//resurrection apologetics. That is not a very firm starting place IMO and its the reason I am no longer a Christian. This core foundation CANNOT be established.

This is a wild assumption. One that is certainly not a part of any status quo right now. We cannot asusme this. No critical scholar does. The sayings of Jesus are largely suspect and I can VERY EASILY document this.

The very two best preserved sayings of Jesus are sayings that occur in Paul and the Gospels. Look at the Lord's Supper saying and Jesus' teaching on divorce. These are two of the sayings with the very best attestation have.

In section five I analyzed these sayings:
http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/mark.html

I understand the model, but as objected above, I need to see evidence that "Jesus is a revelation". Thats where the skeptic and Christian need to begin I guess.

Yep.

Yeah that and the inenr experience model are really tautological on the basis of religious experience to me. THerefore I see no reason to dispute them. Lots of texts and objects fit the category of true myth. The objectionable model to skeptics is the "revelation as history and "revelation as doctrine".

Even the doctrine one? By intent//transmission do you mean qualitative inspiration? Inerrant in that the authros wanted to write about God? Is not my post inerrant in intent in that I do not intend t lie or distory but reopresent the truth as I have ascertained it homestly and accurately? I think you are accpeting the "revelation as doctrine model" but you are watering it down to much. I'd throw it out and just combine the "revelation as history" with the other experiental models.

What would be a minor mistake as opposed to a major one?

intjudo

"Duh," right back at you. You seem to have forgotten about a fundamental tenet of your own religion, and a fundamental reality resulting from it, namely:

1. Evangelism, which is a "Divine" imperitive emphasized in the Bible, and
2. Political activism, fueled by Christian agendas, which are sourced from Christian practices, which are defined in the Bible.

It's not like Christianity is a "live and let live" way of life. If Christians weren't evangelizing we non-Christians would have no reason to subject Christianity to a rigorous, fact-based, consensus-driven (e.g. "scientific") process of arriving at the truth. Yet as Christians you *must* evangelize, the Bible tells you to.

So don't blame skeptics for responding to prosthelization with skepticism. It's your own Bible forcing you out into the non-Christian world, where people are rude enough to respond to your "gift" of Christianity by questioning it: treating it "like some little scientific experiment" as you say.

Same goes for Christian political activism. You stop making laws sourced from the Bible, and we skeptics will have fewer reasons to subject it to our skepticism.

Awww, that sounds so sweet. Let the poor innocent Christians alone with their Bibles, they're not bothering anyone. Oh yeah right, actually they are, they're using those harmless little Bibles to try to tell *me* how to live. :angry:

Sorry Metacrock, play with fire and you get burned. Christian preaching and Bible activism will meet with skepticism every time. Similarly, if you enter into public discourse claiming to have knowledge of the machinations of "divine revelation" you will be met with skepticism, for this is preaching, thinly disguised. If you don't want to play, stay on the porch. If you're a *real* Christian you can deal with a little skepticsm.