Wayne Delia

Paraphrased:

"Revelations 11:18 (in the Bible) is not meaningless or gibberish, since there's another verse in the Bible that I interpret to mean that nothing in the Bible is meaningless or gibberish. Furthermore, I can't understand why that is completely circular reasoning."

I actually strongly suspect that rhutchin didn't mean it as the joke that it turned out to be. In fact, so often the characterization of "The Bible is true, because the Bible says it's true" is a strawman argument which is rarely advanced even by conservative fundamentalists, but every once in a while someone comes along and puts it forward as if it actually made sense.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Well, there's another verse in the Bible which says what will happen to mockers and scoffers - presumably, that verse too is not "meaningless or gibberish."

The verse he came up with doesn't really claim that - rather, it's a statement that all Scripture comes from God's inspiration, and is profitable for teaching and rebuking and so forth. Technically, that does not declare that everything in the Bible isn't meaningless or gibberish. It requires a special pleading logical fallacy to claim that it isn't meaningless or gibberish because God inspired it, and God gets exempted from being meaningless or gibberish because God is God.

"Sometimes I sits and thinks, and other times I just sits." (Anonymous)

Heartless? It's funny because it's true! (that there are people out there who actually buy into the circular reasoning, and are perplexed and nonplussed when others don't accept it as readily as they have.)

It's close enough to be a correct characterization, but it's not begging the question by assuming the premise.

The proposition is "Nothing in the Bible is meaningless or gibberish."

The circular reasoning happens when an attempt is made to support the proposition with "Here's a verse in the Bible that says that everything in the Bible is God-inspired" (with an assumed special pleading of "God would never inspire anything meaningless or gibberish") rather than "Earlier, I said that nothing in the Bible is meaningless or gibberish, therefore, Q.E.D."

Either way, though, it's a clear logical fallacy. We will now spend the next several hundred posts attempting to convince rhutchin that it is, indeed, a logical fallacy.

To what end? I've been explaining the incompatibility of omniscience and free will for dozens and dozens of posts, to no avail.

WMD

Chris Weimer

Actually, it doesn't say that at all! It clearly says, "Every writing [is] Godbreathed, and [is] useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

But it doesn't say which writings. What makes you infallible in interpreting that every writing = Bible?

John A. Broussard

While I've long felt that atheists were more moral than most believers, I'm now also becoming convinced that they are a lot more patient, too.

rhutchin

Julian and JPD,

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

JPD

Sorry but you are completely out of touch here. The laughter wasn't menacing or spiteful in any way and I think that rhutchin has the intelligence to understand why we find it so amusing. He hardly needs it spelling out.

Note that I put this after my amused comment:

rhutchin

When I say that nothing in the Bible is meaningless or jibberish, it is a conclusion that begins with consideration of those pasages that say something in the order of-- "Thus saith the Lord..." My conclusion is that nothing attributed to God (and by extension to Christ) is meaningless or gibberish. Paul (in his letter to Timothy) takes this one step further and says that everything God says is profitable in some manner. Your objection here, I think, is that we have men like Moses, Solomon, Isaiah, Matthew, etc. attributing that which they wrote to God and why should we believe them. No one has to believe them (unless these men are telling the truth).

Beyond those passages that explicitly state, "Thus saith the Lord..." there are passages that implicitely imply that the writer is relaying that which God has given to him. For example, Paul says, "Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity." (1 Timothy 2:7) Beyond that we have the historical documents--Genesis, Samuel, Kings, etc. We can include these among those Scriptures to which Paul refers as being given by inspiration of God. Your objection here seems to be that the inclusion of Paul's letter in the Bible creates a situation where you have circular logic or some other problem. Any problem exists only if that which Paul wrote in his letter to Timothy is not true. If it is true, then there is no problem. I guess one's presupposition of the truth of that which Paul wrote dictates whether one believes that there is a problem.

rhutchin

That's a good point. All we need then are rules to identify the "writings" to which Paul refers. We need to identify the "Holy Scriptures" (Holy writings?) to which Paul referred in the previous verse. I think an argument can be made that Paul was referring to the OT. The issue, then, is to determine whether the NT writings (which reflect that which Christ said) should also be considered Scripture.

JPD

rhutchin, what is your take on Jonah 3, verses 9 & 10, if one wishes to consider the trustworthiness of God (in terms of believing in the steadfastness of).

Jonah 3:9 "Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish."

Jonah 3:10 "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind"

Julian

rhutchin, you should know that Paul didn't write the pastoral epistles (1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus) so those words came from some later writer.

You also cannot make the assumption that every line that starts with "Thus saith the lord..." means anything other than someone wrote those words.

For example:

"Thus saith the lord, rhutchin is mistaken in his assertions."

There, now that god has revealed to me that you are mistaken which you, by your own admission, must take as a revelation from god, I can assume that you will abandon your viewpoint. I mean, if a guy could write that 2000 years ago and you believe it surely the same rules hold true now, right?

Julian