Wayne Delia

What else is wrong with this notorious Bible passage containing the famous scientific error of the sun ever stopping in its apparent path across the sky?

What the FUCK is up with verse 14?

It is a strong, explicit assertion that after the imagined epic Battle of the Hebrews and the Amorites, God has never once listened to, or answered, any prayers of any men.

That directly contradicts Jesus in Mark 11:22-24, who claims that God not only listens to prayers of the faithful, He actually delivers what is prayed for, all the time.

Man, that Bible is a nasty mess of contradictions.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Sure, that's easy - here's a "non-physical explanation": God miracled it.

Somehow, some way, God arranged for there to be light apparently from the sun to illuminate a battlefield so that the Hebrews could kick the shit out of the Amorites, whom God had apparently brought to the battlefield so the Hebrews could fight and win. Whether that involved either inducing a mass hallucination for the Hebrews and the Amorites to observe a 24-hour extension of daylight, or elsewhere inducing a similar world-wide hallucination among other record-keeping cultures to not notice this actual extension of Middle Eastern daylight is not clear at all. But it seriously begs the question of why God would choose such a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption of hallucinations and/or physically impossible planetary motion, all for the purpose of the Hebrews winning a single battle. Similar to God's elaborate plan for Noah to build an ark so that he and his family and various number of pairs of animals could survive the Great Flood, while sending a massive rainstorm and flood to wipe out all other life on earth, is complete overkill. Why didn't God simply vaporize any enemies of the Hebrews instantly? Clearly, the story was fabricated as an epic myth, and the anonymous ancient author was not too clever in the workings of astronomy, physics, and thermodynamics. His tall tale was a little too incredible to actually be taken seriously. At this point in the argument, the apologist relies on smokescreening and handwaving, particularly "God works in mysterious ways" and "There must be a supremely valid reason God used to do it that way, that we humans are too stupid to understand." It's pretty comical.

WMD

Wayne Delia

That's unnecessarily condescending, especially coming from you, since you've demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of the Bible you're trying to defend. You still think atheists are thieves, based on Malachi 3 and John 10:7-10? You made quite a fool of yourself on that argument. It actually appears that you don't "grasp that which the Bible claims," especially since you often find the need to make stuff up that's not actually in the Bible to try to bail out your arguments.

WMD

rhutchin

The Bible provides an historical record of events.

At the following site, the footnote says that historical accounts exist in other civilizations of a long day.

http://www.wrestedscriptures.com/c01...shua10v13.html

The following provides a different take on the passage.

http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/joshua.html

Nothing is "weird" if God is omnipotent and can do anything He wants.

Wayne Delia

Then the Qu'ran, and other holy scriptures from other non-Christian religions, could be said to be historical records of the corresponding miracles popularly believed in the other religions, correct?

Wrong. "What God wants" is very weird, if there are much simpler, more direct methods of achieving the same goals. For example, to rid the world of evil in Genesis, God can simply vaporize people and animals out of existance instantly and painlessly, instead of concocting a bizarre plan for a very old man to spend years building a boat that wouldn't stay afloat in still water for even a week, then attempting to summon and gather one pair of unclean animals and seven pairs of clean animals, all to survive an unnecessarily long an logistically impossible worldwide flood. The only conceivable justification for all that foolishness is that God is a drama queen, and the story just wouldn't have kept the attention of ancient people as well without all the "special effects" and epic, mythical elements.

WMD

gregor

WD
Why are you still debating? I doubt you will learn anything, and I doubt rhutchin will accept anything.

Remember that rhutchin thinks that ADAM wrote the Garden of Eden story; his writings survived the flood; and Moses found and re-wrote the stories. What's the point of such discussions?

John A. Broussard

Great sites.

The first one claims the sun just seemed to stand still and then says "it is reported" that other cultures recorded a long day. No citation of records, of course.

The second site is just hilarious. What in the world do large hailstones have to do with the sun standing still?

In any event, I also recommend those sites to anyone interested in this bible passage.

Your final comment, by the way, is what I was looking for. It was all a miracle, it needs no explanation, your god can do anything, period.

There's no way of arguing with that. Your god stopped a sun that wasn't moving in the first place.

That is a stupendous miracle, but there's no way of arguing with it.

As Tertullian said, "I believe because it is absurd."

rhutchin

Here is another site that goes into more detail.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/crea...i3/longday.asp

rhutchin

Gregor is right. Each side has made its points.

rhutchin

As I understand it, the Koran purports to be truth. However, like the Bible, one is free to investigate that which is said in these or other holy books and to believe. That which one believes is often done by faith, even among atheists.