Doug Shaver

Here is some. I believe there is plenty more where it came from.


Christians are here being told that they must read the Bible with an assumption that it contains only true statements.

Translation: A Christian reading the Bible must not allow anything whatsoever to give him the idea that what he reads is not true.

Scripture must be read with a presupposition that reason can never prove it wrong, but it can always prove that reason is wrong.

Anyone who reads the Bible with that assumption is compelled to infer one of the following if he reads something contrary to an accepted scientific teaching.

(1) The scientific teaching is not true science.
(2) The Bible statement must be reinterpreted, by any means necessary, to make it seem to agree with the scientific teaching.

Which is to say: The Bible must be read with a presupposition that there can be no reasoning that disregards it.

Christians must read the Bible with an assumption that it is the word of God. If they do not, then they are not genuine Christians.

In other words, nothing we might have learned from any source other than the Bible is to be considered relevant in our attempts to understand the Bible.

Readers of the Bible must assume that it is the word of God. They must not think that this assumption is open for debate.

Clouseau

That is very far from the proposition that 'Most people who take the Bible seriously believe you're supposed to read it with a bias.' No-one in his right mind admits that he has to lie in order to accept his own belief system.

And of course your statement above directly contradicts my post.

Toto

Perhaps there is a problem with language here?

A bias is not the same as a lie.

The Christians quoted think that their particular bias represents the true way of looking at things. They don't think that they are lying.

Clouseau

In this context, it is, as already explained.

Sven

I refer you back to post #38.

You keep being the only one to understand "bias" in the context of this thread as something necessarily bad. We keep telling you that this is not what we mean. You keep telling us that this is what is meant. You put words in our mouth and shut your ears when we say we meant something else.

I repeat what I said in post #38: That's not only silly, it's insulting.

So please stop this finally.

Clouseau

No, no, it was someone else who described it as 'prejudice'. But if you're all agreed that bias is not prejudice, I'll go along with that, in this thread.

WishboneDawn

I really liked your original post and I wish that idea got more discussion, especially amongst us christians.

I think that, for sure, the editing and publishing of the bible has shaped it but I'm not sure about building, "a story that was not there originally." The editors choose from pieces that WERE originally there after all. I think instead, that's where doctrine has come in. The editing just picked what pieces would make the cut. It's doctrines like, for instance, literalism that attempt to pick out some sort of consistency of very different pieces. Granted the development of doctrine is made easier when wildly different things like gnostic gospels haven't made the cut.

Sven

:banghead:
Please just substitute "prejudice" for "bias" in my last post.

Clouseau

Sven

I really wish you'd actually try to engage others in conversation instead of writing these witty-sounding non-answers.