sotto voce

Not so. No church, no sane person supports a literal interpretation of much of the Bible. Who thinks that the Bible says that God actually makes the clouds his chariot? It's a truly frivolous, moronic topic, this. Do Americans ever read the Bible? Do Americans ever read poetry? Or would that be too scary?

That's because a) the Bible is a book that depends on figurative language, not just in Gen 1, but even in chronology and technical theology; and b) because some passages do have multiple meanings. Hebrew, in particular, lends itself to double or even triple meanings, that are simultaneously valid. (It's why Hebrew has been called 'God's own language'.) It is not true, afaik, that any denomination allows that any one passage can contradict itself.

So to say that the Bible is not inerrant is to contradict just about everyone who makes a Christian claim.

Roger Pearse

It's not a syllogism. The "axioms" involve statements about what a supernatural being "must" or "must not" do; they are, therefore, not axioms at all, but claims requiring proof. That proof will be slow in coming, unless you have a hot-line to God, or claim divine inspiration for your personal exegesis of the bible. Neither will do you much good; the argument has already ceased to be a syllogism at that point, and has wandered into general argument of probability.

And ... is it entirely sound to argue that something is untrue if we can repeat vituperation about it? That is the key element in your argument, it seems to me.

The bit which claimed that the bible was untrue (you would deny that this is the argument, but wrongly IMHO) because it didn't specify dates according to a universal dating system not invented for a further 500 years, and instead left them unclear ... well, I found that somewhat unconvincing.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

TedM

Very odd response. I was making a distinction because often 'inerrant' and 'literal' are confused by people. Not you, but many people.

PJLazy

My main concern for your argument is that you seem tie yourself to the fact that a Christian god can only be extant if the Bible was the word of God. Obviously, many Christians, including myself, do not believe that the Bible is literal or inerrant or that God is necessarily related to the Bible.

As has been mentioned in the thread, your argument goes best against the Bible literalists, but they are a hard bunch to get through to no matter how sound your logic is...I've been arguing with my uncle for years and he still believes that the earth is 6,000 years old and dinosaurs never existed.

I've always believed that the Christian God would exist regardless of whether the Bible existed or not. In that regard, your premise would not necessarily defeat this belief.

Thanks for formulating this and sharing!

Perspicuo

Weak, because the argument of mysteriousness can be used to defend the existence of any idiotic and improbable divine entity from most any mythology.

Perspicuo

Therefore, you are not a Christian in any widely accepted definition of "Christian".

By the way,
If you move your goalposts that much, what you are doing is supposedly protecting yourself from any refutation, but, alas, you are moving into unfalsifiability territory, which renders your position untenable.

Perspicuo

I don't think so. I've seen that "is a persuasive one against Biblical Inerrancy but is not an effective argument against the existence of the Christian God" claim in many places including FRDB, but I do not see how showing how wrong the Bible is, is not a great argument against the existence of the Biblical God.

PJLazy

I don't think I follow... I am not protecting myself from anything. I have never heard any person argue that God and the Bible sprang up simultaneously. Obviously, God was here before the Bible was written, so regardless of whether the Bible is "God's word" or not, God would still exist absent any Bible at all. This doesn't even have to be based theologically as it is simple logic -- math would exist regardless if any math book was ever written.

I think trying to paint me as not a true Christian is somewhat silly and presumptive, but to try to say that I'm moving the goalposts because I believe the Bible can err, doesn't seem fair at all. Any Christian who reads the first two chapters of Genesis should realize there are already contradictions, and most Christians do not take the Bible literally. Yet we still believe in a Christian god. The Bible is just man's understanding and interpretation of the god we believe in. If that makes it unfalsifiable, I don't know what to tell you -- refuting a religion will never be easy because it is not going to be wrapped up in a neat and tidy package.

Iskander

Are you the Pope?

sotto voce

Are we to suppose that there is such a thing? :constern01: