blindwatchmaker

How can anyone take the Bible seriously when it is so full of contradictions and errors?

Are there any arguments put forward by christians to explain how the word of god is so full of mistakes and nonsense?

variant 13

Humans wrote it probably, or it's the universe/science that is wrong not the bible (though it would only be fundies that say the second one).

Or maybe it's just our interpretation of it that's flawed.

We'll wait and see.

Nice and direct question, I like it.

Toto

The Bible is a foundational document for most Americans. You have to take it seriously to demonstrate that it is in fact full of contradictions and errors. Or you can take it seriously as literature without worrying about the errors and contradictions, and see what value you can get out of it.

Of course there are. The field is known as "Apologetics". (It may be known as mental gymnastics to the rest of us. )

Most Christians are not inerrantists - they will not deny that there are some errors in the Bible, whether errors in transmission, errors due to the limited understanding of the humans who wrote it, or otherwise. They still find it valuable for some reason.

Do you have any specific questions, or were you just venting?

Jeffrey Formosa

If the Christian bible was true every one who read it would join the Christian religion but that doesn't happing so it can't be true just like Atheism isn't true because if it was every one who heard the idea of Atheism would join Atheism. The true belief would make so much since it would get every one who hears it or reads it to belief.

variant 13

Why do you think that if something is true everyone will accept it? That is not always the case.

Smoking is bad for your health not everyone accepts that.

mike_decock

Popularity of belief really has nothing to do with the veracity of the claim.

Because lots of people take the bible seriously and are taught to believe it has no contradictions or errors. Combine the early indoctrination with religious experience and the believer will ignore, avoid, deny or rationalize away any evidence to the contrary.

-Mike...

blindwatchmaker

OK here are some for starters( )

How do Apologetics account for the two completely different and mutually exclusive creation accounts in Genesis?

How do they account for the taxanomical errors that occur regularly throughout the book?

How do they account for stories such as the big earthquake that made the stars fall down from the sky (:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: )

How do they account for night and day being "created" before the sun?

These things can't be explained away by appealing to possible errors in the translation. They aren't spelling mistakes. They are huge big F*CK OFF problems that show that the Bible is full of rubbish.

I would like to know if there are any well established apologetic responses to issues such as the ones above.
I could list twenty more quite easily too!

Oh and Jeffrey Formosa, your post was very nice, but I'm not really sure what you're talking about.

judge

http://www.trueorigin.org/tablet.asp

Quote:

How do they account for the taxanomical errors that occur regularly throughout the book? How do they account for stories such as the big earthquake that made the stars fall down from the sky (:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: )

"stars falling from the sky " is a figure of speech used by the prophets when judgement was to come on a city or people.
It's like saying ..."the lights wil go out"

Quote:

How do they account for night and day being "created" before the sun?

Two different account later put into one book, see above link.

Hazel-rah

The Jewish midrashim do a lot toward filling in blanks and tying up loose ends.

The story of Lilith comes from the discrepancy between the two different versions of the creation of Man in Genesis. That's become such an oft-repeated tale that I've personally spoken to two people who thought Lilith was a Biblical character.

Magus55

Gee, maybe because it isn't? Unless of course your a cherry picking "Christian", in which case who cares what alleged errors there are.