rhutchin

1. Here is my list, so far

A. God is.

2. OK. Let’s start with Genesis 1. It starts, “In the beginning, God…” From this point on, the underlying assumption is that God exists. The rest of the Bible is now interpreted consistent with the assumption of God.

OK. Denominations can reflect what people want the Bible to say, not what they have determined the Bible to say.

So. The underlying assumptions merely allow a person to understand the Bible. Whether the underlying assumptions are true is irrelevant until you get the end product. At that point, the question can be asked, Is it true?

Hmmm. Counter-factual and counter-intuitive. To what? You wouldn’t be trying to introduce underlying assumptions, would you?

Do you mean, counter factual to your underlying assumptions?

OK. We still have different groups with different underlying assumptions. The different underlying assumptions produce different interpretations of the Bible and each is judged on individual merit. What’s the issue?

OK. Then we have different underlying assumptions based on those disagreements.

Yep. We can read them. Now, we can document different underlying assumptions.

Is the existence of contradictions an underlying assumption?

Free of counter-factuals and counter-intuitives, also?

OK. Let’s try an example. The Bible speaks of life after death. Is that claim true or false?

Johnny Skeptic

Message to rhutchin: Please reply to my post #127. I am certain that you deliberately avoided replying to it. I can't say that I blame you since you know that you will have problems refuting what I said.

Calvinists dispute a literal interpretation of 2 Peter 3:9. Unfortunately for you, Calvinists comprise a relatively small minority of the Christian church. Therefore, your arguments are not "the Christian position".

Will you please tell us why you do not believe that the extra books in the Roman Catholic Bible do not belong in the Bible? I am assuming that that is your position.

Do you have and idea how the New Testament Canon was put together? Do you believe that the writings that were chosen to be in the canon were the result of God telling the majority of the choosers which writings to include in it?

Regarding 2 Peter 3:9, what evidence do you have that the writer was speaking for God and not for himself?

Doug Shaver

I don't try to avoid them. But I do question all of them and discard the ones I can't justify.

Sauron

Easy. Don't bring them to the table. I don't need them as a crutch; I'm surprised you seem to require them.

Sauron

Well, wrong - right out of the starting gate. The only assumption is that some writer or editor of texts thought that a god existed, at some point in history. Whether he/she thought that was the only god, or whether that god still exists today, is up for denominational debate.

And whether god or gods actually, objectively exists is totally separate[ from the question of what this author/editor wrote and thought about god(s). Merely because someone believes something and writes it down, that does not prove that their belief is true. Nor does it prove that their belief is the same as other writers/editors who work on the same text and add material later on.

Your list fails to answer my two questions above. So I'll repeat:

1. there is no agreed-upon list of the bible's underlying assumptions, so your position is a non-starter unless you can produce such a list - can you?

2. You still haven't explained *why* you think it is necessary to approach this with any underlying assumptions at all? The usual way that archaeology or science investigates something is merely to follow the evidence and allow it to reveal whatever it reveals. This is an approach that doesn't rely upon *any* underlying assumptions. Given that an already-existing and proven methodology for investigation exists, why should we abandon it in favor of doing what you want?

I was wondering how long you could go, before becoming deliberately evasive and trying to hide behind semantics. Apparently that threshhold has been reached.

The problem with your response is that every denomination says/thinks that its point of view is the SAME THING as what they have determined the bible to say.

And every denomination believes that *other* denominations besides themselves are only reflecting what people *want* the bible to say.

Impossible, since there are no universally agreed upon "underlying assumptions". Because of that, anyone who claims to have the underlying assumptions is merely injecting one *particular* view of what the bible says.

Other people may have a different view of what the bible says. Because of that, their set of "underlying assumptions" leads them to a *different* understanding of what the bible says.

To the facts.

Nothing beyond the ordinary methods we use to determine truth in any ancient document. Are you suggesting that the bible cannot stand up to the same type of inspection that other ancient documents receive?

There is no issue - except you were pretending that there was some set of obvious and universal "underlying assumptions" that could be easily identified as governing the entire text. There is no such thing. All this energy in posting has been to drag you -- kicking and screaming -- slowly down the path of logic to that realization.

Wrong. I have ZERO underlying assumptions. You have some set that is not zero. My original question #2 stands:

You still haven't explained *why* you think it is necessary to approach this with any underlying assumptions at all? The usual way that archaeology or science investigates something is merely to follow the evidence and allow it to reveal whatever it reveals. This is an approach that doesn't rely upon *any* underlying assumptions. Given that an already-existing and proven methodology for investigation exists, why should we abandon it in favor of doing what you want?

No, it is the evaluation based upon examining the evidence.

Of course. You're free to disagree, but you will be asked to support your basis of objection.

For example, you'll need to show evidence for a basis to accept a violation of a natural law, because the natural law is both factual and intuitive.

The claim is incorrectly phrased. Let me help you:

In rhutchins' denominational view, the bible speaks of life after death. The Jews, of course, might disagree that the bible has anything at all to say on the topic.

Is there life after death? There is no affirmative evidence to support that claim.

Angra Mainyu

I think he was referring to the people living in the world at that time when he said “any” and “all”. In my view, that’s what the text appears to be saying. If you think it says differently, I’d ask what you think it says?

Incidentally, given that Peter was referring to a believer, and he was a believer himself, the “us” or “you” didn’t seem to refer to his interlocutor or to both his interlocutor and himself. Rather, I think that that was a general statement, referring to people.

“Wrong” compared to what?

The writers may have interpreted previous passages differently. Given that there were so many writers, and that the texts were selected later among many possible ones, it’s not clear which intended interpretation would be considered the correct one.

If you assumed that God is the author (by means of divine inspiration), then your contention would be correct. However, there’s no reason to believe that that’s the case. Even if it were, there would be no way of determining which of the many interpretations is correct.


I disagree. Many don’t believe that their actions are sinful, or wrong at all.
That aside, my question is the same: why would that be unfortunate?
Perfect justice, in the form of infinite torture, would be done. That wouldn’t seem unfortunate.

In that case, how can you even try to determine what the Bible says, without reading Greek or Hebrew, and using only translations?

If translations aren’t inerrant, and we’re using only translations, then the text we have is not inerrant.

You assume that the Bible is inerrant. But we can only work with interpretations, and try to prove the inerrancy of them.

If you try to check the text itself, in reality you’re interpreting the text as you read it. I mean, when you look at the Bible and the argument for the specific interpretation, you’re comparing said interpretation with yours, to check the former for correctness, which seems to amount to assume that your interpretation is correct.

My question would be: can you prove that your interpretation of the Bible is inerrant, and thus the interpretations of most Christians are wrong?

But other texts (e.g., the Quran) could state the same.
Why would you assume the Bible to be inerrant, instead of some other book making the same claim?

Suppose I claim

1) Torturing people for their beliefs is right.
2) In particular, torturing people for not believing claim 1), is right.
3) 1) and 2) are all an true statements, and I was inspired by an infallible being to write that.

Should we assume that 1) and 2) are infallible, just because 3) says so?

There’s another essential problem with a book claiming its own infallibility, because there must be a self-referential claim, whether implicit or explicit. The problem is obvious in the claims I made (who guarantees the truthfulness of 3)?), but it’s inevitable whenever a text makes claims about itself.

In other words, a sentence like “this claim is correct” doesn’t make sense. However, if in a sentence or group of sentence on the Bible, there’s a claim that the rest of the Bible is true, who says that the claim of truthfulness is true as well?
The Bible can't validly claim its own infallibility. At most, a part of the Bible can claim the infallibility of the rest.

However, that would not be an accurate definition in my view.

First, different people have different opinions on what the Bible says. I don’t know what you think Agrippa was talking about, but I’m sure that whatever it is, others will reach a conclusion different from yours.

Second, the definition could be disputed by those who consider that the Bible isn’t the only source of dogma (e.g., Catholics).

There’s no reason for me to assume that your sources are better than theirs, or that your interpretation is better. Then again, I have no reason to assume they’re right, either. That’s why I prefer a more inclusive definition.


Still, I’d like to hear your definition of Christian - I mean one that we could use to tell a Christian from a non-Christian.


I agree. Suppose the Bible is correct, inerrant, etc.

Then, God created a Universe with Hell.

God created the force – whatever that is – that takes people to Hell.

Clearly, those in Hell don’t like being there, so they’re in Hell against their will, sent by a God-designed force in a God-designed universe – i.e., sent by God.

But what makes you think that that is the case?
That aside, even if that were the case, how could one determine which one is correct?
Given that God isn’t going to tell us, there’d be no way of checking that.
In other words, different people would consider that God had different intentions, and there’d be no way to see who would be right.
Could you be more specific, please?
I’d like to know what the choice is, not to what it relates. In other words, what is the action required?

Also, how would they know about that choice?

Because they can be told about many choices (Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim, Catholic Christian, Evangelical Christian, Neopagan, Hindu, Buddhist, and a long etcetera), all of them religious – though not all of them involving the idea of judgment before a God.


I disagree, if you mean that in the sense of choice.

I cannot choose to believe in Ares, Ra, or the Muslim God. I could lie and say that I believe, but that would not make me believe. My conclusion is that those deities don’t exist – it’s a conclusion, not a decision in the sense of a choice.

If it’s different for you, I’d like to know how that’s possible.

Could you choose to believe in Zeus, or Minerva?
If so, why don’t you make that choice?
Why would you choose the God of Christianity instead?


Why would you add your assumptions?
Assumptions like the existence of the world outside one’s mind and logic are intuitively evident, but why should one assume that a God exists?
In particular, why should one assume that the Christian God exists, and/or that the Bible is infallible?

Moreover, how could one make such assumption?
As I mentioned earlier, I cannot just assume the existence of Prometheus and believe it (I could assume it for the sake of the argument in a thread, but I’d now he doesn’t exist).

How can a person believe in a non-evident assumption for which they have no evidence?

Ignostic Morgan

:banghead: :banghead: Since the Bible is contradictory to itself and to history and science, we have no reason to believe it to become believers. Since its god is evil, we have no reason to believe it. Since miralcles don't happen , we have no reason to believe it. Since many, many people have not even read it , they should have exposure . Since all that and more ,Theodor Drange proposes the argument from unbeliefin"Nonbelief and Evil." A rational god would not send anyone to Hell , for that is disproportionate to any wrongdoing and not worshippping is no wrong as no god period needs or deserves worship! So this verse is null ! One has to read the Tanakh and the Testament in context as Christians seem to avoid doing. In context. Now in context ,love one another means little since slavery and misogyny go with it in those books. How does one love others when one committs genocide ? Christians claim there god is love,but as noted than means little . In Isaiah, he says he send evil spirits, thus showing no love. To do love , one has to have a humanist morality as I show in the thread objective morality .Rhutchin should show a god , not think that we will be gullible to take one on faith . The Bible makes for atheists!

Johnny Skeptic

Yes indeed. Since a sizeable majority of Christians believe that God is not willing that any should perish, rhutchin is not defending the "Christian" position. He is defending the postion of a relatively small group of Christians, a group that many Christians detest.

If God is willing that some people perish, all the more reason for decent people to reject him, and shame on God for refusing to show up, tangibly, in person, and clear up this matter, not to mention his refusal to clearly tell Christians in past centuries that slavery, colonization, and the subjugation of women is wrong. And, there are the MINOR issues of God creating hurricanes and killing people with them, including babies, and innocent animals.

Angra Mainyu

Some more passages supporting the claim that the Bible claims that God seeks salvation for everyone (emphasisalways mine)

Incidentally, if the argument of 1 John 4:20 and John 4:21 were correct, then everyone who loved God would love everyone they’ve seen.

Johnny Skeptic

Rhutchin is a Calvinist. Does he really know what John Calvin was like? Surely not. I just started a new thread at the GRD Forum at http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...73#post3837673. The article that I quoted is at a Christian web site, and it proves what a monster John Calvin was. The article is a must read for anyone who is interested in Calvinism. It proves beyond a reasonable doubt that John Calvin was an accessory to murder on numerous occasions.

And let's not forget rhutchin's buddy Pascal, who said that only Roman Catholics will go to heaven. It would be quite amusing if Pascal were to show up at this forum and tell rhutchin that he will go to hell.