Butters

For over a thousand years we have been told by Christians the the Bible is the true word of God.
We were told that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, as commanded by God. We were told that all the books of the Bible were authored by the people whose names are listed. We were told that it was a perfect record of the creation of the world. We were told it was an accurate acount of history. We were told that fabulous prophecies were made and came to pass. We were told that the New Tesament was a historical record of the life of Jesus, written by his followers, first hand witnesses. We were told that these writings were passed on in a continuous, unbroken line, so that the meaning of the words have been preserved. We are told that because of all these reasons, we should believe this story.

Now that at least most of these clasims have been shown to be false, why do Christians still cling to their belief?

If Moses did not write the the first five books of the Bible, they have no authority.

Who wrote them? When? It does not matter! The TRUTH of these books have been removed! Christians (and Jews) have been lying about this for over a thousand years. If all other authors of the bible books are not who they were put forth as being, who cares who they were?

This is what I see happening all the time.
Christian:"The Bible is the true inerrent word of God."
non-believer:"Well Moses didn't write the first five books as is claimed"
C:"thats O.K., it was just edited by someone else"
N:"who was this, what did they add, or change, what gave them the authority to present their writing as the word of God?"
C:"It doesn't matter, because God made sure that the IMPORTANT things were left alone"
N:"What about the contradictions/"
C:"Well some can be explained away, if you add to the text"
N:"But doesn't that make the authors unreilable?"
C:"No, because these small omissions don't affect the doctrine"
N:"how do you know that something important wasn't left out?"
C:"Because God made sure of it."
N:"What about the other contradictions?"
C:"Many are simply translation errors, if you examine the ancient documents and use the correct translation, the contradictions disappear."
N:"But I thought that these Teachings were handed down in a continous line of priests, how could they forget the original meaning of what they were teaching? Didn't they teach the same TRUTH all through history?"
C:"Uh"
N:"What about these prophecies? When I look at then, most seem to be no prophecy at all!"
C:"Well now, prophecy is a funny thing, sometimes you think you are reading a story about something completely different, but there is a "Hidden" meaning to it."
N:"Who told you about these hidden meanings?
C:"The writers of the New Testament."
N:"And who are they?"
C:"There are the discip-oh right, well we don't know exactly who the are, but we can trust them!"
N:"What about the obvious prophecies that did not come true?"
C:"Well now, prophecy is a funny thing, sometimes people, places, and things mentioned are not the same things as the odvious ones, they mean something else."
N:"Who told you this, and were do they get these meanings?"
C:"The Bible-oop's, I mean the church leaders, they know what their talking about, they can extract the double meanings from the text."
N:"But they can't extract the REAL meaning of these same texts? Or at least haven't been able to until now?"
N:"So we don't know who wrote the Bible. We don't know exactly what it says. Millions of people lived and died by the KJV, and now most Christians say it is wrong. We DO know that it wasn't written by who the church claimed it was, or when they claimed it was, they cannot,to this day agree on what it says, and Yet, we are STILL supposed to believe it?"
C:"I believe that Christ is the son of god, that took on human form, died, and was raised from the dead, so that god would forgive our sins, AND THATS ALL THAT MATTERS!"
N:"Now would that be for MY sins, or for the sins of Adam and EVE?"
Of course the answer depends and wether you are talking to a Catholic or a Protestant, but they BOTH know what the truth is.

Someone once said that finding the truth of Christianity is like peeling an onion, looking for the core, you peel back layer, after layer, and nothing remains.
I always get an image of a Christian doing this, standing there with empty hands and saying,"I still believe."

C:

CX

Since I can see no topic for debate on the subjects of BC&A I'm going to move this over to RRP.

[ October 21, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>