Secular Pinoy

Ask the Literalist to take the Easter Challenge: <a href="http://www.ffrf.org/lfif/stone.html" target="_blank">Leave No Stone Unturned</a>. It's impossible to harmonize, IMO.

RogerLeeCooke

Fabulous list, ex! I can give you a pretty example of the use of No. 6. A prominent Russian mathematician (and talented artist) named Anatolii Fomenko has gone completely batty and tried to rewrite all of human history, along the lines of Velikovsky (also descended from Russians, I believe...hmm!!). Fomenko claims that all of Biblical history is really just a disguised version of the history of the Holy Roman Empire. In other words, it all happened less than 1300 years ago. He bases the claim on the lengths of the reigns of successive kings as in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, compared with the corresponding sequence of regnal lengths for Holy Roman Emperors. Of course, in order to make the data fit, he has to have (at one point) one Emperor reigning right in the middle of the reign of another, has to conflate the names of several emperors and/or kings in the style you mentioned,...all the usual fudge factors, engineers' constants, etc.

In addition, he claims there was no Mongol invasion or occupation of Russia, that it was all a lie fabricated by the Romanovs to justify their absolutism.

I reviewed his book "Chronology of Biblical Events" for Zentralblatt für Mathematik and declared it worthless. The trouble is, in the superstitious post-Soviet era of Russia, Fomenko has acquired a considerable number of true-believing disciples. That ought to give pause to the Christians like John Ankerberg, who use the canon that "you can't fool the generation contemporary with the events." Fomenko has managed to fool many of his contemporaries, and if they get enough money and power, they'll found their own cockamamie cult.

Radorth

10 (LATEST) RULES FOR ARGUING WITH CHRISTIANS

1. Based on historical experience, the latest liberal scholarly thinking is probably correct, so it is wise to defend it whether it contradicts all previous thinking or not. You should just take the conclusions of liberal scholars on faith, and trust you will be able to explain it later. You can always say the Christians simply read it wrong or took something out of context. There is always SOME explanation.

2 Don't let the Christians hold you to any particular meaning, if it helps their case. For example, the word "flesh" in Paul's letters doesn't mean what you initially think it means, no matter what the context says.

3. You should read the context around the verse before commenting, if you have time. If you don't, make the believers do the work. The main thing is find problems. If one "contradiction" is easily explained form the context, you have hundreds of other contradictions you can point out.

4. It's OK to give a link even though you have never read it yourself.

5. Never actually accuse the NT writers of lying. Say they copied, they misinterpreted dreams, they believed rumors, they redacted, they burned things, they inserted their own opinions, but don't say they actually lied. Saying they lied creates problems, like having to actually supply proof, and may have other unpleasant consequences. People like Radorth think you should prove such accusations. But anything else you can just assert, point to a scholar who agrees with you and you're be fine.

6. Don't worry too much if liberal scholars contradict each other, or start with conflicting premises. They are right anyway because we all know the Bible was made up. Your job is to worry about other people's contradictions. Even if you are totally inconsistent in your thinking, you'd still be right, so don't worry about it.

7. Christians will sometimes use a less technical interpretation of a word, insisting the meaning of the writer was symbolic, and therefore your objection is moot. If this happens, ignore rule 2 above. For example if Christians want to argue that Sunday is the third day after Friday, point out that, technically speaking, Monday is the third day even though the days have four different names.

8. Apply Occam's Razor sparingly. It wipes out complicated arguments, such as our latest argument that the Gospels are just fabrications, proven by their similarities to have been copied from some earlier document. Any differences are the result of writers with unnamed political agendas inserting various personal opinions, or later redacting things they did not like, and all this happened after Paul, who basically invented the Jesus story, wrote anything, and before about 150 CE. Yes I know the theory raises a few questions, but answering them only makes the discussion more complicated, and then somebody will ask if Occam's Razor applies. Bet on it.

9. Scholars and historians who wrote more than fifteen years ago are simply behind the curve, and are unaware of the latest scientific and rational thinking. Thus if a historian like Will Durant calls our objections "minutiae," rest assured he was not privy to the latest information and modern thinking.

10. Resist any demand to prove an assumption or a premise. We seldom make an extraordinary claim, therefore we don't have to prove anything.

Radorth

Vorkosigan

Rad, do you have anything substantive to say with respect to the contradictions outlined by ex-creationist above?

Vorkosigan

Hi Vinnie! Also, in Acts 19, Luke says that there are disciples of John who are unaware of Jesus. This also appears to contradict the view that John and Jesus were somehow connected.

Vorkosigan

Amos

It's actually quite universal. The problem is that poetic literature does not qualify to give substance to my propositions.

Radorth

ilgwahm's contradictions

#1
So? Peter said "You are Christ the son of the living God." Then when things weren't going so good he denied Christ altogether. You can argue some exception for Jbap I suppose, but the disciples one and all thought the Christ would come back to rule the world, and they would each get exclusive rights to vend kosher food in a large section of Jerusalem. Their faith waxed and waned from one extreme to the other. Therefore, yes JBap thought he was the Christ, and yes he later doubted it, just as the rest did. I would have done the same thing.

And of course some eminent historians have seen these negative sayings and the doubts expressed as PROOF of the integrity of the story.

#2

I'm sorry but this one is barely worth the trouble. The text itself says it happened as soon as he got out of the boat. And it says the REGION of Gerasa. Criminy, if this is a major one, what are the minor ones? Durant well applied the term minutiae to such witch-hunting.

I'm afraid to read #3.

More later

Rad

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

Family Man

Radoth's One Rule for Dealing with Viewpoints He Doesn't Like

1. Whatever you do, never, ever, respond to evidence presented for your opponents position. Ignore it so you can pretend they haven't "proved" anything.

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Family Man ]</p>

Radorth

Your post is less than honest IMO.

1. You fail to mention that Abiathar was the son of Ahimalech. I doubt Jesus misremembered, although that is possible I suppose. Or Mark could easily have mixed them up in his recollection OR, since it says "in the days of..." we have a reasonable generalization.

2. Jesus has David "entering the house of God."? This is a stupendous error? My, what are your other 999 like. I shudder.

3. Does it say somehwere David ate it himself? I missed that, but then I don't spend all my free time looking for witches in the Bible.

Widely spaced events presented as being direct cause and effect. You make it sound like you would turn yourself in if you told a lie, your Dad got mad and killed your Mom. Also this is another example of negative details lending credence because David is admitting a fault. Jesus isn't condoning anything except the importance of human beings to God

Radorth

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

Vinnie

The account with Peter denying Jesus 3 times has NOTHING to do with this:

69Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. "You also were with Jesus of Galilee," she said.

70But he denied it before them all. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

71Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, "This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth."

72He denied it again, with an oath: "I don't know the man!"

73After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away."

74Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, "I don't know the man!"

75Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: "Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." And he went outside and wept bitterly.

PETER SAID HE DID NOT KNOW JESUS. HE WAS CLEARLY LYING! Are you going to argue JBap lied or got amnesia while in jail?

John's question makes it seem like he didn't know Jesus was the Christ when he clearly pronounced him as the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, as he already said you need to baptize me, as he already said he preached his coming, as he already said he was the one to
come. As he already saw miraculous events and was a witness of heaven opening and the spirit descending on Jesus and a voice from heaven declaring him God's Son. Then we have JBap later
wanting to know if Jesus was the Christ.


So you say John's faith might have wavered in Jesus? That is a LOT of wavering in light of John 1! Have you actually read John 1 and JBap's witness to Jesus? Read this carefully and slowly:

29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel." 32Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

John was even told who Jeesus was by the God who sent him! I cannot prove this is an error because apologists who grant the text presumption will make ridiculous appeals like maybe John got amnesia or hit on the head too hard while in prison or just completely doubted Jesus after preparing the way or pre-authenticating him for probably years or however long we can feasibly imagine his ministry to have last. He was nicknamed the Baptist so that gives us a little hint.

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that "over 30 miles away from" constituted "the region of". I didn't see that rule in the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. You'd probably be better off arguing that Geresa may have had holdings on the eastern shore. You could even argue thats how khersa got its name but I'm not doing your work for you.

Vinnie

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: ilgwamh ]</p>