curbyIII

This is a logical proof that the Bible is the word of God.

It is written in the Bible that it is the word of God. Anything that is the word of God must be true. Therefore anything written in the Bible is true. And so (because it is written in the Bible) everything in the Bible must be the word of God.

tr1st4n

LOL
Lovely circular reasoning; my compliments.

Who knows what the 'formal' name for this logical fallacy is?

Joe Nobody

I'd say begging the question. Am I right? What do I win?

Joe Nobody

Joe Nobody

I checked out the Nizkor Project fallacy files. It is called begging the question but "Petitio Principii" may be the formal name.

Joe Nobody

Writer@Large

This obviously poor (and long-ago worn) argument isn't meant to be serious, folks, unless curbyIII has had a serious conversion experience <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=002547" target="_blank">Since December, when he labeled himself an atheist.</a>

--W@L

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Writer@Large ]</p>

scumble

Where? I know this is supposed to be the case, but from my reading, God is only a character in the story. Out of interest, where are the words to the effect of "I am God, and this is my Word".
If there is nothing, the argument falls on its arse from the start.

Godless Dave

This post is the word of God.

Curt Epithet

No, this post is the true Word of God. The previous post is a lie.

Curt Epithet

You can tell that the previous post, and not the one before it, is true because of the capital 'W'.

emotional

Actually I'm glad this argument is still being made, albeit in a more sophisticated fashion, that is, presuppositionalism.

Let us accept that the Bible is the Word of God because it says so. The fallacy of circulus in demonstrando will be repelled by the presuppositional apologist by saying that "we must have a yardstick, a measure for judging all things". It is with this rule that Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb of Ohr Somayach says, "it is incoherent to ask whether the Torah is relevant to you; rather, ask whether you are relevant to the Torah". And Cornelius Van Til, father of Christian presuppositionalism, exhorted to judge everything according to the Bible. And the Turkish Muslim apologist Harun Yahya has a tract calling to "evaluate everything from the point of view of the Qur'an". Because those books claim to be the Word of God, they are yardsticks of judgement and not judged things. Judging them would be like judging God himself.

So far the internal consistency of each particular presuppositionalist; however, externally they cancel each other out. The Bible says it is the word of God; all right, but so does the Qur'an. By what basis do you judge things according the Bible and not the Qur'an, although the latter makes just as strong a claim to be God's word as the former? If you say, "the Bible has evidence to back it up, not so the Qur'an", then you have already stepped out of presuppositionalism and started judging the Scripture!

Therefore, the yardstick for judgement must be something with more consensus than Scripture. The Bible may be the Word of God, and so may the Qur'an; however, we cannot presuppose any of them, because they make a mutually exclusive claim. We have to presuppose a consensus. As it happens, the universal consensus among human beings is that the natural universe is not a human product - that is, human beings did not fashion the natural world (stars, planets, rocks, trees, animals, including us). The question of "who created" is of no interest here. What is of interest is that, since the natural Universe is the only thing which all humans agree to presuppose as a non-human creation, we are to judge all scripture according to its agreement with natural fact. So that if Scripture mentions a solid dome above our heads (as the Bible does - the firmament), then it is disqualified from being the Word of God.

The Bible is the word of God because it says so. The Qur'an is the word of God because it says so. They are both human scriptures, with no supernatural inspiration whatsoever, because they tell untruths about natural facts. For example the firmament, the flat earth, geocentricity, and purposive creation ("Master Craftsman") instead of adaptive evolution ("Blind Watchmaker").

(This, by the way, is also an answer to Tercel about the issue of science and Christianity: no, they do not agree. The findings of science, since they are impartial and ignore "written revelation" find the truth and prove theistic religions to be lies. Science and theism are opposites and bitter enemies, and the victory of the one is the defeat of the other).