Rational BAC

Quote from Magus--


Nope i don't see circular arguing here because the Bible isn't one source. Do you not understand what the bible is? It is a compilation of 66 SEPARATE books over a period of 2000-3000 years. The NT is the same as if you went to the library, check out 20-30 books on some historical figure, and had them all verify the accuracy of each other. The Bible is 66 separate bibligraphical sources. It is not ONE book, it is many. Therefore it isn't circular because the books of the Bible verify other books of the Bible, not the Bible verifying the Bible. Quite the double standard though. If you check out 5 books on Julius Ceasar, and they all describe His life in roughly the same way, then there is no problem, because its 5 separate sources, all agreeing with each other. Yet you don't think its valid for the Bible, because its the Bible.


I rarely agree with you Magus, but I really liked this part. Thought I'd let you know.

PS---I don't know my own IQ------probably on the average side. Is better not to know, I think. Nobody likes self agrandisement.

Soul Invictus

If what he said was relevant to the Nt, I would say he made a bit persuasive piece of writing. I don't operate under the assumption of the validity of the texts, however for purposes of this thread, are you operating under the assumption that the synoptic gospels are harmonized?

DMB

Must a "theologist" (sic) believe what s/he is studying? My understanding is that very many don't.

Stephen T-B

How can people say these things and be serious?

“If you check out 5 books on Julius Ceasar, and they all describe His life in roughly the same way, then there is no problem, because its 5 separate sources, all agreeing with each other. Yet you don't think its valid for the Bible, because its the Bible.”

If the only evidence for the life of Ceasar was to be found in five books, and if those books said he flew through the air, made animals talk, was born from an egg fertilised by a dragon and never actually died despite being chopped up into a thousand pieces, would there be any reason to believe them? Would there be any reason to believe 200 of them?

The fact that the perfectly normal Julius Ceasar is an historical personage is attested to by a vast amount of corroborative evidence; there is NO corroborative evidence attesting to the life of Jesus Christ who, the authors of the stories gathered together in the Bible tell us, walked on water, raised the dead, was born from an egg fertilised by a god, was killed and came back to life.

Aravnah Ornan

The Qur'an doesn't contradict itself. Sure, you read some part of the Qur'an and claim it's a contradiction, but since when do you hold more merit over the millions of Islamic scholars who have been studying the Qur'an's supposed contradictions for over a thousand years, and have yet to find any verse in the Qur'an without an explanation? I have yet to see a contradiction in the Qur'an, so what makes your understanding of the Qur'an better than mine? You seem to think the Qur'an just hit shelves last week. The Qur'an has been studied endlessly for over a thousand years, and is still considered the greatest and most reliable book in history, without contradiction.

The Rig-Veda doesn't ... oh, never mind.

Jobar

You know, sometimes I think we need a "Christian Apologetics" forum on II; we so often see threads like this one, which pretty much ignore the basic logical problems of an all-powerful god, and jump straight in to arguing about the validity of a 2000+ year old religion.

Since we don't have one, I'm going to put this in GRD.

Free Thinkr

The problem is there are many religions requiring faith, and they are mutually exclusive. It seems to me a mix of faith and evidence would make any religion, indeed any concept, viable (i.e. if I told you that invisible goblins keep aeroplanes aloft, you could see that aeroplanes do indeed fly and take the rest on faith).

Sci_Fidelity

Posted by Magus:



This is absolute bullshit. Einstein clearly said the statements attributed to him were misinterpreted, and that he rejected the idea of a personal god:



And Hawking says when he refers to "god" he's using a metaphor for the laws of nature. Do you theists think if you repeat a lie often enough it will be true? Oh wait- of course you do.
:boohoo:

Mageth

Magus said:

Hardly. Einstein believed in God, Hawkings attributes the universe to a higher power, Newton was a Christian etc.

Magus, Newton was a monotheist, arguing against the Trinity. Would that disqualify him as a "true Christian" in your book?

MortalWombat

Both Einstein and Hawking rejected the notion of a personal God, and Newton was hardly what one would consider today to be a mainstream Christian. He rejected the traditional Christian view of the Trinity, and claimed that Jesus was just an adopted son of God, but we also have that capacity, if we lead a godly life. He was also fascinated with the medieval idea of alchemy.