rainbow walking

rw: And once again you evade the issue. I'm not asking your opinion on textual criticism, ( seeing as I've presented no criticism of the text), but I am bringing into question your claim of Genesis being allegorical. Having demonstrated a clear case of historical recording in the geneaologies and its peculiar accuracy in terms of the lives of pre-deluvian personages and events like the flood casts a serious shadow over your claims of allegory.

David Mathews

Hello wordsmyth,

I think the following teaching concerning the doctrine of the Trinity from the Catechism of the Catholic Church might clarify the orthodox Christian viewpoint that the Trinity does not contradict Monotheism and that the Christian God is the God of Abraham:

The doctrine of the Trinity is difficult even for Christians. Nonetheless, Christians are still regarded as Monotheistic and their God is the same God of Abraham which Jews and Muslims worship.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Philosoft,

David: I have argued with Young Earth creationists and I have criticized their interpretation of the Scriptures, their handling of the evidence and their reasoning. In the couse of discussions with these Christians I have also said that it is possible for the Bible to contain historical or scientific error.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Rainbow walking,

David: Are you arguing on behalf of Biblical literalism?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

excreationist

By saying "supposed errors" you're implying that that those "errors" probably don't exist.

But doesn't the Bible have *some* kind of value? What's the point of all those *thousands* of pages? And isn't the Bible "God's word"?

Moses often testified that his writings were from God:

Exodus 24:4: "Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said..."

See also v.7, Ex. 34:7, Nu. 33:1–2, Dt. 31:9,

2 Timothy 3:16–17: "*All* Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

2 Peter 3:15–16: "Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

There Peter was saying that Paul's writings are part of scripture.

So maybe Jesus didn't really do any miracles or ascend into the clouds. Maybe Jesus didn't die on the cross and come back to life... maybe there is no afterlife, as most of the priests in Jesus' day, the Sadducees, believed.

But it could be possible to show that a straight-forward reading of it has problems (e.g. it implies that Adam was created 4000-6000 years ago)

1 Peter 3:15 - "...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have..."

So anyway, you seem to basically believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose to life. This is something that only Christians believe (I think). The only real piece of evidence you have is the Bible and it was "not devoted to the concept of objective history". In fact, you say that many of the events in the gospels, such as the *many* occassions when Jesus interacted with demons and even had conservations with them, didn't occur. If all of those demon possession incidents (and perhaps the other miracles) didn't happen, this puts into serious doubt that Jesus died and rose as well. It could be historically possible that Jesus has more or less dead then was revived, but this doesn't mean that he was the Son of God. Surely God could do all of those miraculous things that are recorded in the Bible.
BTW, the other religions you talk about, Islam and Judaism, don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God or in the resurrection. Many Jews' ancestors would have known about Jesus (assuming he existed) and yet they didn't find enough evidence to cause them to believe... even in the gospels they didn't claim that Jesus appeared to many people after he rose. Almost all of the converts in the N.T. were caused by evangelists like Paul, who didn't even have personal contact with Jesus. So basically the main proof that Jesus rose would be that the Bible says - assuming that the Bible is historically accurate. But you're saying that it is highly doubtful that it is accurate - in fact you said that much of the gospels (about demons, etc) is wrong, but you insist that the bits about Jesus being the Son of God and rising from the dead are the truth....

[ July 17, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

Philosoft

Outstanding. So how does one decide what in the Bible is "historical or scientific error"? I think excreationist's got some wonderful examples around here somewhere.

excreationist

Many people, such as the authors of some O.T. books, Jesus, the gospel writers, the writer of Revelation and the of James, etc, clearly believed in the existence of evil spirits/demons. In Mark 5:12-13, the demons are sent into a group of pigs causing them to drown the pigs. That doesn't sound like a mental illness to me. As I mentioned on page 8, passages such as James 2:19 and Matthew 25:31-46 seem to be talking about demonic creatures rather than mental illnesses.

So anyway, as I said, those events are interwoven throughout much of the Bible - and they occur mostly in the gospels. And demons aren't the only thing you don't want to comment on... (I've asked you about other miraculous events as well).

How can you know that Heaven exists if you don't believe in so much of the Bible? Heaven could be a metaphor for feeling enlightened while on earth or something... surely you are concerned whether Heaven exists or not...

excreationist

I don't usually assert that parts of the Bible contain historical or scientific error... I'd just give theists Bible passages and see what their reaction is. David Matthews doesn't think that the talking snake incident was real history (although if God and Satan exist then it could have been...). He thinks the ages in the early O.T. were exaggerated although the people existed (but the creationists have an explanation for why the ages could be so long). But if the ages and global flood is taken literally then there are problems explaining things like <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=42&t=000600" target="_blank">the Green River Formation</a>.

wordsmyth

You are again attempting to shift the argument to avoid defending your original assertion, but I’m not letting you off that easily.

It is irrelevant to this discussion whether or not xians are regarded as monotheistic. For the sake of this discussion I will stipulate that xians, muslims, and jews are all regarded as monotheistic in the hopes that you will not keep side-tracking.

Once again, the following is the assertion you are supposed to be defending…

It is true that muslims consider their deity the God of Abraham. It is also true that muslims generally understand that xians believe that the xian deity is the God of Abraham. However, because of the xian concept of the Trinity, muslims do not consider the xian deity the God of Abraham.

From the muslim perspective it is irrelevant that xians believe the xian deity is the God of Abraham because muslims do NOT accept the xian deity as the God of Abraham because of its trinitarian basis. Conversely, xians generally do not accept the muslim deity as the God of Abraham even though they understand that muslims believe it to be.

Now, are you going to provide some evidence to support your assertion or do you concede and admit that it is fallacious?

Additionally, you never answered my question regarding whether or not you believe the events recorded in the bible in which Jesus “casts out demons/evil spirits” are mere allegories or if you believe he literally cast out demonic beings from possessing other people.

rainbow walking

rw: Of course I am David and challenging your claim that the bible is meant to be taken as allegory. Clearly its authors and redactors had no such intention when they wrote each of the 66 respective books contained in the modern version, (even though many more exist but were not Cannonized into that which is now considered THE version).

I'm demonstrating that you are wrong in your method of interpretation and I also know why you prefer to hover around allegory rather than literalism.

The intellectual disease of theism, when exposed to the light of modern science, has no recourse but to withdraw from the light and does so in many ways. This Allegoricalism is just one way.

The cognitive dissonance created by attempting to live in two worlds simultaneously creates a fundamental schism in ones reasoning abilities. So you latch onto allegory as your lifeline to sustaining your faith in the face of overwhelming evidence that the primary conveyance of your faith, the bible, has so many contradictory elements to reason that only an idiot would cling to it in any LITERAL sense. You've decided to argue your case with the critic only to realize that your bible disarms your arguments before they get off the ground, so your only recourse is to create illusionary special pleadings of interpretation to allow you, in your infected thinking, to launch what you believe to be plausible arguments. Your methods of interpretation don't jibe with your source of knowledge about that which you claim to represent. As my collegues have continued to demonstrate, your allegorical method strips you of any sound arguments even for the existence, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Without that, you have lost the purpose of christianity. And, knowing the precariousness of the Literalist position, you find yourself struggling to support any of your religious claims and are ultimately reduced to the simple assertion, "yabut, that's the way I want to believe it."

You'll find that the credibility of your arguments suffer everytime you resort to either position. In the final analysis, whichever way you go in the interpretive method, you still lose and will only have "blind faith" as your final friend. Unfortunately, that isn't much of a reason for people with clear minds to agree with you on any of your essential claims. So tell me again, "why are you here?"

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: rainbow walking ]</p>