54 replies to this topic

[darkmagil]

well the fact that they change it all the time ex they removed a part were it says you can stone your friend if he sleep with your wife and there are many more things like thisGPs were deducted for this post, please read the rules! - jamzemu

[38542788]

Django & Otenko

Pointing out how well the texts were preserved doesn't make it a factual account, it just makes it a very old fiction.The entire purpose of establishing canon was so that there aren't contradictory accounts running around (not that this really worked out all that well for the bible). There are contradictory accounts of the creation, of the resurrection, of genealogy (most notably Jesus', or rather his "father" Joseph's genealogy), and various other things.Have you read any of the conclusions of higher criticism? You can't really understand a text unless you understand the intent and history of the writer, I mean large chunks of the old testament is devoted to denigrating other gods like Asherah and Baal, despite archeological evidence that such forms of worship was quite popular. Israel didn't start off as being monotheistic, YHWH was just a tribal god at first, they worshiped it because it was their god, not because it's the only god. Then there's the fact that the new testament is filled with account of Jesus supposedly fulfilling some prophecy or other, no matter how out of place it is or how it interrupts the narrative. There's also the fact that the character of Jesus was obviously an apocalyptic prophet, he literally believed that the world was going to end in a matter of years.

[38542788]

Wrong. The Bible does not change over time, it is just as it was when it was written. "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife-with the wife of his neighbor-both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death." Leviticus 20:10 This law is still in the Bible. Now, you may interpret the fact that we no longer practice this as a signal that the law was "removed," but this is not so. Jesus died for our sins. All of our sins. He took the punishment for us. This means, although it is still wrong to commit adultery, we are no longer required to give the ultimate punishment for it. Jesus, who is God, took it upon himself so that we may accept the grace of God without being punished.

How exactly do you develop this into a working moral model? I mean, we don't kill or imprison people for adultery, but we might for murder. I know that there are practical reasons for this, but what are the textual supports for it in the bible? I mean, I hope you're not just following whatever mores you're raised with and trying to rationalize it with scripture ex post facto.

[38542788]

God is infinitely loving and infinitely just. Every sin must be punished. When Adam and Eve sinned, God wasn't shocked. Nowhere in the Bible does it say God was shocked or surprised at the sin of man. Disappointed, yes, shocked, no. God gave us free will to follow his laws or not. By not listening to him, we sin, which is disappointing, but not shocking. As for "forgotten to give....common sense" consider this quote:"The creation of man whom God in His foreknowledge knew doomed to sin was the awful index o

What does any of this have to do with a working system of ethics? I mean this is a bit off topic, but I'm assuming that when you say the bible is not a fictional account of things, you also mean that it has uses in forming various judgments upon which we can base our behavior. You mentioned in the other thread that morality is constant and does not change across various cultures (which themselves change over time). So what exactly is your own moral framework that you have presumably derived from the bible?edit: As for genesis, it actually has multiple sources so the message can be a bit muddled and self contradictory (that's why chapters 1 and 2 actually have two different accounts of creation). Still there are multiple possible interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve, before obtaining knowledge of good and evil they were presumably already immortal, so the two trees were merely mutually exclusive, it's not that either one is necessarily "bad", genesis 3:22 suggests that the two qualities together (judgment + power) would make a human being into a god, which is the actual reason that Adam and Eve were exiled.

Edited by 38542788, 13 March 2011 - 05:39 AM.

[38542788]

Well, to be honest, I really can't prove to you that the Bible is true. That's eventually going to end up being your admission. I can prove the fact that these texts were accurately transmitted and accurately written down according to occurrences of the day and such things. I can give you church histories and other things and archaeology, but I can't prove two things that are fundamental to the belief system of Christianity. Key words: belief system. I can't make it objective for you; if I could, Christianity would no longer be called a belief system because it could be proved by logic, and it wouldn't need the "belief" any more. The two things are1) the Bible is true 2) Jesus is the Son of God. I can't do it. Those are your admission.

Proof is a conclusion derived from common axioms, I think every reasonable person holds at least some ideas in common, we then build upon that to reach a consensus."The bible is true, or Jesus is the son of god" are not axioms. You must have a reason to believe that that is true, and possible further reasons behind that until you can reach the axioms that you are basing this conclusion on.

But, if you could cite some examples of some conflicting genealogies, conflicting accounts of the resurrection, and conflicting accounts of the creation story, I'd love to see if I can't give a rebuttal. Also, tell me where Jesus was thinking that the world would end in a matter of years; I'll see if I can't deal with that. Prove also that the fulfilling of prior Scripture interrupts the narrative of the Bible.

Chapters 1 and 2 of genesis have differing accounts of the creation, with certain things like the order of creation mixed around including the simultaneity of the creation of man and women in one account and the succession of woman after man in the other (incidentally both accounts contradict what we know of astrophysics and biology). The genealogy of Jesus is found in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, though in either case, it wouldn't have fulfilled prophecy anyways since Jesus would have been an adopted son of Joseph, this pretty much had to happen since the people who wrote the books basically tried to cram in both the prophecy about the "maiden" (which they interpreted to mean virgin) as well as the part about the son of David. There's multiple accounts of the resurrection and various details like timing and who was there and who saw what is different in each, you (presumably) have a bible, I'm not going to point out every little thing in this case. The Jesus as an apocalyptic can be found in the fact that he repeatably tells people that if they want to follow him they have to completely reject the material world including even their own families, it was a pretty common thing with apocalyptic prophets back then (or even now), he wasn't the only one around, he just happens to have gotten the most press after all this time. Then there's the fact that he mentioned that there would be a least one of his disciples who would survive till the apocalypse which mutated into the myth of the wandering Jew.

You're right. YHWH was a tribal God at first, but he was their head God; that's what made them different. The God they worshiped was different from these other gods that the Canaanite Baalists and other surrounding people groups were worshiping; they were worshiping a God whose power they could SEE. They knew his power (Exodus - the plauges, Exodus 15 - the song of the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea). They were also going against the popular belief. The Israelites indeed had other small time gods UNTIL Exodus 20: "I am YHWH, your God, who brought you out of Egypt." What kind of other god back then was referred to with a cultural identity to a specific people? There were many different gods amongst the different religions of the day, but none of them had such a particular cultural identification with certain people groups as YHWH had with the Israelites. (Obviously the Canaanite Baalists were identified with Baal, but Baal was not specifically identified with the Canaanite Baalists; there were many other religions that worshiped Baal and Asherah and such. However, YHWH was specifically identified with Israel, although Israel may not have been specifically identified with YHWH. It's a counter-model.)

Asherah was actually identified pretty strongly with the Israelites, they were at one time her principle worshipers, with Asherah being the consort of YHWH in certain accounts. Since the old testament was written (or at the least edited) by Judeans and not Israelites, the old testament was pretty much a propaganda piece for YHWH (the Judean state god), you'll even notice in the new testament how the Samarians (Israelites) are looked down upon while people who saw themselves as Judeans were the main characters.The old testament also didn't claim that their god was the singular source of supernatural power, the Egyptian magicians presumably had real magic (they also did staff to snake transformations and such) they were just depicted as weaker than Moses and Aaron. The same happens with the depiction of witches and the laws concerning them, if they had no power (and off of the top of my head I remember an instance where a witch summoned Samuel's shade) there would be no such legislation or such depictions of their powers. The god in the bible is obviously a very primitive idea that fit in with the culture at the time, the best the authors could try to claim was that their god was more powerful than neighboring deities, or to claim that the other deities were malevolent and were in fact demons.

Another obvious piece of information is that they had no images of YHWH, because YHWH ordered no images be made of him. Why? Notice that all the other gods around the Israelites, Baal and Asherah and such, had images of them, small wooden, metal, and stone figures. But YHWH has none. Why?Originally, he revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, "God Almighty" (is the rough translation, Shaddai is tough to translate.) Finally, when he got to Moses, he showed himself as YHWH (Ex. 6:3) At the beginning of the Exodus, he reveals his power at the Red Sea (Ex. 14). At Ex. 20, YHWH acknowledges himself as the God who brought them out of Egypt. Finally, near the end of Moses' life, we hear the great passage of the Israelites: Deut. 6:4-5, also called the Shema. "Hear, O Israel: YHWH (is) our God, YHWH (is) one" or "Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God is one YHWH."

The primary reason is that the priestly class wished for control, the cult of YHWH was strongly tied to Jerusalem (the capital of Judea) and the temple that's built there. You say there is no idol, and yet in the old testament the sanctuary and the ark are often ascribed supernatural powers, being much more than just an icon.Another thing is that that YHWH doesn't truly lack an image, he's a mountain and sky god. When people met him, they tend to meet him in the mountain (Moses and Jesus for example) in the form of a cloud (again Moses and the Isrealites during their wanderings and Jesus as well). He's also supposed to have created man in his image (which really only fits with that weird wrestling account in Genesis that I can't properly place at the moment).

YHWH, the Israelite God, was much different than the surrounding gods. He revealed himself and his power. He revealed his very name to Moses (YHWH) and to his forefathers (El Shaddai). He left no images of himself, and he identified himself as one God; this is where Yahwistic monotheism emerged, in that Deuteronomic statement. Although the people may not have followed him all the time, God never stopped following his people. Even in the OT prophets, when the story seems grim, God buys his people back (Hosea, for instance). What kind of other god would be willing to buy his people back like that?

If you accept that the material is written by the priestly class (at least in part) then an account of a god that will promises to wipe out his own people for their faithlessness doesn't really work. For one thing, the priests wouldn't do that, it's bad for business, for anther, if such a god fulfilled a prophecy of destruction there really wouldn't be anyone left to worship that god, and if it isn't fulfilled then god is obviously full of ****.There's really no way for it to be written other than "donate to your local temple/priest, offer sacrifices only to me, or else", coupled with "I'm willing to look past your worship of foreign gods if you give that **** up and come back to me".

(Another thing. How could the Bible be a fiction? If it were, the early Romans would have destroyed it, wouldn't they? If Christ was truly dead and didn't rise, would the disciples really have been willing to die for such a lie? If the Bible was such a "heretical document," why was it not destroyed completely by the Romans, or any other factions or ruling empires that thought it was heretical? [Also, if the predictions that Jesus made regarding his bodily resurrection were not true, then why is there an account in the Bible, in the Gospel of Matthew, revealing an attempt on the part of the chief priests to cover up the fact that Jesus' body "went missing," but rather that it was "stolen away" by the disciples while the Roman guard was "sleeping"?] Is the Bible really the largest-believed lie in existence? If it is a lie, how can so many people believe in it? Are that many people really deluded so much to believe in such a "fairy tale"? I don't think so.If I missed anything, tell me. PLEASE.)

The Romans had no problem adopting the Greek gods, just as other emperors later on had no problem investing Christianity as the state religion. The Romans didn't really have the same concept of heresy because their religious views didn't place as much emphasis on doctrine, what was important was that private religious views wasn't a threat to their rule (piety was just participating in public festivals and doing the proper sacrifices). Another thing is that heresy is defined as being something that contradicts dogma, unless you believe that dogma is 100% congruent with physical reality (which is impossible given the various contradictory dogmas a single or multiple religion holds) then "heresy" is meaningless in assessing how well the bible works as a depiction of historical events. For the Romans the problem with Christianity is that it rejected the official cults, they were actually seen as being some what atheistic, and they were a evangelistic religion that sought to spread itself, which the state would not want for obvious reasons (contrasting this with the Jews it's easy to see why they were easier to tolerate, Jews had a tribal god, they can't really assimilate outsiders and undermine the rest of the empire, whatever they try, they have to try as a relatively small group of people who cannot expand outside of themselves).As for why people would be willing to die for such beliefs, I would guess that it's for the same reason they would die for any other beliefs, Jonestown isn't an aberration in terms of the strength of religious belief, they had no choice but to drink the kool-aid given their beliefs. The various people who die for their belief doesn't sanctify those beliefs or prove that those beliefs are true, if you think that then I guess Khalid al-Mihdhar and friends are currently in heaven with 72 virgins (or white raisins I guess, depends on the translation).As for the account of the resurrection in Matthew, you can't really use the account to try to prove itself. If you think that the account was written in an internally consistent way, then I guess that that works for you. What I'm more interested in is how consistent it is with outside evidence.It's not as though the popularity of idea is a reliable guide as to its truth, there was a time when pretty much anyone you ask would say that the Earth is flat.

[38542788]

Doing research on this topic would benefit most anyone here, the bible has changed less than one percent over the course of 2000 years. The changes were in translation from latin to english/other common languages these often divert the meanings since english lacks the many words for one thing. An example is love, the three type's of love in latin are phileo, eros, and agape. All three have different meanings but in majority they have remained the same. Read up on the topic before you claim a doctrine is unbelievable if you can prove any part of the bible wrong be my guest and prove it with actual facts.

I'm going to quote myself from some post up since you apparently didn't see it:

Pointing out how well the texts were preserved doesn't make it a factual account, it just makes it a very old fiction.

There's plenty of old texts lying around, that doesn't mean that they're accurate renditions of history. Even actual historical records, for example, the court histories that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is based on, have to be seen through their proper context. Historians know that Tsao Tsao was depicted as a villain since he was the eventual founder of preceding dynasty, the writers were trying to justify the rule of their contemporary patrons.

The old testament and the torah are the same thing, the Torah is much older than all known works with zero discrepancies over the age.There are more bibles in good condition compared to any other written work, if you want to find discrepancies go and find a CHRISTIAN bible. Catholicism was a religion created by the roman state to unify the empire in a time of need taking pagan holidays and mixing it with christian days of importance, IE easter. Bunnys with gods resurrection? Notice how most calendars dont make mention of good friday either.

No, the Torah is the first seven books of the old testament, and it's not "much older than all known works" nor does it have "zero discrepancies", if I recall correctly current consensus is that it was formed mostly in its current state around 450 BC, and it's a collection of texts by different authors that changed over many centuries.I don't know why you're mentioning pagan holidays though, it's not really a relevant point here since it's merely an inconsistency in religious practice, it doesn't really have anything to do with the bible, it just shows that most people are really ignorant. I did mention it before in the god thread since in that context it was relevant.

Christianity was formed before catholicism, peter had a wife he was not the first pope. Peter(meaning rock) had multiple meanings in the latin language, one meaning pebble the other meaning strong boulder. Jesus meant himself as the mountain, peter is called the pebble. Did I mention he was married?

Again, I don't see what this has to do with how the bible is supposedly an accurate portrayal of historical events.

Christians were persecuted by the romans for hundreds of years meeting in secrecy making a fish in the sand to meet. All of this is just to add common knowledge so you could know and not be throwing fists in the dark.

I specifically mentioned in the post directly above yours why persecution was not relevant to the accuracy of the bible. If you disagree, please offer your reasons.

The scriptures were written over a time after the resurrection of jesus christ If you read the bible no man could have created it and even if they could no man would want to. You are responsible to morals, etc. we are drawn to commit moral indignities as part of human nature. Ill throw darts in the dark but I bet all of you have lied.

This is empirically untrue, there are other religious (or even non-religious) texts that are written to act as moral guides (the secular version are generally called "laws" in case you didn't know, religious versions can have various other titles).

All men in the bible ever the "strong men" have a downfall solomon the wisest man had hundreds of concubines. No sexual immorality huh?David killed a man for his wife and his babies rose up had incest rebelled etc. All the men in the new testament had short fallings, each to their own. Why would a man who makes up a book include all this?Or all the prophecies, all are fulfilled and those that arn't are being fulfilled today read the bible and you will see.

Again, none of this differentiate it from, let's say, Greek mythology. The gods there were often depicted as being assholes, much like how the old testament god had no trouble telling people to commit genocide or how the new testament had no problem referring to a hell of eternal punishment.

I am a christian and would be happy to answer any questions relating to fact or fiction just added a bunch of common knowledge supporting the bible as a fact, you do your research come back and we can talk but right now its the same unintelligible babbleing with misconceptions due to things being thrown at you from an early age..

I've read most of the bible multiple times, I've only skipped over some of the minor prophets and some of the epistles, I think I can safely say I know what I'm talking about much more than most self professed Christians.If you want to address a specific point please quote it and try to point out the problem, as it is you're just making ad hom attacks.

If you would rather believe in a person who cant prove evolution when there is proof in the bible and more plausible records in the bible then please go through expelled and listen to atheists and leading evolution scientists. It takes more faith to believe in evolution than in creationism, believing we came from nothing is impossible due to the law of thermodynamics saying: matter cannot be created or destroyed. So ask yourself how did the universe come to creation, someone of higher power or a ball of matter that exploded... that cant be created or destroyed so therefore we dont exist.(reasoning)Richard Dawkings, evolutionist, atheist.http://www.youtube.c...h?v=BoncJBrrdQ8

Actually matter can be created and destroyed, it happens constantly, it's the amount of matter and energy that's constant in a closed system. The big bang has nothing to do with evolution anyways, nor does evolution have anything to do with abiogenesis. What Dawkins mentioned in the video is a version of panspermia (which is a pretty retarded idea really), and I don't mind saying that since it's not like he's atheist pope or anything. If you want to convince me of something present the argument not the authority behind that.I guess evolution is a point that tangentially touched the topic at hand, it does contradict a literal reading of genesis. But if you think humanity was created six thousand years ago in modern day Iraq, than I don't even need to reference the natural sciences to answer to that, archeology can do the work all by itself.

Edited by 38542788, 22 March 2011 - 05:40 PM.

[redemptionzz]

Matter cannot be created or destroyed. The apparent creation and destruction is merely an illusion caused reactions changing the form and composition of the matter in question. Also, although the universe is said to be expanding, the apparent total accumulative energy in the universe is still constant. The only change is in its distribution. I don't see how any of that goes into an act of god.I'm no Christian and I don't believe in Christianity, but I won't deny that the Bible is a superb piece of work that has captivated billions. The Bible is a compiled text written and edited by men, with specific agenda in mind. It is impossible for the bible to be a purely factual account due to inherent bias from its numerous editors and compilers throughout the ages. One example would be the omission of gospels from several disciples now deemed unorthodox, Judas being a prime example. Admittedly, parts of the Bible do coincide with proven facts, yet there still exists a large faith-based component in several accounts of historical events. A read of the Bible from a non-religious perspective would probably yield many inconsistencies, which might be brushed off as an 'act of god' or otherwise. However, it is important to note that as advanced as archeology is today, we cannot, and probably will never be able to replicate the exact events that occurred at any given point in time. We can only achieve a large, not complete understanding of past events occurring in eras long gone. The Bible can offer reasonable, even if religiously motivated, explanations, and historical accounts. Whops seems like I've rambled on and on. To summarise it all, why can't we just treat the bible as a metaphorical account of history seen through the eyes of a follower of god. It certainly does hold truths, and provides ample value in teaching and instilling morals and values.

[38542788]

[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']Actually matter can be created and destroyed.Oh really?http://www.thefreedi...ation of matterhttp://library.think...randenergy.htmlAs we know the Universe is constantly expanding, so this would disprove this on the creating aspect as you pointed out. But do you know how? Could god be a viable answer?[/quote]I said that matter and energy is constant in a closed system. You obviously have no idea what basic physics entail if you think matter can't be converted into energy or energy into matter (and thus destroyed).Look up matter anti-matter annihilation for a easy example.[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']I suppose youve read revelations if youve read the bible, it has an exact explanation for how to clean up nuclear fallout. Saying it takes many months, oh remember how it was prophesied in the bible Israel will become a country again? Guess what it did.[/quote]What does that have to do with anything? I have no idea what you're talking about with nuclear fallout, and I already explained in my last post why it would be impossible for the priesthood to prophesy the complete destruction of their own kingdom. In fact political support for Israel in the US is due in large part to the fundies wanting to fulfill prophecy so you're sort of confusing cause and effect here.[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']Jews were scattered because of the romans as a way to assert power assuming you know history you know this, Palestinians are not natives.[/quote]I don't know how the first statement is supposed to be relevant, what does it have to do with the bible? This applies to the second as well, though in this case you are just wrong, a native of a certain place is someone born in that place, so Palestinians are by definition natives of Palestine (which is itself defined as the lands that used to belong mostly to the states of Israel and Judea). The current Israel can't be compared to ancient Judea or Israel, even modern Hebrew didn't evolve as most languages did, it died out and then was revived (that's why you always hear about how the language lacked vowels and certain verbs and why people don't know how to actually pronounce YHWH).[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']Yes there were genocides that the jews committed, however in almost every single one someone survives the reason they die is because of immorality according to god.[/quote]Right. I won't even go into to ethics of wiping out an entire people because of their culture, I'm just going to ask you which is more likely: A supernatural entity told someone to wipe out entire nations (while taking their women as slaves and concubines) because they're "evil" or the priesthood retroactively (or proactively) justified their conquest by divine mandate (much as various nations do today).[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']Some more proof for the bible in the torah it lists unclean animals not to be eaten which includes pork, we know beef needs to be cooked at certain temperatures now.[/quote]I have no idea what you're trying to convince me of here. There is no reason not to eat pork when you're already eating mutton.[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']Theres lists of proof I could go on about but Im sick tired and my judgement is clouded so this might come out as a ramble, im sorry if sentences are fragmented. Ill be free to respond to any of your questions or that whole other part to the post later.[/quote]Try to address specific points if you're actually trying to respond to my post. Don't just pick one line, I gave various example of where the bible contradicts itself, if you don't see that as a problem you should state that so that I know that, or respond to it in some other, until then you're being intellectually dishonest.[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']There is proof, epistles are important to the bible read it over with a clear mind.[/quote]Not sure what you're trying to here with regards to "proof", if such a thing exists why don't you provide specific passages such as when I provided specific passages of contradictions within the bible?[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']Theres more historical proof for what took place in the bible than evolution or any other explanation even scientific.[/quote]Then you should have no problem providing such evidence.[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']A question was the flood rain?the answer is no, it sprang from the "fountains of the deep" referencing to water being capped under the earths crust and supposing you have scientific knowledge. Vapor pressure when built up needs to let go of the energy, look at capped volcanos as gas rises it blasts off a cap or rock.[/quote]Yeah, except that that contradicts everything we know about geology and meteorology and biology and basic geometry. The last two is in regards to the animals and the ark by the way. If you don't accept evolution I'm assuming you don't accept speciation, so you think that every single species of animal currently extant existed whenever Noah was supposed to have carried them in the ark. The ark is not big enough to fit the biomass of two of each animal if that were the case, and it certainly couldn't have fit the biomass required for their food or provided the manpower needed to remove their waste.[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']I really dont have time to go into detail on it but if you want clarity on proof in scientific areas look up the hoven theory.[/quote]I don't like to do ad hom attacks but there are times when there's just too many problems to address at one time, so I'll just preface everything by saying that Hovind is an intellectually dishonest hack, a conspiracy theorist, and he's in prison for tax evasion.I mentioned a couple of posts ago how axioms work. If we accept that "truth is good" or "we should believe what is true" as an axiom then they was we go about trying to form our beliefs would be very different from the way Hovind goes about it. I think that Hovind uses as an axiom "beliefs should be comforting" or "I believe what feels good", which would lead to very different beliefs.For example, let's look at global warming (I have no idea about your position on this by the way). First of all, do you think it is comforting to believe in global warming? I think it would be awesome if using petroleum based fuels doesn't release greenhouse gases, I also know that that's not the way the world actually works. To me I think it would be more beneficial to act on the truth rather than believe something that is more comforting.[quote name='eze-1' post='4937739' date='Mar 22 2011, 09:54 PM']Like I said, Dawkins sounded like a retard, a leading atheist admitting to a possibility of creationism but chooses to believe in something so idiotic it really should destroy his credibility rather than taking into account the bible is true and god exists.[/quote]Dawkins is no more a "leading atheist" than I or for that matter a dog is. An atheist is just someone that doesn't hold theistic beliefs, there isn't a formal organization like a church.If you're trying to debate someone don't just keep on repeating something like "the bible is true and god exists" it's insulting and a waste of my time. Give reasons for what you believe that you think other people can actually accept, I'll even make it easy for you here, I'll accept evidence that the bible is "true" if you show that it matches up with physical reality. The Pentecostals seem to go that route with all the snake handling and poison drinking, why don't you try that out?[quote name='redemptionzz' post='4937842' date='Mar 23 2011, 01:32 AM']Matter cannot be created or destroyed. The apparent creation and destruction is merely an illusion caused reactions changing the form and composition of the matter in question. Also, although the universe is said to be expanding, the apparent total accumulative energy in the universe is still constant. The only change is in its distribution. I don't see how any of that goes into an act of god.[/quote]Matter is created and destroyed constantly[quote name='redemptionzz' post='4937842' date='Mar 23 2011, 01:32 AM']I'm no Christian and I don't believe in Christianity, but I won't deny that the Bible is a superb piece of work that has captivated billions. The Bible is a compiled text written and edited by men, with specific agenda in mind. It is impossible for the bible to be a purely factual account due to inherent bias from its numerous editors and compilers throughout the ages. One example would be the omission of gospels from several disciples now deemed unorthodox, Judas being a prime example. Admittedly, parts of the Bible do coincide with proven facts, yet there still exists a large faith-based component in several accounts of historical events. A read of the Bible from a non-religious perspective would probably yield many inconsistencies, which might be brushed off as an 'act of god' or otherwise. However, it is important to note that as advanced as archeology is today, we cannot, and probably will never be able to replicate the exact events that occurred at any given point in time. We can only achieve a large, not complete understanding of past events occurring in eras long gone. The Bible can offer reasonable, even if religiously motivated, explanations, and historical accounts. Whops seems like I've rambled on and on. To summarise it all, why can't we just treat the bible as a metaphorical account of history seen through the eyes of a follower of god. It certainly does hold truths, and provides ample value in teaching and instilling morals and values.[/quote]This isn't really relevant to the thread since the OP and most responses have pertained to how well the bible matches up to physical reality and recorded history.

Edited by 38542788, 23 March 2011 - 03:53 PM.

[38542788]

The answer to this question is not either A or B, it is A and B. The bible is fact because it contains actual records of actual events that could have occurred, but it is also fiction because it contains events which to us seem as if fiction. We as a collective group of humans have dictated history as the story of the victor, the bible however, is a unique case, it was supposedly transcribed by ancient men of wisdom from a divine being of all of existence and favors none, supposedly. This book contains records of grand miracles, some of which have been proved by modern day science as actual possible natural events, but some are still unexplained, since we have no way to explain these events, we are left with no choice but to pass it off as fiction, but can we do that, no, we cannot. Just because we cannot explain something doesn’t mean that it is not existent. therefore, until we can either justify or falsify all of the events in the Bible with hard evidence and not "miracles", we have no choice to assume that the book is both real and at the same time not. If you would like to debate me on this, then by all means present your case.

That's not a usable definition of "fact" or "true" or "exist". When we say something is true we mean that it's something we're willing to use when deciding on a course of action.I do not act think that the bible with its various accounts of supernatural events is true, therefore I don't live my life trying to (for example) pray the cancer away (in the event that I actually have cancer).

I have to agree with those who said the Bible is fact and not fiction. There were actual proofs that Jesus's life and all those other happenings before Jesus happened. In fact, I saw in a newspaper a while back that they found Noah's Ark! Google it today!!

Someone "finds" Noah's ark every couple of years, and it always turns out to have been a funny looking rock shelf or something. Do you really think that if there was physical evidence of such a thing it wouldn't be news?

And remember guys, the bible is not to be argued with science. It was made so that the people in the past would understand how this and that happened through their thinking.Example: God made the earth in 7 days. God shortended down from (The earth was a collection of astroids bumping at each other and it toke several billions, trillions of years until it was recognizable. 7 days could have been 7 million years or something. In any ways, God exsists outside time and space, so perhaps he lost track of time... lol.

Right, and the Israelites just metaphorically committed genocide on all those people, and god just metaphorically told them to stone the gays.