143 Contridictions of the Bible.

[SteveS]

JustInterested,

I think we've shown just in the short while of communicating in the same time period the importance of getting to the meaning behind the words of another person.

Agreed - wholeheartedly!  I'm trying to listen, and trying not to reject anything out of hand.

Sorry if I gave the perception of trying to show the bible had no contradictions. From the beginning I've only been trying to show why I believe the Bible doesn't contradict itself. I admitted last post that simply saying the The bible is the Word of God, God can't lie, so these aren't contradictions doesnt prove anything. But I also showed you must make a decision about the existence of the Biblical God before you can determine the meaning behind any of the versus in the Bible (I wasn't trying to say God first then logic, I was trying to say Decision about God before conclusion about meaning of Words). I'll try to demonstrate this again.

OK - fair enough.  Just please try to understand that for me, I'd rather approach any inquiry in a manner that avoids presuppositions - I'd rather let an open minded inquiry lead me where it will without having to make prior assumptions.  This is why I find "accepting or rejecting God" prior to making conclusions about the meaning of the bible to be problematic to me.  It seems like I'm already making up mind, but then, on what basis?

Oh im getting depressed

I take the fact that we've both expressed depression to be a result of the frustration inherent in attempting to reconcile such diametrically opposed views.  This frustration I certainly understand - I live in a world where something like 97% of people think and believe very differently then I do, and for the life of me I cannot understand why.

If The Bible contains the words of a perfect God then the Words are perfect and it is US that is uclear. Certainly you would agree that a All-Knowing being trumps the logic of a human being. I discussed in a previous post as to why the bible is not presented in a seemingly clear cut way.

This I believe I can respond to.  Okay - as you conceded above, we can't really prove anything about the bible simply by accepting it or rejecting it.  So, what we really have here is a claim made by other human beings - a claim that the bible contains the accurately transposed words of a perfect god.  But, from the tone of the bible, and the words of the authors, it seems clear that these people believed that god was trying to reveal knowledge to them.  If this was the intent of a perfect god, then I do not believe that it is fair to say it is we that are unclear.  If I tried to introduce arithmetic to a preschooler by launching into a definition of formal mathematical logic, I could justifiably be judged a terrible teacher.  Likewise, if god were truly perfect, wouldn't he be able to communicate with us perfectly, even if we are such "lesser beings"?  God would surely know that we are "unclear", and due to his perfection, surely would know the exact method to overcome this limitation and express himself in a way that would be clearly perceived by us?  This is my point here.  I understand that if you take it for fact that god is perfect, then his words must be perfect, but I am contending that there is no god, and that the alleged words of god are imperfect because they were uttered by a human being and not by a perfect god.  I'm making that determination because the words, upon analysis, are confusing and contradictory - not because I've presupposed that they are truth or false.  This is how I think presupposition gets us into trouble - what's the point of the analysis?

You reference your earlier post where you explain why you think the bible is deliberately unclear - to lead a believer to a lifetime of devotion trying to come at the correct meaning of god's words.  But this explanation really doesn't work for me, if you consider that the message of the bible seems largely devoted to telling us how we should live our lives.  I'm going to invoke a chess analogy here to show you what I think is wrong with this.

The game of chess is largely simple: the rules are not hard to understand, the board and the number of pieces are not very large, and the pieces have very clear and unambiguous restrictions on where they can be and how they can be moved.  The rules are crystal clear and easily understood - and yet a person can devote their entire life to this game and not master it.  Knowing how to intelligently control the pieces and react to the opponent is the part that is difficult.  After years, you can still learn something new.  Although the game is so definitively bound, it is remarkably difficult to program a machine to play the game well and consistently defeat the best human opponents.  Now, consider the "life problem".  Life will present a far larger set of unforeseeable, unpredictable, and adverse situations in which we must make decisions.  Even if the life lessons in the bible where concise and crystal clear, I argue it would take a lifelong devotion to understand how to consistently apply these principles correctly - and through this practice a large amount of personal growth and understanding would still be possible.

So I'm given to wonder why anyone (god or otherwise) would deliberately produce a muddled, indecipherable message.  The most plausible reason that I can think of is that the authors were not in communication with any gods and were trying to make people behave in a way that they wanted, personally.  Appealing to "godly mysteries" servers as a remarkably consistent way to hide any errors in their messages, to allow them to recover from mistakes or other inconsistencies (like contradictions :wink: ) without having to face-up that they made the whole thing up.  Consider the other people that deliberately create complex, muddled, misleading guidances: police, lawyers, governments, shysters, con-men, etc.  In particular, I find the legal ramifications most disturbing - why make complex laws that are hard to understand?  From a cynical viewpoint, to preserve the power of the court to interpret situations as they wish at any particular moment in time, without the populace being able to cry foul because none of them really know what the darn laws mean anyway.

A particularly heinous example of this is found on sex offender listing on the internet.  Look up your area sometime - I did this in Illinois and was disturbed to find that the legal definition of "criminal sexual assualt" involves the act of "sexual penetration", which is further defined "legally" to mean an act of "sexual contact".  Now - why go to such lengths to redefine "contact" as "penetration" and "assault"?  So that if you are called upon to justify why you are exposing a person to public humiliation, you can argue "this creep is guilty of criminal sexual penetration - are you defending him/her!?!" without mentioning that no penetration of any kind was necessarily involved.  Worse, this practice blurs the line between full rape and simple fondling - doesn't this distinction seem important?

Forgive me my long tangent - maybe I'm just paranoid, but I am highly suspicious of intentionally muddled statements that are explained as being in my best interest.  I really do not buy this.

Phew - gettting thirsty again ( :wink: ).

Okay, just a few more things and I'll wrap this up.

Imagine being in a relationship based completely on logic and facts.

Honestly, this "imagination" seems wonderful to me.  What's wrong with logic and facts?  I believe you answered this implied question with:

There would be no surprises. There would be no trust issues. There would be no questions. There would be no news. There would be no need for faith. And in turn, there would be no excitement, no fun, no learning, no progress, and worst of all NO LOVE. The very thing God created us for, to love Him and to be loved, wouldn't exist.

My problem with this is that to me, without facts and logic, there can be no understanding.  What I love above all else is understanding.  I am obsessed with reality.  I want to know what is true - I don't want answers that make me feel happy, I don't want answers that make me comfortable, I don't want someone to pat me on the head and tell me its all going to be okay - I want to know the truth.  And the only way that I can reliably find to do so is to apply reason, facts, and logic to absolutely everything.

Finally,

I fully understand why you believe these verses to be contradictory, hopefull now you can atleast, even if it's just a little bit, comprehend why I don't believe these are contradictions (In short, I believe every word in the Bible is the inspired Word of God and it would be irrational for me to believe it contained contradictions). You may think it's irrational for me to believe that these Words are the inspired Word of God, but like I said earlier, in this situation it cannot all be about facts and logic. I'm not crazy. CS Lewis wasnt crazy. Dr. Gary Collins is not crazy.
We've just made a different choice.

Okay - I think I can understand why you don't believe these are contradictions.  Hopefully, you can understand why I choose to reject your explanation - I do think it has to be all about facts and logic.  In short, I do think it is irrational to believe the bible contains the inspired word of god, and therefore any conclusions derived from this position I find invalid.  If there was any way that someone could make me understand why people believe the bible is the inspired word of god I would be grateful - because I don't understand this in the least.  How did you determine that other holy scriptures are invalid, if you found this one valid?  In other words, do you believe the Vedas, or the Qur'an?  Are these words inspired by god?  Why not?  I'm honestly curious to know.

Oh, and I don't contend that CS Lewis or Dr. Gary Collins were/are crazy - merely mistaken :wink:

Thanks for the conversation,
Steve

[JustInterested]

Can I change my name?  I'm now also curious, sweating, and hungry...

For the record, I've looked at just about all of these verses and they look like contradictions to me.  But then again I had to take a remedial English class before my college of choice would accept me.  The good news is I got in tight with the football players...  What? What?

But, at the same time, I realize that if the Bible was in fact written by perfect God then who am I to question it's contents.  I do not think it is God's intention to be unclear or to fool us. In fact, The Bible is actually very clear on how one is to prosper, gain wisdom, have peace, never perish and recieve the Word of God. We can have these things by simply accepting the new covenent He made for all people, Jesus Christ. He wants to reveal is words to us, his truth to us and his guidance to us.  But He can't do this until we first choose him.  

Imagine for a moment (I love this part where I get you to imagine something) wanting desparately to be with a certain woman.  You know you can make her happy.  You know you've got what it takes to satifsfy her and to make her heart but she refuses to give you the time of day.  She knows your there but from what shes sees in passing, she thinks your a little cheesy, a little too short, clumsy and that you possibly have a bladder control problem.  She hears good things about you but the people she hears these things from are a little suspect themselves.  

What are you to do?  You've done all you can.  You've offered to take her to dinner.  You've asked her to come to your debate tournament.  You've invited her to the dog park where you and your 3yr old Standard Poodle spend every Friday evening and you've texted her every other day for 2 months straight.  The only thing you want is for her to show you a little trust and faith so you can reveal to her who you really are.  So the way I see it there are 2 options.  Leave it up to her to choose whether she desires to know you or tie her up and forcefully make her spend time with you.  

For God to have the loving relationship with his people he so desires, it has to be a decision made by us and by revealing himself to someone who doesn't desire to know him would be like forcing the hand in marriage of the women you so desire when she says no.  I'm sure that would be a lovely wedding night.

We all desire to know the truth.  I believe that very desire is a desire laid on every man's heart and it's the desire to know God.  But at the same time it's our choice as to whether we recognize it or not.  I think this is one of the main reasons you see so many seemingly intelligent atheists.  If one were to admit that a higher power held all the answers, this would require at the same time that person to admit he/she doesn't hold the answers or at the very least one of the answers.  We all want to be the first to figure something out or come up with a new idea.  It's a very eccilerating feeling. I think this was one of the downfalls of Freud.  The feeling of, if there is a God then He has the answers and if my theories are true then they aren't original and if my theories are false then who cares, so there can't be a God.  

Anyways, I'm not real sure how I got there but about comparitive religion.

In short why do I believe the Bible and no other holy doctrine?  Because the Bible is the only one that has a character, namely Jesus Christ who claims to be God and dies for that claim and proves it by defeating death.  To me that sounds too crazy to be made up, especially if you consider the motive of the authors.  What were they trying to do here?  Convince people to live a certain way by saying God came to earth, died on a cross and then rose from the dead. I'm sure people would jump all over that bandwagon. Unless of course it really happened. I don't know.  I've chosen myself and I've chosen Him in this life and I'd rather stick spoons in my eyeballs every other hour than live this life on my own again.

One of my next ventures is to really dig deep into other religions and find out the differences in my beliefs and theirs.  As it stands right now, I would be doing everyone a disservice by addressing the fundamental differences in the world religions.  

The informations out there though.  Here's a book I recommend.  I'ts very interesting reading and at times difficult for me to understand so probably right up your alley.  If you so dare...

http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/boo ... g_man.html

[tigerlily46514]

I'll leave this one for SteveS or McQ.     This one would be too easy, and plus  I'd get a headache 'quoting' all this to explain it all to her ..(edit--oh!  this is not the beginning of the thread!  oops!!! my bad!) ... she IS at least  correct in identifying she does not have an understanding of the bible.
Think i oughta send her my web site comparing an abusive relationship and the famed Jesus/human relationship?  it IS kinda cute....

hey, rlrouse, over here! I'm talking to myself again!!! bah ha ha!!!

[SteveS]

tigerlily - I'm planning to respond to this --- too lazy so far.  I actually think this discussion has been productive - I feel I'm now in at least some agreement with JustInterested.  These storms have been killing me at night (you're in Indiana, you know what I'm talking about)!  And I'm only comfortable ditching so much work to blab on the forum :wink:

[tigerlily46514]

Yeah, STeveS, this rain!! the storms!!
I wake up with a start !  every nite with all that thunder and lightening, gotta get up and make sure our home is not on fire from a lightening strike...so far, so good.

Cutting the grass is taking over my every nice sunny day!!!!

 i'm building an ark!!!  the neighbors are not taking kindly to my collecting their dogs, though, which are the only animals i have access to for collecting....it'll make for a strange new world, ....just dogs..

You ARE having a productive dialogue, here, and i admire the effort and points you are making.  When i interrupted with my post, i somehow thought her last post was the beginning of a thread.
........... i gotta try this forum sober once.  bah ha ha!!!!

[SteveS]

Hi JustInterested (and sweaty and hungry :wink: ),

I'm glad we can see more "eye to eye" on the contradictions.  I think we just look at the problem a different way.  For example, you say:

I realize that if the Bible was in fact written by perfect God then who am I to question it's contents.

This is the problem to me - this way of thinking is only valid if we presuppose the fact that the bible was actually written by a perfect god - then this point would be valid.  My trouble is that I don't like to presuppose anything unless I have to, so I tend to be skeptical: rather than just accepting that the bible was written by perfect god, I look at the bible and find the content questionable - which makes me question the claim.  I ask, "why do we think the bible was written by perfect god"?  I've yet to receive a compelling answer.  People usually answer along the lines of:

I've chosen myself and I've chosen Him in this life and I'd rather stick spoons in my eyeballs every other hour than live this life on my own again.

This explanation runs along the lines of "by accepting and believing this, I find peace, purpose and happiness in my life".  Fair enough, but this isn't a compelling reason to believe the religion is true - more of an argument for believing it due to its perceived beneficial effects.  Also, I can't really "choose" to believe something that I don't believe.

Imagine for a moment (I love this part where I get you to imagine something) wanting desparately to be with a certain woman ... What are you to do?

You could try getting her drunk - I recommend "Amaretto Stone Sours"  ( :wink: j/k of course)

He wants to reveal is words to us, his truth to us and his guidance to us. But He can't do this until we first choose him.

See - I just plain don't understand this - if god wanted to reveal his word to me, and god is omnipotent, why doesn't he just do it?  Why "can't" he do this until we "choose" him - makes no sense to me;  Is god at our mercy?  All powerful god is constrained by our choices?  You answer this implied question more-or-less as follows:

For God to have the loving relationship with his people he so desires, it has to be a decision made by us and by revealing himself to someone who doesn't desire to know him would be like forcing the hand in marriage of the women you so desire when she says no. I'm sure that would be a lovely wedding night.

Okay - I see where you're going with this - but if this is true, and god knows me and my thoughts and had a large personal responsibility in why I am the way that I am and why the world is the way that it is - then wouldn't god understand why I will not "choose" him for any old cockamamie reason?  And how will I know which god to choose?  Presumably, the other religions of the world will say the same thing you have said: you must choose to believe us first, then it will become clear and make sense to you.  I say this approach is all bass ackwards, getting the cart in front of the horse.  We must determine what makes sense before we choose what to believe!  Not the other way around - or you could end up believing any old thing.  I presume that this is why there are so many religions, and why they seem to be distributed in geographical patterns and time periods.....born in India?  Probably Hindu.  Born in the US?  Probably Christian.  Born in Iran?  Probably Muslim.  Born in ancient Greece?  Probably believe in Zeus.  Born in ancient Egypt?  Probably believe in Amun-Ra.  And so on and so forth.....

Everybody is pushing a different god, and none of them can offer up legitimate evidence that their god is the true god - they all want you to just arbitrarily place your faith in them first, and then try to understand.  Can you at least see why I distrust this approach?

Just one more thing:

We all desire to know the truth. I believe that very desire is a desire laid on every man's heart and it's the desire to know God. But at the same time it's our choice as to whether we recognize it or not. I think this is one of the main reasons you see so many seemingly intelligent atheists. If one were to admit that a higher power held all the answers, this would require at the same time that person to admit he/she doesn't hold the answers or at the very least one of the answers. We all want to be the first to figure something out or come up with a new idea. It's a very eccilerating feeling. I think this was one of the downfalls of Freud. The feeling of, if there is a God then He has the answers and if my theories are true then they aren't original and if my theories are false then who cares, so there can't be a God.

I really don't think I suffer from this sort of ego affliction at all - I want to know what is true, and I don't mind if somebody else discovers it and then educates me.  If a higher being exists that has all the answers I would much prefer said higher being to get off it's butt, come down here, and lay it all out for me!

I see this problem as actually being the opposite of how you present it: I see atheists as people who are happy to admit that there a great many things that we do not, as yet, know.  I see theists as people who are far more "impatient with ambiguity".  In other words, the theist seems to be the person claiming all the answers: the world exists because god made it, people exist because god made them, when you die you go to heaven and live forever, etc.  I'm the one saying "we don't know the ultimate origin of existence, or whether it even has an origin".  "We believe evolution led to the existence of people through descent with modification from previous life forms", but we don't know how/if abiogenesis occurred (yet).  I'm just a guy who is uncomfortable leaping to unsupportable conclusions - not some arrogant know-it-all who's catering to my own insufferable ego by having to believe I'm smarter than everyone for figuring all the answers out myself.  I'm chasing knowledge, not self-affirmation.

Anyway - that's my perspective.

[childprime]

I know I don't have much to add to this long, logical discussion and I don't know about anyone else, but my rejection of much of the Bible certainly did have to do with the "apparent" contradictions... contradictions in the content, in the translations, and in its application to the real world. As a UU, I am still happy to use the Bible in a manner similar to Thomas Jefferson: some concepts are "keepers" but if I don't like part of it I just cut it out of my spiritual repertoire (and yes, after several years of being a UU, I do believe an atheist can be just as or more spiritual than a Christian).

[SteveS]

Interesting perspective, childprime.  I guess it depends on what we mean by the word "spiritual".  I certainly feel wonderment, amazement, fascination, humility, thoughtfulness, reflectiveness, and similar when pondering the cosmos and my existence within it.  But there's nothing even remotely supernatural in these thoughts.  Its the "spirit" in "spiritual" that seems ambiguous to me.

[tigerlily46514]

Interesting perspective, childprime. I guess it depends on what we mean by the word "spiritual". I certainly feel wonderment, amazement, fascination, humility, thoughtfulness, reflectiveness, and similar when pondering the cosmos and my existence within it. But there's nothing even remotely supernatural in these thoughts. Its the "spirit" in "spiritual" that seems ambiguous to me.

well put, SteveS, i am gonna keep that one!  You crystallized for me my very own thoughts!!!!  Thanx!  I'll buy the next keg!!

 By the way, nice effort in helping Just Interested sort these things out!  Really nice of you, and your thoughts are worded so well.  ....Where'd she go?

[SteveS]

I was thinking JustInterested was a "he", but it doesn't matter 'cause I'm not sexist    
 
Thanks for the kind words.  I hope he comes back too - I like this sort of discussion, and I like JustInterested.  Its weird, when I first joined this forum I had lots of discussions/arguments with a user named "Scrybe", and I started to like him a lot too.  I always end up liking the people I disagree with!  Any head shrinkers present - what does this say about me?

[JustInterested]

I'll take it as a compliment that my writing evidently comes across a little feminine to some.

Steve you diagnosed yourself earlier in your post.  You don't want back pats and cookies.  You're not in it for the free fanny pack you win for guessing the number of items in the glass jar.  You'd rather a baphoon (sp?) like me come in here and question your thoughts and try to convince you that's it's reasonable to believe the Bible is true in it's entirety. So why do you like me?  Typically people like me for my good looks but since that's not possible in this situation maybe you feel sorry for me. I don't know.  I don't claim to know the answer.  Yes, you read that right.  I am a Christian who does not know the answer.

Why is my spelling so terrible?  Did it take everything you had not to call me out on "ecclilerating"?  My spelling is simply subpar.

I would like to apologize for my absence.  I felt like I needed to spend more time in literature.  I wish we had more time.  We should have made 1 day = 81 hrs.  Then I could get a lot done in one day.  

I feel like its been too long to respond to your post specifically so I'll just start typing random thoughts and see what happens.

One thing seems to be certain, we both want to know the truth.  I believe that the Bible is the truth.  You believe there is a truth (otherwise what are you searching for) but it certainly doesn't belong to a god as far as you can tell.

You find it hard to believe that a loving God would not reveal himself.  I find it hard to believe that we have somehow evolved into this being who would ask such a question.

Many find it hard to believe that a loving, merciful God could exist in a world full of suffering.  I say thank God he exists amidst all the suffering. (yes I know a lot of the suffering is done in the name of religion)

My point is this.  As hard as it is for you to believe in a God, it is just as hard for me to believe there isn't a God.  I think I'll start another thread that revolves around this question.  Not on the existence of God, but on the people who we know exist that believe and don't believe in God.

Anyways,  Sorry if this response wasn't what you wanted.  I'll show myself more around these parts.  This post was really just to let you know I was still here and to let Tigerlily know that if her criteria for deciding whether someone was male or female was based on that kids comments in Arnold Swarczineggearefer kindergarten class, then she should know that I am a boy.

[McQ]

Or you could try to be less coy and just come out and say who you are.

That might give you a little more credibility.

Just a suggestion.

[Churchworker]

Actually there are 2,000. Read The Bible Handbook by American Atheist.
After ready that book you might even laugh of some of the tings you can find in the bible, like: 2 Kings 18:27 that they may eat their own dung and drink their own pis with you.

Mal.2:3 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of a man, in thy sight.

The bible is a book of smut.

[McQ]

Actually there are 2,000. Read The Bible Handbook by American Atheist.
After ready that book you might even laugh of some of the tings you can find in the bible, like: 2 Kings 18:27 that they may eat their own dung and drink their own pis with you.

Mal.2:3 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of a man, in thy sight.

The bible is a book of smut.

Read your PMs. Your pushing it here.

[Churchworker]

Read your PMs. Your pushing it here.

Whatever. Like I said in my other posts I expect to be banned anyway, but I don't care as I am on several other atheist forums and have three of my own and I consider all religion a joke and its followers and believers idiots and morons to be made fun of.

In the name of the Fat Fucker, the Son of a Bitch and the Holy Goat. Ah women.