Happy Atheist Forum

***** Warning *****

The following is a bit long - if you want, just drop your strongest (and simplest) Scientifically provable disproof of the Bible into a reply.

And if you can, add a tl;dr just so I know where you're coming from -- thanks!

***** End Warning *****



So, I'm a Christian. Have been since I was a kid. Raised Baptist, but never really got the whole "denominations" thing (I know, that means someone didn't bring me up to be a "proper" baptist *gasp*shock*horror* (sorry - Christian joke :unsure:  If you provide an example, I should be able to categorize it.


So. Any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. are greatly appreciated.

I have a couple questions:

What does tl;dr mean?

Why exactly are "Internal Logical Inconsistencies" unacceptable but "internal contradictions" a maybe?  What's the difference?

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages41.fotki.com%2Fv1265%2Fphotos%2F8%2F892548%2F6116196%2FTealdeer-vi.gif&hash=6155fa18f55cd4cd86d241039bcae6e61153d0a6)

(Answer to question: See this thread (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2333). Take your pick.)

tl:dr means "Too long, didn't read"

Also, you say you don't want to rely on the credientials of others, and conduct research yourself, but even in your first paragraph about acceptable disproofs you are talking about things you heard from others, things that may be true or untrue. You already have a lead with the walled city of jericho stuff, why not follow that up?

Your paragraph about maybe acceptable disproofs is just a massive rationalisation " Ths thing looks wrong, but if we assume this, and this and this, then it still works outkind of OK ". You continue on about "god time" to try and get round the fact that the creation account of gensis is obviously wrong, it says days in the bible, why would you assume anything else? You assume all this other stuff becuase you know it's wrong and you need a way to rationalise it and hang on to your pre-existing beliefs, thats why. Its the same thing with the translation examples, it says the world has corners, why would you assume different? Becuase you know it's wrong, and you need a way to justify hanging onto the bible. Exact same stuff with the in-exact Pi number, if god is all powerful, he should be able to calculate and comunicate piaccuratley and easily.

In summary, I really doubt you have the ability to look at these things objectivley, and therefor, i doubt you will be able to shake your own faith in the bible, you already have shown a massive bias in your thinking

Edit, nice link curio

Quote from: "SSY"tl:dr means "Too long, didn't read"

Oops, I guess I posted the picture without explaining it.  :)

Since you believe the flood actually happened as stated in the bible; let's start with my calculations for animals in Noah's boat.   Obviously, www.talkorigins.com (http://www.talkorigins.com) has beat the flood story to death and you are more than welcome to pursue their site for a more in depth look at the science related to how we know the earth was never flooded.  I personally think the Biblical flood myth was talking very poetically about a regional flood, which to most of that time would have been the world.  

Quote from: "laetusatheos"I was bored and answering yahoo questions...one came up about Noah's ark so I decided to do a little math:

"Noah's Ark was taller than a 3-story building and had a deck area the size of 36 lawn tennis courts. Its length was 300 cubits (450 feet, or 135 meters); its width was 50 cubits (75 feet, or 22.5 meters); it had three stories and its height was 30 cubits (45 feet, or 13.5 meters)."
http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/arksize.html (http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/arksize.html)

Even at that size, it would not be able to hold the diversity of life we see today...even if they were all babies:

"The United Nations Environment Programme's Global Biodiversity Assessment is often cited, which estimates the number of described species at approximately 1.75 million. One study done by prominent biologist E.O. Wilson and others estimate known species at approximately 1.4 million, while another study estimates the number at approximately 1.5 million."
http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/58.html (http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/58.html)

That also doesn't include what these creatures would have eaten (many of which are meat eaters) or where their waste would go and how Noah's family could have possibly kept up with feeding and cleaning. Plus, add in that there were 7 of each 'clean' animal and 7 of each "birds of the air".

Now, someone trying to defend the Noah story could say that Noah didn't have to bring ocean creatures into the ark...but it would have been necessary. As the rain fell it would have quickly changed the salinity (salt content) of all bodies of water. Fresh and Salt water creatures would not be able to survive under such conditions.

Someone could also say that 'kind' isn't the same as species, however that would require accepting evolution. Also, even with just taking 'kinds' of animals, they still wouldn't all fit on the ark and some of them would try to eat the others. http://www.answersingenesis.org/.. (http://www.answersingenesis.org/..). claims that 16,000 individual animals would be on-board the ark (of coarse, they also think dinosaurs would have been on the ark...lol)

Here's an idea of why they wouldn't fit. We first have to remember that the animals couldn't just be crammed in with each other...they need some space. So, assuming that on average they would need 10sf of space per animal. (this is probably a low estimate..especially if dinosaurs are included). The ark is 450ft by 75ft..that's 33,750 sft per floor. Divide that by 10sf and get 3,370 then take 3,370 and multiply by 3 levels (they can't use the roof because of the weather) and we have room for only about 7,200 individual animals (give or take a thousand since I didn't actually calculate how much average room an animal would take up...it was just an estimate).

More about the myth:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/oldearth2.htm (http://www.religioustolerance.org/oldearth2.htm)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html)
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/6flood.htm (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/6flood.htm)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_proof1.htm (http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_proof1.htm)
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/stream ... flood.html (http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/science/flood.html)
http://www.tccsa.tc/articles/wyatt.html (http://www.tccsa.tc/articles/wyatt.html)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_noah.htm (http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_noah.htm)

Also one on continental drift (how far can a land animal swim?)
http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/cdmovie.html (http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/cdmovie.html)

originally posted here:  posting.php?mode=quote&f=2&p=899 (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/posting.php?mode=quote&f=2&p=899)

I'm actually not that familiar with disproving the bible from a fundamentalist standpoint, I never believed it was all literally true.  Btw, what do you think about the fact that none of the books of the bible can be traced back to being authored during the life time of Jesus?  My research has shown the first nonfraudulent written accounts date back to around 50ad.  If you are interested, I have a link about that too.

Yay, replies!

Quote from: "laetusatheos"Why exactly are "Internal Logical Inconsistencies" unacceptable but "internal contradictions" a maybe? What's the difference?

A contradiction would be like: Verse X says that Frank was never married. Verse Y says that Frank went home to his wife.
A logical inconsistency would be like: God is loving so why is there badness.


curiosityandthecat:
thanks for the link, I'll do some data mining when I get a chance.


SSY:
I'm not going to take the word of others as to what is true without looking into it myself, but I will listen to others for possibilities. If someone suggests something, then it might be interesting to check on.

I know that if I spend a couple of weeks following up on, say, the walls of Jericho, and I find that there quite possibly were walls in an acceptable date range, then I will consider the Bible "confirmed", and have absolutely no further interest in looking further. Remember, I'm not motivated enough to spend my whole life proving atheists wrong ;-)

Special Relativity "looks wrong" - if I'm going at 90% of the speed of light, and someone else is going at the speed of light in the same direction, why don't I see them going at 10% of the speed of light? -- but "if we assume this, and this and this, then it still works outkind of OK". I've found that attempting to put something into rational terms, and then examining the produced rationalization is a very illuminating part of evaluating a proposition.

It says "days" in the bible, but that word has been translated. Also, days from what frame of reference? There are no people around so it has to be God's frame of reference, God says that a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day - does that have relevance? etc. etc. etc. There's really some fascinating stuff in there. It is also possible that they were inertial earth rotations (and not significantly different than those that we have today).

I want cold hard facts, not mind games. I'm "very good" at mind games, I can play both sides (or more, if they present themselves).

Pi was communicated correctly - In scientific notation it would be 3 x 10^0 --- ie. accurate to one significant digit.

And, just to be clear, no finite creature can look at anything objectively.  :)


 laetusatheos:
Thanks for the flood data and links! I'll have to peruse those when I get a chance.

My only problem with ark calculations is that it would be way too easy to cry miracle if things don't work out --- after all, there's already the declared miracle of the exact number and types of animals needed coming to Noah.

Geologic proof that the flood didn't happen at all would be good, however. (and I may be wrong, but I believe the Bible requires the flood to be world-wide, not just a local phenomenon)

That is an interesting bit about the time-of-writing of the New Testament books. I've been looking into that myself, actually. Of course, they wouldn't have been written before Christ died (as noone really understood the significance of what was happening), and immediately following his death and resurrection there would be more word-of-mouth communication. I've heard "experts" claim that the 4 gospels were written in the first century, the last one, John, around 90 AD. Of course, I haven't verified any of that, so it's definitely open for research.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"A contradiction would be like: Verse X says that Frank was never married. Verse Y says that Frank went home to his wife.
A logical inconsistency would be like: God is loving so why is there badness.

What about the issue of why God would need to sacrifice himself to himself in order to circumvent a rule he created?

Quote from: "laetusatheos"What about the issue of why God would need to sacrifice himself to himself in order to circumvent a rule he created?

That would be in the "logical inconsistency" category. It's very easy to say, for example, that He didn't create the rule, the rule just exists because of who He is.

I went more into that realm of conjecture in this (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=34098#p34098) post (and others in that thread).

Quote from: "laetusatheos"Obviously, http://www.talkorigins.com (http://www.talkorigins.com) has beat the flood story to death

Ah-ha! I was wondering why I could never get to that site: I kept hitting a redirect loop (in FF), and it just never loaded (in IE) --- looks like it's actually http://www.talkorigins.org (http://www.talkorigins.org) (if that's the site you're talking about) --- Looks like a good resource, I'll have to explore it further.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"Yay, replies!

Quote from: "laetusatheos"Why exactly are "Internal Logical Inconsistencies" unacceptable but "internal contradictions" a maybe? What's the difference?

A contradiction would be like: Verse X says that Frank was never married. Verse Y says that Frank went home to his wife.
A logical inconsistency would be like: God is loving so why is there badness.  

That sounds a lot like something Messenger would have said...

I'll keep it brief.

It is impossible to levitate with the power of your mind (walking on water).
It is impossible to move large bodies of water with the power of the mind.
It is impossible to instantly transmute one form of matter or liquid to another with the power of the mind.

These things may be achievable with various technological advancements within a thousand years but that still wouldn't come under the heading of 'power of the mind' which is essentially what the bible would like us to believe. Unless of course these devices could be made small enough to fit in the brain but then i guess we'd just be squabbling over semantics at that point.

Quote from: "karadan"It is impossible to levitate with the power of your mind (walking on water).
It is impossible to move large bodies of water with the power of the mind.
It is impossible to instantly transmute one form of matter or liquid to another with the power of the mind.

Neither do people rise from the dead, people turn into pillars of salt, leprosy is cured, people speak in languages that they haven't learned, and so forth. Those are "simply" miracles - God acting upon the world as an outside source.

We can't repeat and test them now, because they were done by God - we'd have to convince Him to do them a few times under "laboratory conditions" so we could study them.

Now, if there's evidence now that those things didn't happen in the past, that's a potential disproof.


I'm in a tough situation, really - if I ask Christians, they'll say that there aren't any disproofs of the Bible.

Atheists, however, tend to have very low standards for what constitutes a "Disproof" of the Bible. Much like asking Christians to disprove Evolution - very few have studied it enough to provide more than "look how complex a tree is! That couldn't have come from random chance!"

I don't mean any disrespect - I honestly can not expect you[1] to have extensive knowledge of every bit of hokum that the crazies dream up.



[1] Collective noun

Well, in that  case, trying to find a disproof for anything which happened in the bible is ultimately futile because all and any miracle that happened can just be attributed to god and his divine power, which obviously cannot be verifiably disproven.

In that case, what is the point of this thread?

Don't forget, when looking at the Bible, you have two different lenses through which to view it: a history book with factual accounts and therefore open to empirical analysis, or a book of spirituality, faith, miracles, the supernatural and loads of magical thinking. Atheists like to find these inconsistencies in the Bible as a way to show that, if it is the word of a god, and that god is infallible, then either that god is not infallible or the Bible is not the word of that god. However, any omnipotent being can, ultimately, do whatever it damn well pleases, which falls directly into the realm of the supernatural. It's silly that we even try, sometimes. How would some logical inconsistencies even ruffle the feathers of a mystical, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing daddy-o?

In short, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either the Bible is a history textbook with some morals thrown in, or it's in a completely different realm and the text therein cannot be taken literally.

I'll point to (Fooce, C. & Warnick, B. (2007). Does teaching creationism facilitate student autonomy? Theory and Research in Education. 5(3), 357-378.) in which they concluded the Bible cannot be used as a science text (and, by extension, a history text, as both are based on empirical facts; i.e., water boils at 100degC or Napoleon was at the Battle of Waterloo) in any modernist sense, as it was originally compiled as premodern. That is, not to be used as a guidebook on how one should live, but rather a description of one's life at the time of writing, thus placing the "reader" (and I use the term loosely, as literacy was something of a rarity at that time) in the world via the text.

QuoteSpecial Relativity "looks wrong" - if I'm going at 90% of the speed of light, and someone else is going at the speed of light in the same direction, why don't I see them going at 10% of the speed of light? -- but "if we assume this, and this and this, then it still works outkind of OK". I've found that attempting to put something into rational terms, and then examining the produced rationalization is a very illuminating part of evaluating a proposition.

Specaial relativity does not look wrong, it in-fact agrees perfectly with observed results. We know a universe without special relativity does not work, The postulates made in special relativity ( Constant c, invarient laws of physics in inertial frames ) are in no way contradictory to the way in which we observe the universe around us, and they still explain the effects of special relativity. Your rationalisations are different, they assume things inconsistant with the universe around us in order to explain things in the bible.
Just calling something a miracle is the weakest of the weak, you could call anything a miracle, thereby making any disproof vulnrable to this argument.

Your translationa argument is also pretty weak. How do you know that some other major part of the bible should be interepted differently? Maybe honour they father and mother, is just honour thy mother? It seems these tranlation errors only turn up when something would disprove the bible, otherwise the bible is perfect.


No, pi being accurate to one significant figure does not make it accurate, its like saying pi is four, plus or minus one. He could have at least added the .142 on the end.

Mind games? what are you talking about?
Like I said before, you don't have the right frame of mind for this type of exercise.

Quote from: "karadan"Well, in that  case, trying to find a disproof for anything which happened in the bible is ultimately futile because all and any miracle that happened can just be attributed to god and his divine power, which obviously cannot be verifiably disproven.

In that case, what is the point of this thread?

The bible describes certain events that may be able to be historically verified or debunked. I'm looking for things like that - ways that things can not have happened the way the Bible says they did - even taking in to account the work of a powerful entity.

Now, while I have biblical reason to believe that God did these miracles, I have no biblical reason to believe that God "covered his tracks" - eliminated the evidence that these things were done. That seems like it would be quite dishonest, and is grounds for some pretty heavy re-evaluation.

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"In short, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either the Bible is a history textbook with some morals thrown in, or it's in a completely different realm and the text therein cannot be taken literally.

Correct. I'm looking for very strong evidence that it is not a "history textbook with some morals thrown in" that just happens to be written by a powerful, perfect, divine being.

Thanks for the link - I'll take a look.

Quote from: "SSY"Like I said before, you don't have the right frame of mind for this type of exercise.

If by "the right frame of mind" you mean "the same perspective, assumptions, and general world view as 'me'", then I agree with you wholeheartedly.
(we could quibble over the other details in your post all day, (and I'm sure it would be great fun for all involved) but they're not relevant to the task at hand - if you would really like to, start a thread called "Translations of Mind Games with 'n' Significant Digits at Relativistic Speeds" or some such, and I'll meet you there)

It might well be that some myths in the Bible have an element of truth. Take for example the story of the biblical flood. The original story may well be that there was a local flood and a local farmer took the precaution to put his family, his two cows and his two goats on a raft. Since that is a rather interesting event, people started to talk about it. This story then travels by word of mouth and every person in the "chain" adds some more juicy details to the story to make it sound more interesting. After a couple of generations of story telling, the raft turns into a boat, the boat into an ark, the local flood into a global flood, the four animals into all animals of the world, etc. etc.

For me there is nothing left in the Bible that tells the true story of what happened so many centuries ago. Everything written down in the Bible is merely hearsay from religiously inspired people, who heard some rumors about unverifiable events. You can't therefore not read the Bible like a history book, like most fundamental Christians do, because facts show that the Bible contains many "historical" mistakes and even contradicts its own historical "accounts". A very good example of this is the story of Joshua (see: http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/history/joshua.html (http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/history/joshua.html)).

Try to reconcile the New Testament story with history and you run into similar confusions.

QuoteThe traditional year of Jesus' birth is 1 C.E. Jesus was supposed to be not more than two years old when Herod ordered the slaughter of the innocents. However, Herod died before April 12, 4 B.C.E. This has led some Christians to re-date the birth of Jesus in 6 - 4 B.C.E. However, Jesus was also supposed have been born during the census of Quirinius. This census took place after Archelaus was deposed in 6 C.E., ten years after Herod's death. Jesus was supposed to have been baptized by John soon after John had started baptizing and preaching in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias, i.e. 28-29 C.E., when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea i.e. 26-36 C.E. According to the New Testament, this also happened when Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. But Lysanias ruled Abilene from c. 40 B.C.E until he was executed in 36 B.C.E by Mark Antony, about 60 years before the date for Tiberias and about 30 years before the supposed birth of Jesus! Also, there were never two joint high priests, in particular, Annas was not a joint high priest with Caiaphas. Annas was removed from the office of high priest in 15 C.E after holding office for some nine years. Caiaphas only became high priest in c. 18 C.E, about three years after Annas. (He held this office for about eighteen years, so his dates are consistent with Tiberias and Pontius Pilate, but not with Annas or Lysanias.)

The great flood would have needed cloud cover so dense it would have blocked out the sun, thus killing noah and all the animals he was trying to save.

Women are not made out of male bones.

Snakes don’t talk

The earth is not older than our sun

The moon is not a “small sun” that creates light in the same way the sun does.

Rainbows existed before the great flood.

Thou shall not kill yet killing animals, insects, plants, bacteria, viruses and people who are deemed “evil” is morally acceptable.

Jesus is Horus 2.0

Quote from: "jcm"The great flood would have needed cloud cover so dense it would have blocked out the sun, thus killing noah and all the animals he was trying to save.

Women are not made out of male bones.

Snakes don’t talk

The earth is not older than our sun

The moon is not a “small sun” that creates light in the same way the sun does.

Rainbows existed before the great flood.

Thou shall not kill yet killing animals, insects, plants, bacteria, viruses and people who are deemed “evil” is morally acceptable.

Jesus is Horus 2.0

Wait, wait, don't tell me minstrelofc...these were all metaphors not to be taken literally, am I right?

If that is your answer, please. That's called cherry picking, I'm sure you've heard of it. Are Christians born with a built-in translation device that tells them when something in the bible is a metaphor, and not just fallacy?

Quote from: "oldschooldoc"Wait, wait, don't tell me minstrelofc...these were all metaphors not to be taken literally, am I right?

only after science says "what? no, the universe really works this way..."

before then, human beings were very comfortable with knowing the sun rotated the earth.

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"I'll point to (Fooce, C. & Warnick, B. (2007). Does teaching creationism facilitate student autonomy? Theory and Research in Education. 5(3), 357-378.) in which they concluded the Bible cannot be used as a science text (and, by extension, a history text, as both are based on empirical facts; i.e., water boils at 100degC or Napoleon was at the Battle of Waterloo) in any modernist sense, as it was originally compiled as premodern. That is, not to be used as a guidebook on how one should live, but rather a description of one's life at the time of writing, thus placing the "reader" (and I use the term loosely, as literacy was something of a rarity at that time) in the world via the text.

An excellent paper - thank-you again for recommending it. I disagree with it on a couple of small points, (of course) but the greater argument it makes is quite convincing - The process of understanding a "modern" textbook is totally different than the process of understanding a "pre-modern" text. (btw: on a side note, I was quite entertained by their word choice of "pre-modern")

QuoteModernity assumes that textual reference by itself is sufficient to produce
meaning.The premoderns deny this claim and believe there must be something
outside of textual reference, a context, which gives a text meaning. [...] Second,
the insufficiency of the text by itself implies that we cannot separate our texts, our
ways of understanding the world, from the world the texts attempt to describe.

Good stuff

Quote from: "Tom62"You can't therefore not read the Bible like a history book, like most fundamental Christians do, because facts show that the Bible contains many "historical" mistakes and even contradicts its own historical "accounts". A very good example of this is the story of Joshua (see: http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/history/joshua.html (http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/history/joshua.html)).

Try to reconcile the New Testament story with history and you run into similar confusions.

QuoteThe traditional year of Jesus' birth is 1 C.E. Jesus was supposed to be not more than two years old when Herod ordered the slaughter of the innocents. However, Herod died before April 12, 4 B.C.E. This has led some Christians to re-date the birth of Jesus in 6 - 4 B.C.E. However, Jesus was also supposed have been born during the census of Quirinius. This census took place after Archelaus was deposed in 6 C.E., ten years after Herod's death. Jesus was supposed to have been baptized by John soon after John had started baptizing and preaching in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias, i.e. 28-29 C.E., when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea i.e. 26-36 C.E. According to the New Testament, this also happened when Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. But Lysanias ruled Abilene from c. 40 B.C.E until he was executed in 36 B.C.E by Mark Antony, about 60 years before the date for Tiberias and about 30 years before the supposed birth of Jesus! Also, there were never two joint high priests, in particular, Annas was not a joint high priest with Caiaphas. Annas was removed from the office of high priest in 15 C.E after holding office for some nine years. Caiaphas only became high priest in c. 18 C.E, about three years after Annas. (He held this office for about eighteen years, so his dates are consistent with Tiberias and Pontius Pilate, but not with Annas or Lysanias.)

Tom62: Wonderful! That's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. I've added those to my list - Thanks!

For the curious, the sort of method I'd follow with the above is:
1) Figure out exactly what claims the Bible makes
2) Start with the scholarly accepted times of the events that correspond with those claims
3) If (when) those conflict, start going through each of the accepted times to determine how they were arrived at, etc
4) Dependent on results
5) Profit!

Quote from: "minstrelofc"For the curious, the sort of method I'd follow with the above is:
1) Figure out exactly what claims the Bible makes
2) Start with the scholarly accepted times of the events that correspond with those claims
3) If (when) those conflict, start going through each of the accepted times to determine how they were arrived at, etc
4) Dependent on results
5) Profit!

Profit?! Damn, I need to get in on this...haha

Best of luck with the above, I'm quite anxious to see where this leads you.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"An excellent paper - thank-you again for recommending it. I disagree with it on a couple of small points, (of course) but the greater argument it makes is quite convincing - The process of understanding a "modern" textbook is totally different than the process of understanding a "pre-modern" text. (btw: on a side note, I was quite entertained by their word choice of "pre-modern")

What about the larger implications this has on how one views the Bible?

Quote from: "jcm"Jesus is Horus 2.0

The others are too easily "explainable". This one is interesting... I have a wild suggestion that could explain it, but it's possible that it won't hold up to any scrutiny at all.

Added to my list, thanks. ;)

Quote from: "minstrelofc"The bible describes certain events that may be able to be historically verified or debunked. I'm looking for things like that - ways that things can not have happened the way the Bible says they did - even taking in to account the work of a powerful entity.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it occurs to me that if God is all powerful, even inconsistencies with the Bible and history could be explained away as him covering up the evidence of his miracles and testing you.  I mean, you've already accepted that he exists, how much easier is it to accept that he might be testing the world because he must?  I mean, you can see the Andromeda Galaxy with your own eyes in the night sky, and its light has been in transit for more than the traditional 6,000 years the earth has existed.  With telescopes we can see light that has been in transit for more than 11.7 billion years.  We can see stars that went nova long before the earth existed.  If God put that light there, 6000 light years from us, what purpose could it possibly serve showing us something that doesn't and never did exist, except to test us by demonstrating a universe at odds with the Bible's description of it?

I don't know if you're a Young Earth Creationist (YEC), but if you are, you're either unaware of the facts or willing to disregard them.  Indeed, if you're willing to see the universe as a test, nothing we say should or will be trusted because you would risk your spot in heaven.  The only way to get rid of the ridiculous assumption that it is a test created by a malevolent version of the Biblical God (ironically still at odds with the description of the God of the Bible) is Occam's Razor.  One doesn't make assumptions unless one can back them up, which is why this thread is rather perverse.  It's the equivalent of you asking us to disprove pink unicorns living on the far side of the moon, when you have no well-reasoned, logical, evidential cause to believe in them.

We did not become atheists by disproving God.  It is impossible, depending on how you view him.  He is in every way isolated from reality so that his existence would be indistinguishable from his absence.  No, we became atheists, or remain atheists, because we haven't been given any evidence for his existence.  We don't believe there are no gods, we haven't been convinced there are any.

I previously believed in the God of the Bible, but I asked myself why I had any reason to and came up empty handed.  If you do the same, you'll find you have no reason.  Give us any supposed proof of God and we'll show you a natural explanation.  I hope this helps you.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "oldschooldoc"Are Christians born with a built-in translation device that tells them when something in the bible is a metaphor, and not just fallacy?

Well... actually....

Quote"The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
(John 14:26)
(emphasis mine)

How very perceptive of you to notice

Does this not seem just a little too convenient for you? I mean, you state your arguments very well, but is this not just another case of godidit?

I know for a fact that the flying spaghetti monster exists. I have a picture, which a man made under the instruction of the FSM, which will prove it.
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alobbs.com%2Falbums%2Falbun26%2FTouched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.sized.jpg&hash=bcb3e853b1b676bdc2062d8e2807247d714e3a80)

You may now attempt to change my mind. However, you may not dispute my proof (the picture) because I hold this picture to be sacred and holy. It is indisputable proof to me, and you will not change my mind that it is false. Also, if you do not believe that the picture is proof, it is only because the flying spaghetti monster has not taught you how to open your mind to him, and allowed you to view this picture in a way that would prove him to you. His ways are higher than ours, man! You need to allow yourself to be touched by his noodly appendage!

If you have a hard time doing this, you might be able to see why your bible quoting seems just a little too convenient to an atheist.

minstrelofc,

Quote"The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
(John 14:26)
(emphasis mine)

Looking at the above quote let's consider an external example that the bible is false.  You have God helping you interpret the bible, so do about a billion other Christians.  Yet, none of you a-holes interpret the scriptures the same.  There are a ton of jack-holes just like you who say the the bible is infallible and then can't agree on the infallible interpretation.  Your holy helper is a SUCKS!  If he is going to "teach you all things" maybe he should teach you all the SAME thing!  If your quote came from the bible, then obviously if one other Christian disagrees with you about an interpretation either God is an imperfect teacher or the bible is flawed.  Either way you get to become an atheist now.  Welcome to the club.

Furthermore, as an engineer I have to throw in my two cents about pi.  3 is not 3.14159.....  Your God is supposed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent!  If he can raise the dead, turn water into wine, and walk on water the least we can expect is 3 digits of precision for something as crucial as pi.

Quote from: "suntzu"minstrelofc,

Quote"The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
(John 14:26)
(emphasis mine)

Looking at the above quote let's consider an external example that the bible is false.  You have God helping you interpret the bible, so do about a billion other Christians.  Yet, none of you a-holes interpret the scriptures the same.  There are a ton of jack-holes just like you who say the the bible is infallible and then can't agree on the infallible interpretation.  Your holy helper is a SUCKS!  If he is going to "teach you all things" maybe he should teach you all the SAME thing!  If your quote came from the bible, then obviously if one other Christian disagrees with you about an interpretation either God is an imperfect teacher or the bible is flawed.  Either way you get to become an atheist now.  Welcome to the club.

Furthermore, as an engineer I have to throw in my two cents about pi.  3 is not 3.14159.....  Your God is supposed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent!  If he can raise the dead, turn water into wine, and walk on water the least we can expect is 3 digits of precision for something as crucial as pi.

This is a reminder that this forum does not tolerate personal attacks on other members. Argue your points, please, and leave the name calling out of it.

Well, gee, suntzu, tell us how you really feel.  

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "laetusatheos"What about the issue of why God would need to sacrifice himself to himself in order to circumvent a rule he created?

That would be in the "logical inconsistency" category. It's very easy to say, for example, that He didn't create the rule, the rule just exists because of who He is.

The Bible very obviously states that God created everything, so it would include him creating the rule.  

Also, how is him finding a way for people to get around a rule count as justice?

I think logical inconsitencies should count as evidence against the Bible if what the Bible says can't correct the inconsistency.

Fine,

I withdraw the part about Christians being jack-holes.  Sorry for the personal attack.  The rest is completely valid.

Suntzu

Freshwater fish will die from osmotic shock when placed in saltwater, some species will slowly die from even small changes in specific gravity.  Many corals and other sessile invertebrates will die from very small shifts in specific gravity and PH.  Land and freshwater snails die rapidly in saltwater.  Freshwater shrimp die swiftly in saltwater and saltwater shrimp don't do so well in lower specific gravities.  Most amphibians cannot live in saltwater.

If we are basing the water on the amount of water that actually exists on earth, the majority of it is saltwater.  A world covered uniformly in water would be covered in saltwater but it would be saltwater of a lower specific gravity than the acceptable natural range of seawater.  Most corals and sessile invertebrates would have died from too low a specific gravity.  Most other invertebrates, fresh and saltwater, would have died from either too low or too high salinity.  Many saltwater species of fish would have survived at the lowered specific gravity of the whole-world ocean, however, none to almost none of the thousands of varieties of freshwater fish would have survived.  Most to all amphibians would have died.  Why are all of these species alive today?

I'd also like to mention that we've found DNA in Neanderthal bones and it is not homo sapiens DNA.

Quote from: "PipeBox"Not to put too fine a point on it, but it occurs to me that if God is all powerful, even inconsistencies with the Bible and history could be explained away as him covering up the evidence of his miracles and testing you.  I mean, you've already accepted that he exists, how much easier is it to accept that he might be testing the world because he must?

I refuse to accept this as a valid thing for God to do. However, I have some conflicting data, so I'll have to get back to you on exactly why once (and if) I can resolve it.

Unorganized thoughts: (I recognize it as valid for God to provide less data than we need to be scientifically certain, but not valid to destroy incidental data. Perhaps a perfect being would not need to destroy "dangerous" evidence because they would have done a better job (or at least done a different thing) in the first place.)

"testing the world because he must" - I do not see which part of His character would compel Him in this circumstance.

Regarding the rest of your post:
To state my objective in other terms, I wish to find something very falsifiable in the Bible, and test it. Pink Unicorns on the Dark Side of the Moon is falsifiable (unless they're invisible - ooooo) but not easily. (there have been a few flybys I remember correctly, but they might not have had enough scanning resolution) Anyways, I'm looking for something that falsifiable that I can test, and come to a conclusion one way or the other.

I already am a Christian, so I accept the Bible as true (remember what I said in the OP about no Burden-of-Proof Shifting  ;) ) to be disputed. If I were to attempt to dispute your picture, I would start by tracking down the originator, and seeing if they would "confess" to it being untrue. Other than that, it appears non-falsifiable. It seems to make no claims that can be tested.

In the Bible, I'm looking for claims that can be tested.

Anways, I was quoting the Bible in response to a direct (probably rhetorical) question.

Quote from: "suntzu"Your holy helper is a SUCKS!  If he is going to "teach you all things" maybe he should teach you all the SAME thing!

(I think your argument boils down to the above)
<insert standard response about not all those who claim to be Christians being Christians>
Also, even allowing for the above, it's a guided process - we would not go from knowing nothing to being an expert immediately.
(and discussions of pi should be in that other, not-yet-created thread)

Quote from: "laetusatheos"The Bible very obviously states that God created everything, so it would include him creating the rule.  

Also, how is him finding a way for people to get around a rule count as justice?

I think logical inconsitencies should count as evidence against the Bible if what the Bible says can't correct the inconsistency.

#1 The Bible states that God created "the heavens and the earth". It doesn't say that He created any part of Himself.

#2 It isn't a way for people to "get around" the rule, it's a way to fulfill the rule in a "better" way.

#3 I think I mentioned that they are actually acceptable, but that I didn't want them because they were too easy to disprove. They are also too easy to come up with. So what we would end up having is you (collectively) coming up with them, me explaining them, you coming up with extensions/more/disproofs of my explanations, me explaining all of that, etc, etc, etc, and me never getting any time (and energy) to verify that there is no era that Jesus could have lived in that satisfies the claims of the Bible. (or whatever I end up going with)

Quote from: "suntzu"I withdraw the part about Christians being jack-holes.  Sorry for the personal attack.  The rest is completely valid.

No worries, I was just wondering when you were going to get to the Q and K "-holes" (You know, AKQJ.... I was sensing a pattern)  

Quote from: "Kylyssa"Freshwater fish will die from osmotic shock when placed in saltwater

That is a tricky one. I think I avoid it due to not being sure of how quickly evolution can progress - if the species survived the flood, could they have diversified that much in the past 4-5k years? What I know of current evolutionary theory says "no", but testing that myself could be very difficult.

Quote from: "Kylyssa"I'd also like to mention that we've found DNA in Neanderthal bones and it is not homo sapiens DNA.

Oooo - thanks - I'll add that to my list.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"I know for a fact that the flying spaghetti monster exists. I have a picture, which a man made under the instruction of the FSM, which will prove it.
[...]
You may now attempt to change my mind. However, you may not dispute my proof (the picture) because I hold this picture to be sacred and holy.

I have nothing but respect for your belief in FSM. The thing is, I want my proof (The Bible, in case anyone lost track ) to be disputed. If I were to attempt to dispute your picture, I would start by tracking down the originator, and seeing if they would "confess" to it being untrue. Other than that, it appears non-falsifiable. It seems to make no claims that can be tested.

In the Bible, I'm looking for claims that can be tested.

Anways, I was quoting the Bible in response to a direct (probably rhetorical) question.

You respect my belief in the flying spaghetti monster? That's not right, no one actually believes in that nonsense. I mean, it's a flying monster made out of spaghetti. My parents did not tell me when I was young that there was a spaghetti monster in the sky that I need to worship, or once I die I will be punished forever. No one ever started a war over FSM. No one from 2000 years ago ever wrote conflicting stories which someone stitched together, long after the fact, to make the FSM into a god. Because of that, no one really believes in it. Well, no one except for a few whack jobs. Really, I just found a picture on google images to try to make a point, which I don't think you got. So now that you know that I am not really preaching the FSM to you, I offer you the chance to go back and read that post with that knowledge, and try to find the actual meaning of that post.


Edit: Here's a hint for you:

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"you might be able to see why your bible quoting seems just a little too convenient to an atheist.

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"You respect my belief in the flying spaghetti monster? That's not right, no one actually believes in that nonsense. I mean, it's a flying monster made out of spaghetti. My parents did not tell me when I was young that there was a spaghetti monster in the sky that I need to worship, or once I die I will be punished forever. No one ever started a war over FSM. No one from 2000 years ago ever wrote conflicting stories which someone stitched together, long after the fact, to make the FSM into a god. Because of that, no one really believes in it. Well, no one except for a few whack jobs. Really, I just found a picture on google images to try to make a point, which I don't think you got. So now that you know that I am not really preaching the FSM to you, I offer you the chance to go back and read that post with that knowledge, and try to find the actual meaning of that post.


Edit: Here's a hint for you:

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"you might be able to see why your bible quoting seems just a little too convenient to an atheist.

I respect every bit of flying-spaghetti-monster-belief that you have.  

I attempted to respond to your proposal of His Noodliness' sacred image in the manner that I'm asking/hoping people will respond to my proposal of The Bible. An analogy, if you will.

minstrelofc,

Quotesuntzu wrote:Your holy helper is a SUCKS! If he is going to "teach you all things" maybe he should teach you all the SAME thing!


(I think your argument boils down to the above)
<insert standard response about not all those who claim to be Christians being Christians>
Also, even allowing for the above, it's a guided process - we would not go from knowing nothing to being an expert immediately.
(and discussions of pi should be in that other, not-yet-created thread)

1.  If god is teaching Christians, and God is perfect in every way, then in the end all experts should interpret the bible the SAME way.  Biblical experts (priests, ministers, pastors, monks...) disagree about interpretation ALL THE TIME.  Furthermore, if it is a "guided process" the longer they study the more their beliefs should converge.  This is certainly not the case.

2.  What is this garbage about some Christians not being Christians.  Is this idea designed to explain the variance in interpretation of bible?  Am I to understand that all true Christians interpret the bible the correct way while all of the false Christians are responsible for the myriad of other interpretations?  If this is the case then you can't know if you are a real Christian because you can't know if your interpretation is correct?  Wow!  If what you say is true then most people who call themselves Christians are headed for hell just like us non-believers.  This is of course ludicrous.  The only qualification for Christianity is belief.  I have known many people who were definitely true believers and their opinions about biblical interpretation were radically different.

You need to stop trying to defend the bible with logic and reason.  Reason and logic are the tools of science, which are not friendly to theism.  Every time you attempt to use reason to combat atheism or defend theism you lose.  Find a different tactic, because this one is only going to make people lose respect for you capacity to reason.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.  If you continue to use reason long enough, you will eventually be an atheist.  So let me be the first to say to you, preemptively of course, welcome to the club.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"The others are too easily "explainable".

do tell  

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "laetusatheos"The Bible very obviously states that God created everything, so it would include him creating the rule.  

Also, how is him finding a way for people to get around a rule count as justice?

I think logical inconsitencies should count as evidence against the Bible if what the Bible says can't correct the inconsistency.

#1 The Bible states that God created "the heavens and the earth". It doesn't say that He created any part of Himself.

#2 It isn't a way for people to "get around" the rule, it's a way to fulfill the rule in a "better" way.

#3 I think I mentioned that they are actually acceptable, but that I didn't want them because they were too easy to disprove. They are also too easy to come up with. So what we would end up having is you (collectively) coming up with them, me explaining them, you coming up with extensions/more/disproofs of my explanations, me explaining all of that, etc, etc, etc, and me never getting any time (and energy) to verify that there is no era that Jesus could have lived in that satisfies the claims of the Bible. (or whatever I end up going with)

#1)So you are saying that God has no control over his laws.  Doesn't that hurt the idea of him being all powerful?  If God is not in control of his laws, who/what is?  How could his rules/laws be a part of his nature?  For example, it's in my nature to be (mostly) nice but to also get frustrated by annoying people.  Did the form rules always exist because they are a part of my nature or did I have to come up with them?

#2)  Please, explain how this would be a better way.  You have mentioned justice being important to God (right?  maybe it was someone else).  The rule is that unforgiven sin leads too eternal damnation.  However, this 'better' way involves an innocent person taking the fall for everyone else.  How is that justice?  And yes, I am familiar with Aquinas' views on this.

#3) I thought your op stated logical inconsistencies were not acceptable, my bad.  For the record, I don't care what era Jesus lived in nor if we can prove who wrote the books of the Bible. Imo, we don't need to get into that much research to find that there are flaws in some of the most basic Chrsitian beliefs.  It's really just a matter of breaking through the tendency to want the rationalizations to make sense.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "Kylyssa"Freshwater fish will die from osmotic shock when placed in saltwater

That is a tricky one. I think I avoid it due to not being sure of how quickly evolution can progress - if the species survived the flood, could they have diversified that much in the past 4-5k years? What I know of current evolutionary theory says "no", but testing that myself could be very difficult.

But the Bible says God created every living thing in six days!  Ask a young earther and they'll tell you that every living species is just as God made it during the creation.  There is no evolution in the Bible.  To me, this looks like an attempt to patch together select bits of the Bible with select bits of science to make things work.

Firstly, let me apologize to everyone here. I am not without limitations, and I cannot answer all of your questions. Perhaps if my experiment (the OP) proves fruitful, I'll consider putting together a team of Christians who will specifically be able to address all of your questions, but it is beyond my solo abilities.

The purpose of my original post still stands - I'm looking to see if there are any falsifiable parts of the Bible that I can research on my own to prove (or fail to prove) that the Bible is not perfect. (apologies for the double-negative)

Other discussions, while they can be fun, can end up draining after a while, resulting in my being less motivated to follow up on "real, practical" research.

I'll answer the current stack of questions, but only in "short form" (the full explanations would probably take me a couple of hours of work to compose - I'm a *very* slow codifier of thought) After that, I'll probably only respond "on topic".

Quote from: "suntzu"1.  If god is teaching Christians, and God is perfect in every way, then in the end all experts should interpret the bible the SAME way.  Biblical experts (priests, ministers, pastors, monks...) disagree about interpretation ALL THE TIME.  Furthermore, if it is a "guided process" the longer they study the more their beliefs should converge.  This is certainly not the case.

2.  What is this garbage about some Christians not being Christians.  Is this idea designed to explain the variance in interpretation of bible?  Am I to understand that all true Christians interpret the bible the correct way while all of the false Christians are responsible for the myriad of other interpretations?  If this is the case then you can't know if you are a real Christian because you can't know if your interpretation is correct?  Wow!  If what you say is true then most people who call themselves Christians are headed for hell just like us non-believers.  This is of course ludicrous.  The only qualification for Christianity is belief.  I have known many people who were definitely true believers and their opinions about biblical interpretation were radically different.

You need to stop trying to defend the bible with logic and reason.  Reason and logic are the tools of science, which are not friendly to theism.  Every time you attempt to use reason to combat atheism or defend theism you lose.  Find a different tactic, because this one is only going to make people lose respect for you capacity to reason.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.  If you continue to use reason long enough, you will eventually be an atheist.  So let me be the first to say to you, preemptively of course, welcome to the club.

1. People (even Christians) are imperfect and stubborn. They have the ability to refuse to understand things.
2. If someone says they're a Christian and then goes out killing people who don't agree with them, then they are not a Christian. (IMNSHO)
(3.) Reason and logic are the tools of thought. Science starts with certain propositions, theism starts with others.

Quote from: "jcm"The great flood would have needed cloud cover so dense it would have blocked out the sun, thus killing noah and all the animals he was trying to save.

Women are not made out of male bones.

Snakes don’t talk

The earth is not older than our sun

The moon is not a “small sun” that creates light in the same way the sun does.

Rainbows existed before the great flood.

Thou shall not kill yet killing animals, insects, plants, bacteria, viruses and people who are deemed “evil” is morally acceptable.

Quote from: "jcm"

Quote from: "minstrelofc"The others are too easily "explainable".

do tell  

Miracle,
Miracle,
Miracle or They did then,
("science")The atoms that make them up would be the same age, (/"science") Way too many questions regarding sure determination of sun age, earth age, other things
The moon is a "lesser light" that "rules the night"
You have no proof, only presumption that things were the same then as they are now
Thou shalt not murder - non-humans don't count, "state" executions are not murder, explicit orders from God overrule general principles

You may not agree with my answers, and the earth/sun thing *could* be looked into, but it has too much wiggle room for my liking.

Quote from: "laetusatheos"#1)So you are saying that God has no control over his laws.  Doesn't that hurt the idea of him being all powerful?  If God is not in control of his laws, who/what is?  How could his rules/laws be a part of his nature?  For example, it's in my nature to be (mostly) nice but to also get frustrated by annoying people.  Did the form rules always exist because they are a part of my nature or did I have to come up with them?

#2)  Please, explain how this would be a better way.  You have mentioned justice being important to God (right?  maybe it was someone else).  The rule is that unforgiven sin leads too eternal damnation.  However, this 'better' way involves an innocent person taking the fall for everyone else.  How is that justice?  And yes, I am familiar with Aquinas' views on this.

#3) I thought your op stated logical inconsistencies were not acceptable, my bad.  For the record, I don't care what era Jesus lived in nor if we can prove who wrote the books of the Bible. Imo, we don't need to get into that much research to find that there are flaws in some of the most basic Chrsitian beliefs.  It's really just a matter of breaking through the tendency to want the rationalizations to make sense.

#1 God is who He is, and won't do anything that is against His Character. Otherwise He wouldn't be God. Humans often act more seemingly randomly.
#2 Sin leads to Death. Always. The 'better' way involves the One who loves us sacrificing Himself in our place so that we can live and be with Him. It's an act of Love. (I am not familiar with Thomas Aquinas' views, this is from what I've read/heard/understand)
#3 I understand, I've had a rl convo with an agnostic who didn't "get" that either - believe me, for (my type of) a Christian, finding any errors (no matter how tiny) in the Bible is the ultimate "Big Deal". Beyond that, it's just interpretation.

Quote from: "Kylyssa"But the Bible says God created every living thing in six days!  Ask a young earther and they'll tell you that every living species is just as God made it during the creation.  There is no evolution in the Bible.  To me, this looks like an attempt to patch together select bits of the Bible with select bits of science to make things work.

The young earthers might not be correct. The Bible does not clarify if it meant 24 hr periods or Inertial Earth Turns (there's a huge difference considering the relativistic speeds that follow a large explosion).
If the Young Earthers are correct on that point, the Bible does not say that evolution doesn't exist. It just says that the "kinds" of animals were created - "kind" is not a narrow term, and may encompass massive genetic shifts.


Phew - only 30 minutes.

Currently what I have are:

• Walls of Jericho
• Writing dates, order, and motivations of the NT
• Jesus Couldn't have existed with conditions as the Bible specifies
• http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/history/joshua.html
• Jesus is Horus 2.0
• Neanderthal DNA

Might I suggest adding The Blind Watchmaker and/or The God Delusion to your reading list?

Quote from: "laetusatheos"Might I suggest adding The Blind Watchmaker and/or The God Delusion to your reading list?

Absolutely - I've been reluctant to pick them up in the past for a couple of reasons.

Blind Watchmaker seems to be making the point of how evolution could result in highly complex lifeforms (humans) evolving from much simpler ones. I've actually already evaluated Evolution, and found it to be a brilliant theory with many applications that could very well be true. "Could be" true does not mean that it "must be" true, however, so I don't think it would sway me. Could be a fun read anyways though.

God Delusion is an interesting one - I found Amazon's least favorable, most helpful review (http://www.amazon.ca/review/R7TGLCF82Y111/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R7TGLCF82Y111) (probably written by a theist) and glanced down the summary of the points made. My prediction is that it would be a very frustrating book to read, as Professor Dawkins does not seem to have an "insiders perspective" of theism, and therefore makes more "outsider"-type arguments which, while I can understand his viewpoint and objections, lose their power when examined from my perspective. (My prediction was validated the other day when I was in a bookstore and read a bit of the book)

Quote from: "minstrelofc"My prediction is that it would be a very frustrating book to read, as Professor Dawkins does not seem to have an "insiders perspective" of theism, and therefore makes more "outsider"-type arguments which, while I can understand his viewpoint and objections, lose their power when examined from my perspective. (My prediction was validated the other day when I was in a bookstore and read a bit of the book)

I love it when theists take this position. It's akin to saying that we can't study Marx from a feminist point of view because it's an "outsider" perspective. I think I mentioned this in one of Messenger's threads (imagine that). We have to look at things with differing perspectives. This is how we make progress. The problem theists run up against is that when religion is examined from nearly every other perspective (historical, anthropological, neurological, biological, psychological, sociological, etc) it just doesn't hold up. At all. The only way religion (the Bible, for instance) stands on its own two legs is if it is examined in a vacuum. Everything else is simply grasping at straws.

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"The only way religion (the Bible, for instance) stands on its own two legs is if it is examined in a vacuum. Everything else is simply grasping at straws.

This is just a brilliant phrasing.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "jcm"The great flood would have needed cloud cover so dense it would have blocked out the sun, thus killing noah and all the animals he was trying to save.

Women are not made out of male bones.

Snakes don’t talk

The earth is not older than our sun

The moon is not a “small sun” that creates light in the same way the sun does.

Rainbows existed before the great flood.

Thou shall not kill yet killing animals, insects, plants, bacteria, viruses and people who are deemed “evil” is morally acceptable.

Miracle,
Miracle,
Miracle or They did then,
("science")The atoms that make them up would be the same age, (/"science") Way too many questions regarding sure determination of sun age, earth age, other things
The moon is a "lesser light" that "rules the night"
You have no proof, only presumption that things were the same then as they are now
Thou shalt not murder - non-humans don't count, "state" executions are not murder, explicit orders from God overrule general principles

Wow... just... wow.   :borg:

Quote from: "rlrose328"Wow... just... wow.   :borg:

yeah. i just can't bring myself to respond to that.

I'm beginning to think that this guy is from the same church as messenger and Titan because they have strangely similar techniques.  They cherry pick the statements they choose to answer, they present themselves as reasonable and intelligent and eager to learn our perspectives on religion and god, and they never learn anything and they never really say anything.  They just rearrange the same pat answers/questions/statements and continually regurgitate them.  I feel sorry for them in a way, because they don't seem to understand that not only do we see through their quaint little attempts at proselytization, but that we've seen them so many times and these guys have no clue how unoriginal and uninspired their cute little statements on religion are.

So here you go, minstrelofc.  You have already been given 1421 actual contradictions in the bible.  You may respond to each of them and attempt to refute them.  In such refutations, you may use testable, provable facts.  If such facts do not exist, then you must admit that such contradiction is actually a contradiction and move on.  Once you have answered those original 1421 bona fide contradictions, we shall then provide you with more.  You do not get to cherry pick the ones you answer, and you may not find the answers you seek in the bible.  Trust me, they're not there.

If this isn't how you want to play the game, then have a nice life.  You Christians seem to think that you can come to our message board and dictate your faith to us in the way you want to dictate it to us without accepting that this is not your message board, and we don't have to play your stupid mind games.  If you have questions, we're happy to answer them.  But in return, you get to answer our questions.  So far you have merely bored us with your canned responses.  How about actually using that gray matter and thinking up something original?   Or have you been brainwashed so long you're incapable of independent thought?

Minstrelofc and Titan are much more welcome here than messenger. We may not agree with them, but at least they are friendly and have a sense of humor. Messenger was only a irritating pain in the you know where. But, I agree that I'd really love to see how minstelofc talks his way out of the contradictions in the Bible other than saying "it is a miracle". Some contradictions can only be explained logically ,if you don't take the Bible literally and accept that it isn't the perfect "word of God".

id be interested to hear some one with the time and resources break down how the earth could have been repopulated after the flood. the flood, as i understand, happened about four thousand years ago. would it be possible to go from the hand full of people on the ark to the 6.7 billion alive today. how could the various races be explained? cultures? languages? what would the average family size have to be to make it possible to repopulate? how did plants survive the flood. it rained for forty days but didnt it stay flooded for a year? maybe my bible "facts" are off.
now to change subjects: if the earliest written gospels were written around 60 c.e., that would make the authors pretty old for the life expectancy of the time (assuming they experienced what they wrote about). also, how accurate could something as detailed as the sermon on the mount be when written from memory thirty years later? im no expert, just wondering. its not like anyone's gonna change their opinion here. am i right? ha ha . . a ha ha

Quote from: "jcm"yeah. i just can't bring myself to respond to that.

Sorry, jcm - I was trying to summarize why I couldn't use any of those options for my project.

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"I love it when theists take this position. It's akin to saying that we can't study Marx from a feminist point of view because it's an "outsider" perspective. I think I mentioned this in one of Messenger's threads (imagine that). We have to look at things with differing perspectives. This is how we make progress. The problem theists run up against is that when religion is examined from nearly every other perspective (historical, anthropological, neurological, biological, psychological, sociological, etc) it just doesn't hold up. At all. The only way religion (the Bible, for instance) stands on its own two legs is if it is examined in a vacuum. Everything else is simply grasping at straws.

Of course you *can* study anything you want from any perspective you can conceive of (and can obtain). I personally believe that if you chose, you *could* see the Bible from a Christian perspective (without necessarily believing it). You choose not to, and for fairly understandable reasons (why put your mind in such a weird state for no benefit). The unfortunate part is that it makes for communication difficulties with those who accept that perspective as their default world-view.

To respond to your second point, there are "reasons" (which, as you say, do not make any sense from a non-biblical perspective) why this could be true. I won't explain them because I value your brain cells, and I'm concerned about the long-term effects  ;) )

If I have misrepresented myself to you, or to anyone else on this forum, I humbly beg forgiveness. I did not come to these forums to further my understanding of the philosophy of atheism/agnosticism.

In my great hubris, I believe that that I have a decent handle on why someone would logically be an atheist/agnostic, why you don't go around killing and pillaging just because there isn't a god, and so forth. If I had unanswered questions, I'd gladly ask them, and I'd do my best to understand the perspective and insights you would have to offer.

My purpose of coming here was (as stated (implied?) in the OP) to explore my own beliefs in greater depth. My plan for doing so is to find something that is clearly verified by Science that I can validate and perform myself, yet would be impossible in a universe where the Bible is true.

Obviously, I have to exclude "Miracles" because outside interference makes scientific experiments difficult to impossible. So as attractive as the notion may be, no creating a woman out of one of my ribs.

The only other restriction is that I'll be examining it from my own perspective - which is one that starts with the assumption that the Bible is true. Yes, this makes things extremely difficult and eliminates very many potentially great ways to disprove the Bible, but if I don't evaluate things based on what I actually believe then I would be lying to myself.


I hope what I've just said there makes sense - I'm not sure I can put it any more clearly than that.


Thanks for all your input, I do greatly appreciate it. - Now off to research pre 300 "CE" dating systems...

Quote1. The great flood would have needed cloud cover so dense it would have blocked out the sun, thus killing noah and all the animals he was trying to save.
  Miracle

2. Women are not made out of male bones.
  Miracle

3. Snakes don’t talk
  Miracle or They did then

4. The earth is not older than our sun
  ("science")The atoms that make them up would be the same age, (/"science") Way too many questions regarding sure determination of sun age, earth age, other things

5. The moon is not a “small sun” that creates light in the same way the sun does.
  The moon is a "lesser light" that "rules the night"

6. Rainbows existed before the great flood.
  You have no proof, only presumption that things were the same then as they are now

7. Thou shall not kill yet killing animals, insects, plants, bacteria, viruses and people who are deemed “evil” is morally acceptable.
  Thou shalt not murder - non-humans don't count, "state" executions are not murder, explicit orders from God overrule general principles

1. Wow, what an amazing cop-out. It is now up to you to show me some kind of evidence that the great flood did in fact happen.

2. Seriously?!? How would you believe that based on the overwhelming evidence for evolution? It is unbelievable that you would trust the bible’s claim that the first woman on earth was some how fashioned from the first man’s rib cage. Most life forms have two sexes and that is due to evolution, not from a special makeshift mutated piece of bone. Human beings did not simply pop into existence; it was a gradual process full of many proceeding forms of life that diverged into two separate sexes some time in the past.

3. WTF?. What evidence do you have that suggests snakes evolved to the point of having language? My theory on this is, ancient people saw snakes as evil because of their hypnotic eyes and poisonous bite. The fear and stories surrounding these creature may have been past down through generations and became warped and embellished. The shape of a snake is phallic and would carry sexual connotations and would evoke sinfulness. A tongue that is used to explore its environment might suggest an ability to communicate through language. I have not researched this, but this all seems way more likely than the devil talking through a snake.

4. So everything is the same age? Come on!
Matter (hydrogen) in a region of space condenses by gravity to forms stars and left over matter condenses to form planets and moons. This in happening now and has happened in the past. Stars are older than the planets that orbit them.

http://origins.stsci.edu/faq/planetary-systems.html (http://origins.stsci.edu/faq/planetary-systems.html)

5. You are a poet and didn’t know it. The moon does NOT shine it reflects light from the sun. Day and night are earth terms that don’t really make sense out in the universe. The moon just happens to be there. And I guess the stars a perfectly positioned to help us too?

6.

QuoteA rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. They take the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch.

A prism can be used to break light up into its constituent spectral colors (the colors of the rainbow). Prisms can also be used to reflect light, or to split light into components with different polarizations.

Rain drops are acting as a prism. Are you telling me that a triangular piece of glass would have Not separated white light into a rainbow before the great flood? Science can do that experiment today. Light from a distance star that is just now reaching us from BEFORE the time of the great flood can arrive on earth and separated by a prism into a rainbow.

7. I have heard my whole life “thou shall not kill” …something fishy going on there…
Regardless, how is it not murder to go around shooting animals for the sport of it? I knew a Baptist preacher who enjoys hunting and uses squirrels as target practice. How can it be morally justifiable to murder/kill creatures that have a desire to live, simply for fun?
Bad stewards, bad!

Moderation related stuff split to separate topic:  viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2690 (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2690)

What you need, OP, are some Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, and Jewish friends. This "Christian" and "Non-Christian" split you've got is a false dichotomy.

I don't want you to see the differences in the arguments from Christians and atheists. I want you to see the SIMILARITIES in arguments from people of different religions. For example:

People of nearly all religions will point to miracles as proof of THEIR religion.
People of nearly all religions will consider their religious texts holy and often inerrant.
People of nearly all religions will say non-belief or at least wrong action through non-belief will be punished in the next life.
People of nearly all religions will cite personal experience with their deity, and say this personal experience cannot be argued against.
People of any religion can go to the old mainstays of the ontological proof, the cosmological proof, or the appeal to design and say this proves THEIR God.

As you study all the thousands of religions out there and find that they are all just as convinced and steeped in their beliefs as Christians, you'll have to face the uncomfortable truth that even if you did want to believe in something greater, you have no way of knowing which religion is true.

Sorry, first post here and I am sure this gets said a lot... but surely the response to this is;

You cant prove a negative.

Its not our job to disprove the bible.. its YOUR job to prove it. You say its the truth, you say its right. Prove it. Provide me with evidence.

Quote from: "Xalle"Sorry, first post here and I am sure this gets said a lot... but surely the response to this is;

You cant prove a negative.

Its not our job to disprove the bible.. its YOUR job to prove it. You say its the truth, you say its right. Prove it. Provide me with evidence.

Hah, like theists care about evidence.  

Quote from: "Loffler"What you need, OP, are some Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, and Jewish friends. This "Christian" and "Non-Christian" split you've got is a false dichotomy.

I don't want you to see the differences in the arguments from Christians and atheists. I want you to see the SIMILARITIES in arguments from people of different religions. For example:

People of nearly all religions will point to miracles as proof of THEIR religion.
People of nearly all religions will consider their religious texts holy and often inerrant.
People of nearly all religions will say non-belief or at least wrong action through non-belief will be punished in the next life.
People of nearly all religions will cite personal experience with their deity, and say this personal experience cannot be argued against.
People of any religion can go to the old mainstays of the ontological proof, the cosmological proof, or the appeal to design and say this proves THEIR God.

As you study all the thousands of religions out there and find that they are all just as convinced and steeped in their beliefs as Christians, you'll have to face the uncomfortable truth that even if you did want to believe in something greater, you have no way of knowing which religion is true.

Quote from: "toadhall"

Quote from: "Loffler"What you need, OP, are some Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, and Jewish friends. This "Christian" and "Non-Christian" split you've got is a false dichotomy.

I don't want you to see the differences in the arguments from Christians and atheists. I want you to see the SIMILARITIES in arguments from people of different religions. For example:

People of nearly all religions will point to miracles as proof of THEIR religion.
People of nearly all religions will consider their religious texts holy and often inerrant.
People of nearly all religions will say non-belief or at least wrong action through non-belief will be punished in the next life.
People of nearly all religions will cite personal experience with their deity, and say this personal experience cannot be argued against.
People of any religion can go to the old mainstays of the ontological proof, the cosmological proof, or the appeal to design and say this proves THEIR God.

As you study all the thousands of religions out there and find that they are all just as convinced and steeped in their beliefs as Christians, you'll have to face the uncomfortable truth that even if you did want to believe in something greater, you have no way of knowing which religion is true.

Hi toadhall, I'm confused about what your banging head icon was in reference to. Does it show your frustration of religious people who don't recognize the inherent similarities, or does it show that you think Loffler doesn't "get it"? It was a very good argument, I've even heard some devout Christians acknowledge
such things.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"Of course you *can* study anything you want from any perspective you can conceive of (and can obtain). I personally believe that if you chose, you *could* see the Bible from a Christian perspective (without necessarily believing it). You choose not to, and for fairly understandable reasons (why put your mind in such a weird state for no benefit). The unfortunate part is that it makes for communication difficulties with those who accept that perspective as their default world-view.

I choose to not see anything from a christians perspective, same as I choose to not see anything from any other religion's perspective. I do this because I choose to believe in rationality and facts, not parable and fables. I see your bible from the perspective that it was written by man in a long period of time after the events in the bible were claimed to have occurred. You are correct when you ask why I would put my mind in such a weird state for no benefit, I wouldn't because for me there is nothing beneficiary in the bible. If I were to blindly believe in the bible and ignore the facts which science presents to me, then I could possibly see things from a christian perspective.
As for the communication difficulties of which you speak, I do not have to accept your perspective to communicate with you. You do not have to accept my perspectives to communicate with me. Now, for you to change my mind, I would have to accept your perspectives. A complete lack of evidence to support the claims of the bible lead me to believe that is not going to happen.
That being said, do you choose to see anything from a muslim perspective? Or a jewish perspective? Or a mormon perspective? My guess is you could try to all you want, but until you completely believed what they do, you won't be able to do it.

Well, my collection of spare Bibles have gone missing, so until I can dig one out of my closet, (probably this weekend,) I can answer questions!

Quote from: "jcm"1. The great flood would have needed cloud cover so dense it would have blocked out the sun, thus killing noah and all the animals he was trying to save.
  Miracle
Wow, what an amazing cop-out. It is now up to you to show me some kind of evidence that the great flood did in fact happen.

2. Women are not made out of male bones.
  Miracle
Seriously?!? How would you believe that based on the overwhelming evidence for evolution? It is unbelievable that you would trust the bible’s claim that the first woman on earth was some how fashioned from the first man’s rib cage. Most life forms have two sexes and that is due to evolution, not from a special makeshift mutated piece of bone. Human beings did not simply pop into existence; it was a gradual process full of many proceeding forms of life that diverged into two separate sexes some time in the past.

3. Snakes don’t talk
  Miracle or They did then
WTF?. What evidence do you have that suggests snakes evolved to the point of having language? My theory on this is, ancient people saw snakes as evil because of their hypnotic eyes and poisonous bite. The fear and stories surrounding these creature may have been past down through generations and became warped and embellished. The shape of a snake is phallic and would carry sexual connotations and would evoke sinfulness. A tongue that is used to explore its environment might suggest an ability to communicate through language. I have not researched this, but this all seems way more likely than the devil talking through a snake.

4. The earth is not older than our sun
  ("science")The atoms that make them up would be the same age, (/"science") Way too many questions regarding sure determination of sun age, earth age, other things
So everything is the same age? Come on!
Matter (hydrogen) in a region of space condenses by gravity to forms stars and left over matter condenses to form planets and moons. This in happening now and has happened in the past. Stars are older than the planets that orbit them.

http://origins.stsci.edu/faq/planetary-systems.html (http://origins.stsci.edu/faq/planetary-systems.html)

5. The moon is not a “small sun” that creates light in the same way the sun does.
  The moon is a "lesser light" that "rules the night"
You are a poet and didn’t know it. The moon does NOT shine it reflects light from the sun. Day and night are earth terms that don’t really make sense out in the universe. The moon just happens to be there. And I guess the stars a perfectly positioned to help us too?

6. Rainbows existed before the great flood.
  You have no proof, only presumption that things were the same then as they are now
 

QuoteA rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. They take the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch.

A prism can be used to break light up into its constituent spectral colors (the colors of the rainbow). Prisms can also be used to reflect light, or to split light into components with different polarizations.

Rain drops are acting as a prism. Are you telling me that a triangular piece of glass would have Not separated white light into a rainbow before the great flood? Science can do that experiment today. Light from a distance star that is just now reaching us from BEFORE the time of the great flood can arrive on earth and separated by a prism into a rainbow.

7. Thou shall not kill yet killing animals, insects, plants, bacteria, viruses and people who are deemed “evil” is morally acceptable.
  Thou shalt not murder - non-humans don't count, "state" executions are not murder, explicit orders from God overrule general principles
 I have heard my whole life “thou shall not kill” …something fishy going on there…
Regardless, how is it not murder to go around shooting animals for the sport of it? I knew a Baptist preacher who enjoys hunting and uses squirrels as target practice. How can it be morally justifiable to murder/kill creatures that have a desire to live, simply for fun?
Bad stewards, bad!

1. I didn't have "evidence of the flood" on my list, but I'll add it now.
However, calculations of cloud cover would be effectively impossible - the bible also mentions water being released from the underground, and does not specify the ratio of underground-to-rain water. Furthermore, at the time God was specifically controlling events - there's no way of telling if he simply ensured that specific things didn't die because he didn't want them to --- there would be no evidence *now* either way.

2. God was directly involved in creating the first woman out of a rib bone from the man.

Yes, if you take a male rib bone and sit it on the ground it will not spontaneously turn into a woman. That's why it's called a "miracle" - God directly interferes, causing something to happen that is beyond nature.

There is no evidence now that could prove it or disprove it.

3. Let me start by saying that there's no evidence now as to whether a specific snake talked or not. No way of proving it, therefore, it must be deducted from other established beliefs. You believe (I assume) that based on the evolutionary record (and other evidences) that there is no way that a snake could have spoken to a human. And quite rightly so - if you believed what you do and thought that snakes were chatting like crazy back in the day, I'd start to doubt your sanity. I believe that the Bible is true, and the Bible says that this snake talked. If I *didn't* believe that the snake talked, but still claimed to believe the Bible, then there would definitely be a problem.

4. Quoting your link:
"A cloud of interstellar gas, dust and ices, containing several generations of material, collapsed to form the nebula from which the Sun and the rest of our solar system grew."
The sun and the earth come from the same dust cloud, so their atoms are the same age.

Which is precisely what I said - I try not to put things into little ("science") tags unless I mean exactly what I say.

5. So you're saying that gold doesn't shine? Silver doesn't shine? Of course they do, they just don't generate the energy of the light themselves.
The sun, planets, stars, and the moon all provide luminance to the earth. Some through Incandescence, others by reflection.

I do not understand the relevance of you bringing up the irrelevance of earth-based time systems in non-earth zones. Are you suggesting communication would be clearer if we destroy our timepieces and only refer to "non-inertial-reference-frame-seconds" (so we can not be affected by time dilation due to earth's motion)?

6. We weren't there, and there's no proof either way. Prisms could have worked, but there might have been full cloud cover. There's no evidence available now that I can look into.

7. "kill" is a very general term in English, whereas the Bible was not written in English.

I agree with you, we should all be taking better care of "Spaceship Earth".

Quote from: "Loffler"What you need, OP, are some Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, and Jewish friends. This "Christian" and "Non-Christian" split you've got is a false dichotomy.

I don't want you to see the differences in the arguments from Christians and atheists. I want you to see the SIMILARITIES in arguments from people of different religions. [...]

I understand your point.

There are "ways" (which you would quite rightly scoff at) to explain things like that.

The thing is, I understand the Christian viewpoint and the Scientific viewpoint the best, so I'd rather work on the interactions between them (and naively assume that if Christianity isn't true, no religion is true) than try to learn more "possible" (but just as unprovable) viewpoints.

I've probably used the term "non-christian" when I was trying to mean non-theist, or perhaps simply atheist/agnostic. I apologize for any confusion.

Quote from: "Xalle"Sorry, first post here and I am sure this gets said a lot... but surely the response to this is;

You cant prove a negative.

Its not our job to disprove the bible.. its YOUR job to prove it. You say its the truth, you say its right. Prove it. Provide me with evidence.

Welcome to the forums!

You're right, it's not your job to disprove the Bible. I'm trying to make that my job.  

If I'm going to try to convince you that the Bible true, then I should most definitely provide evidence.

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"As for the communication difficulties of which you speak, I do not have to accept your perspective to communicate with you. You do not have to accept my perspectives to communicate with me. Now, for you to change my mind, I would have to accept your perspectives. A complete lack of evidence to support the claims of the bible lead me to believe that is not going to happen.
That being said, do you choose to see anything from a muslim perspective? Or a jewish perspective? Or a mormon perspective? My guess is you could try to all you want, but until you completely believed what they do, you won't be able to do it.

I disagree: we both must accept a common language and medium of communication (voice, text, etc) in order to communicate at all. Similarly, we must accept common definitions of terms (like "bread", or "chair") in order to understand each other. The degree to which we can agree upon a shared perspective is directly proportional to the depth at which we can communicate.

This extends to false perspectives: if I say "This television set is beautiful", and then you find out that I mean "cake" when I say "television set", you do not have to agree with my definition to understand what I'm saying. However, without knowing my perspective, you would not be able to figure out what I mean.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"As for the communication difficulties of which you speak, I do not have to accept your perspective to communicate with you. You do not have to accept my perspectives to communicate with me. Now, for you to change my mind, I would have to accept your perspectives. A complete lack of evidence to support the claims of the bible lead me to believe that is not going to happen.
That being said, do you choose to see anything from a muslim perspective? Or a jewish perspective? Or a mormon perspective? My guess is you could try to all you want, but until you completely believed what they do, you won't be able to do it.

I disagree: we both must accept a common language and medium of communication (voice, text, etc) in order to communicate at all. Similarly, we must accept common definitions of terms (like "bread", or "chair") in order to understand each other. The degree to which we can agree upon a shared perspective is directly proportional to the depth at which we can communicate.

This extends to false perspectives: if I say "This television set is beautiful", and then you find out that I mean "cake" when I say "television set", you do not have to agree with my definition to understand what I'm saying. However, without knowing my perspective, you would not be able to figure out what I mean.

Yet again, you have not only misunderstood everything I have said, you have also completely avoided the topic at hand. Where did this become a conversation about needing a common language to communicate? I was under the assumption that perspective means perspective, and not language. Are you intentionally trying to not make sense and confuse so that you can ultimately prove a point? If so, please come out with that point.
So again I will say, I do not have to agree with your perspective to communicate with you.

Quote from: "ministrelofc"Of course you *can* study anything you want from any perspective you can conceive of (and can obtain). I personally believe that if you chose, you *could* see the Bible from a Christian perspective (without necessarily believing it). You choose not to, and for fairly understandable reasons (why put your mind in such a weird state for no benefit). The unfortunate part is that it makes for communication difficulties with those who accept that perspective as their default world-view.

Again, this is the message which I quoted and was responding to. How in the world did you get from that quote to this:

Quote from: "ministrelofc"if I say "This television set is beautiful", and then you find out that I mean "cake" when I say "television set", you do not have to agree with my definition to understand what I'm saying.

I'm just confused, so I think I need to stop trying to figure out what your side of the argument means. Perhaps if I need your definitions of words to understand what you're saying, you should either define them your own way as you go, or use the words you use as they are intended to be used. Because "I don't have to accept your perspective to communicate with you" means something quite different from "I don't have to accept your language to communicate with you."

Quote from: "Miss Anthrope"

Quote from: "toadhall"

Quote from: "Loffler"What you need, OP, are some Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, and Jewish friends. This "Christian" and "Non-Christian" split you've got is a false dichotomy.

I don't want you to see the differences in the arguments from Christians and atheists. I want you to see the SIMILARITIES in arguments from people of different religions. For example:

People of nearly all religions will point to miracles as proof of THEIR religion.
People of nearly all religions will consider their religious texts holy and often inerrant.
People of nearly all religions will say non-belief or at least wrong action through non-belief will be punished in the next life.
People of nearly all religions will cite personal experience with their deity, and say this personal experience cannot be argued against.
People of any religion can go to the old mainstays of the ontological proof, the cosmological proof, or the appeal to design and say this proves THEIR God.

As you study all the thousands of religions out there and find that they are all just as convinced and steeped in their beliefs as Christians, you'll have to face the uncomfortable truth that even if you did want to believe in something greater, you have no way of knowing which religion is true.

:brick: is a very powerful icon for escalating the tone of a post to become offensive and insulting, both of which are detrimental to the quality of a debate. However despite this I've come across it often on this board, used and accepted as a legitimate rebuttal. Perhaps you can explain?

However, on to Loffler's argument:

Quote from: "Loffler"People of nearly all religions will point to miracles as proof of THEIR religion.

In the book of Acts, the author describes how cripples are instantly healed by the power of Jesus. If this were true wouldn't you say it was testimony to the power of Jesus, not Zeus?
This is not the same as someone praying for rain tomorrow. A miracle is a supernatural event that can only be attributed to a god, and if one can be proven to have occurred, then all we'd need to do is discover which god was asked.

Quote from: "Loffler"People of nearly all religions will consider their religious texts holy and often inerrant.

I don't know what you're getting at with the word "holy", but the Bible is a series of books, mostly narrative but some teaching, written by several individual authors over different periods of time.

Loffler, I think it'd be better to amend all those statements with "Some people" instead of just "people", because I certainly don't agree with all those things.
Again, I used the brick icon because it seems to be somewhat part of HAF's culture. No offense meant.

Quote from: "toadhall"To tell the you the truth, Miss Anthrope, I just thought I'd try it out.   is a very powerful icon for escalating the tone of a post to become offensive and insulting, both of which are detrimental to the quality of a debate. However despite this I've come across it often on this board, used and accepted as a legitimate rebuttal. Perhaps you can explain?

I'm not sure what you're asking me to explain. Do you mean the comment?

Ideally, the brick comment is used to reply when someone isn't "getting" something in a line of discussion, or when bad logic is being used. Since Loffler's post was in reference to one sided belief sytems and bad logic, I wasn't sure if you were using the icon to show that you're frustrated by the inability of many religious people to understand the similarities between religions, or if you thought that what Loffler was saying didn't make any sense.

I certainly wasn't questioning your right to use it or express your beliefs, I just wasn't clear about the meaning. Using the brick icon as a reply to relatively long posts can be confusing, so in such cases it's usually a good idea to add your arguments to your reply so that everyone knows why your banging your head.

Just posting   has never been considered a 'legitimate' rebuttal as it does not rebut anything; it just expresses a poster's emotional reaction to a post.

If this needs to be discussed futher I will need to split it off from this thread to avoid a derail.

Quote from: "toadhall"

Quote from: "Loffler"People of nearly all religions will point to miracles as proof of THEIR religion.

In the book of Acts, the author describes how cripples are instantly healed by the power of Jesus. If this were true wouldn't you say it was testimony to the power of Jesus, not Zeus?

I don't understand your point.

QuoteThis is not the same as someone praying for rain tomorrow. A miracle is a supernatural event that can only be attributed to a god, and if one can be proven to have occurred, then all we'd need to do is discover which god was asked.

First of all, no. A miracle does not have to be attributed to a god. That's a very theistic assumption. It could also be from a river spirit, a fairy, the Trix rabbit, transdimensional aliens, or our collective psychic unconscious.

Secondly, what if thousands of different gods got asked?

Quote

Quote from: "Loffler"People of nearly all religions will consider their religious texts holy and often inerrant.

I don't know what you're getting at with the word "holy", but the Bible is a series of books, mostly narrative but some teaching, written by several individual authors over different periods of time.

Again, I don't understand your point.

QuoteLoffler, I think it'd be better to amend all those statements with "Some people" instead of just "people", because I certainly don't agree with all those things.

No, my statement is correct. If I'd said "all people" I would amend it. But I didn't. So I won't. "People" does not automatically mean "all people."

If I said "People are talking about your new hat," you'd know I didn't mean every person on Earth or even all the people I know.

QuoteAgain, I used the brick icon because it seems to be somewhat part of HAF's culture. No offense meant.

None comprehended.

Quote from: "toadhall"A miracle is a supernatural event that can only be attributed to a god,

False. A miracle is a supernatural event that can only be attributed to humans who lack the knowledge necessary to find the true answer for what has occurred. Oddly enough, your god can be replaced for miracle in this sentence as well.

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"

Quote from: "toadhall"A miracle is a supernatural event that can only be attributed to a god,

False. A miracle is a supernatural event that can only be attributed to humans who lack the knowledge necessary to find the true answer for what has occurred. Oddly enough, your god can be replaced for miracle in this sentence as well.

The direction I was going was that even if it's a completely inexplicable miracle and defies all physics now and forever, it is not evidence of a deity. This is the fault of theists: they have chosen to point out that all the order in the universe is itself evidence of a deity. If this is the case, miracles would be evidence AGAINST a deity by violating the orderliness of the universe. Lucky for them, their assertion is nonsense: neither order nor miracles prove God exists.

Hi everyone, got sidetracked for about to weeks.  Today I scrolled up in notepad, where I keep all my ideas I'm working on (I never shut off my computer, though I do save the file periodically), and saw a two-week-old rebuttal to minstrelofc.  I didn't post it originally because I was also going to rebut his responses to other people, but in hindsight, you guys can cover your own bases very well, and since my bit is done, no reason not to drop it before I find another excuse to forget about it.   ;) ).

I've already evaluated the atheistic/agnostic perspective as being (outwardly) valid, if I accept the initial conditions of (for example) starting by not believing anything, and accepting things only when they are "proven".[/quote]
I don't know what to say.  If you find atheism "outwardly" valid, and have no proof (which is the only reason I can surmise that you are trying to restrict shifting it back to the person asserting the claim), then I can only assume that your desire for a god to exist is the only reason you believe in one.  (rant to Christians in general) How proud must you be to think your desires shape reality??  It's not as though I want to die a permanent death sometime this century, it's not as though I want to be a primate who shares an ancestor with chimps, apes, and somewhere further up, crocodiles and squirrels, it's not as though I want to be all alone when I am alone, it's not as though I want to cast off a creator who would see to my every need, be apprised of my every journey, and make me wise of the spirit, it's not as though I want morality to be subjective, nor any other advantageous thing you can claim God brings.   But there is no evidence that any of the above is the case.  You have a book that makes claims and has as much backing as the Koran.  The Bible is, in fact, demonstrably wrong about a host of things when those who believe in it don't shift the meanings at will.  The implied age of the universe, the worldwide flood, how the universe was created, and a so much more that I can't remember or haven't yet learned of.  The only thing Christianity ever had was desire for its tenants to be true.  But that is a powerful thing, so powerful that it is unlikely to be broken by any one statement.  The person who believes must ask themselves why they do, no amount of debunking will suffice for a matter of faith, especially one so well malleable as Christianity.  The excuse "Well, maybe God did it like this. . . " will always be available, even if the output no longer looks like the God of the Bible.  And it will always be viable until you're willing to question your belief instead of questioning us as to why you should't have it.

Beyond that, all we can give you is logical, scientific, and historical arguments as to why the Bible cannot be right, and you have a clear path for getting around all three if you so desire.

Quotejcm: Snakes don't talk

Miracle, or maybe they did then.

Listen to yourself! I mean really, talking snakes? You seriously see nothing wrong with that? Nothing there seems like it might not tally with reality?

This thread is an absolute farce. I hereby remove myself from it with extreme prejudice (unless I need to come back with a witty quip after I have been wished good riddance )!

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"Yet again, you have not only misunderstood everything I have said, you have also completely avoided the topic at hand. Where did this become a conversation about needing a common language to communicate? I was under the assumption that perspective means perspective, and not language. Are you intentionally trying to not make sense and confuse so that you can ultimately prove a point? If so, please come out with that point.
So again I will say, I do not have to agree with your perspective to communicate with you.

We're having trouble communicating. In the context of what you are saying, what is your definition of "perspective"? I've been defining it as a system of assumptions, or axioms, upon which a philosophical viewpoint is constructed.

Quote from: "PipeBox"

Quote from: "minstrelofc"I refuse to accept this as a valid thing for God to do. However, I have some conflicting data, so I'll have to get back to you on exactly why once (and if) I can resolve it.

It must be a valid thing for God to do, how else will you explain the star light, not to mention a whole host of sciences that are at odds with a biblical timeline.  I know you don't have time to research all of radiometric dating, nor study topics like fused chromosomes and ERVs, nor study archaeology and astronomy, but the alternative is that 99% of scientists are inept in these fields or that they're lying to you and everytime a new person figures it out by studying all of it, they're invited into the Conspiracy Club.  The only way you can account for these inconsistencies is if your benevolent God is testing you.  The alternatives are that God is malevolent, God is insane, or that Satan utterly wrecked God's glorious plans and he was unable to prevent or fix it.

Timeline-wise I'm not fully convinced either way.
See this link: http://www.aish.com/societyWork/science ... iverse.asp (http://www.aish.com/societyWork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp)
It has some fascinating data on how 1500 year old Talmudic commentaries expressed a clear division between the days of creation and the days after Adam was created. It even ties it into Relativity.

Was Faraday inept because he didn't fully figure out electromagnetism? Of course not - he was working with a field that hadn't (as still hasn't) been fully explained. Scientists today are the same - they're working with the best data they have, but haven't figured everything out.

Quote from: "PipeBox"

Quote from: "minstrelofc"Unorganized thoughts: (I recognize it as valid for God to provide less data than we need to be scientifically certain, but not valid to destroy incidental data. Perhaps a perfect being would not need to destroy "dangerous" evidence because they would have done a better job (or at least done a different thing) in the first place.)

If this is the case, God definitely owes me a showing, because all of that previous stuff is definitely correct and he has no reason to hide from me.  Indeed, I desire my burning bush, booming voice, and discussion with corporeal Elijah, Moses, and Jesus.  If God isn't trying to cover it up to "keep it a matter of faith," where is he?

You're not getting what I'm saying. Repeat performances: no. Evidence of past performances: maybe. Non-disproof of past performances: Yes.

I hope you can see the difference there.

Quote from: "PipeBox"

Quote from: "minstrelofc""testing the world because he must" - I do not see which part of His character would compel Him in this circumstance.

Isn't the Old Testament pretty much him testing and subsequently passing or failing pretty much everyone he comes in contact with?  I mean, even in the New Testament, salvation is pretty much the grandest test of all.  God offers salvation through a dusty book and, if you're lucky, some occasional gut impulses, and, leaving no other proof, then waits to see who gets in  . . .  Not a test at all . . .

That or each person's salvation is personal and individual. All evidence you encounter is provided specifically for you, and you yourself may decide if you're going to believe in Him or not.

Quote from: "PipeBox"I don't know what to say.  If you find atheism "outwardly" valid, and have no proof (which is the only reason I can surmise that you are trying to restrict shifting it back to the person asserting the claim), then I can only assume that your desire for a god to exist is the only reason you believe in one.
[...]
Beyond that, all we can give you is logical, scientific, and historical arguments as to why the Bible cannot be right, and you have a clear path for getting around all three if you so desire.

It's not desire, it's choice. (Much like (Christian) marriage, but that's another discussion )

If you have a multiple choice question on a test, and have no proof on hand as to which answer is correct, then you make a choice. You can leave it blank, and get no marks, or you can make a choice, double-check that your answer is not provably incorrect, and have a chance of getting it right.

(note that the above is NOT why I believe, it's simply a very limited logical device to explain one reason I'm pursuing this - double-checking that my chosen answer is not provably incorrect)

And yes, many potentially valid arguments can be evaded by pre-belief in the Bible, but that's why I'm working on finding one that is very difficult to evade.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"Yet again, you have not only misunderstood everything I have said, you have also completely avoided the topic at hand. Where did this become a conversation about needing a common language to communicate? I was under the assumption that perspective means perspective, and not language. Are you intentionally trying to not make sense and confuse so that you can ultimately prove a point? If so, please come out with that point.
So again I will say, I do not have to agree with your perspective to communicate with you.

We're having trouble communicating. In the context of what you are saying, what is your definition of "perspective"? I've been defining it as a system of assumptions, or axioms, upon which a philosophical viewpoint is constructed.

Sorry, but you're making no sense. Perhaps if you were able to keep your arguments (whatever those may be, I'm still confused by everything you say) in order, it may be possible to have a discussion. I have read through this thread many times now, focusing on the exchange between us, and I still have no idea what point you are trying to make.
From what I can find from rereading the thread (try it) is that I think you are trying to take on too many arguments at once. You will write something, a whole page of responses (well thought out) will come up, and then a few days later you will attempt to respond to everyone in one (not well thought out, IMO) post. I think that is the source of my frustration with you and your thread right now. I would suggest that if you want to make a pro-religious thread on an atheist forum, you should take the time to go back and really read what has been said. Do not just read it, but really digest it, pay close attention. Then, spend time really thinking about what your position is, and do your best to answer everything in an honest and clarifying way. It will make threads such as this less frustrating for you, and everyone else involved in the discussion. Please think about it before you alienate more people who are just trying to have an honest discussion with you. Anyway, that's just my $.02 before I agree with SSY:

Quote from: "SSY"I hereby remove myself from it with extreme prejudice (unless I need to come back with a witty quip after I have been wished good riddance )!

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"Sorry, but you're making no sense. Perhaps if you were able to keep your arguments (whatever those may be, I'm still confused by everything you say) in order, it may be possible to have a discussion. I have read through this thread many times now, focusing on the exchange between us, and I still have no idea what point you are trying to make.

Ah. I think I see where the confusion is coming from.

This is not a pro-religious thread.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that my beliefs are true.


For the record, my "argument" in our discussions has been that the assumptions we start with determine what we believe. (assuming correct use of logic after that point)

If you start by assuming you know nothing, you will end up Agnostic.

If you start by assuming that the Bible is true, you will end up Christian.

If you start by assuming the FSM, you will end up Pastafarian.


Can we agree on that point?


EDIT:
You may, of course, disagree. Or be confused.

If either are true, I suggest you try one of the following responses:
"minstrelofc, you're wrong! Assuming that you know anything to start with is faulty logic!"
"minstrelofc, you're wrong! Assuming that you know nothing is not really an assumption!"
"minstrelofc, you're wrong! If you assume you know nothing, you'll end up Atheist, not Agnostic!"
etc.

EDIT #2:
If you feel I'm not making sense, DON'T just give up. Point out *exactly* what I said that didn't make sense. I'm not trying to confuse; I'm trying to be clear.

If I'm using unfamiliar cliches, expecting everyone to understand what I mean, then I need them pointed out to me so I can stop using them. Likewise, if I'm doing anything else that is interfering with clear communication, I need specific details so I can correct the problem and communicate more effectively.

Having briefly scanned this thread I would say the following, first that the bible, despite your attempt to claim otherwise, has got the value of pi wrong since it clearly states:

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. (1 Kings 7:23)

Quite clearly, according to your bible Pi is 3.

I also take exception to your attempts to jump out of the genesis argument by waffling on about days not being days:

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1:4-5

The above makes it crystal clear that they are talking about days, not weeks, not years, not millennia, but literal 24 hour days ... you can argue this any which way you like but you CANNOT get away from the fact that it clearly means days as supported by the terms morning and evening etc. Whichever way you look at it that makes your bible NOT a book of fact but one of allegory and that presents you with a number of philosophical problems.

Regardless that isn't why I posted here, I posted her to let you know I've posted my own challenge to you:

For Minstrelofc, Titan & Any Other Christian: A Challenge! (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2710)

Have fun twisting your way out of it (I have absolutely NO expectation that you will take it up honestly and carry it through to completion).

Kyu

Quote from: "minstrelofc"For the record, my "argument" in our discussions has been that the assumptions we start with determine what we believe. (assuming correct use of logic after that point)

If you start by assuming you know nothing, you will end up Agnostic.

If you start by assuming that the Bible is true, you will end up Christian.

If you start by assuming the FSM, you will end up Pastafarian.


Can we agree on that point?

That's a valid point.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"You may, of course, disagree. Or be confused.

If either are true, I suggest you try one of the following responses:
"minstrelofc, you're wrong! Assuming that you know anything to start with is faulty logic!"

Assuming that you know the answer to questions that have not been answered is faulty logic, and leads to not searching for the truth.

Quote from: "minstrelofc""minstrelofc, you're wrong! Assuming that you know nothing is not really an assumption!"

It's an assumption, a slightly lazy one perhaps, but an assumption. In my opinion, it's a better and safer assumption than assuming there is a god.

Quote from: "minstrelofc""minstrelofc, you're wrong! If you assume you know nothing, you'll end up Atheist, not Agnostic!"

Nope. If you assume you don't have the answers, that would be agnostic. If you don't have the answers but open your mind to the proofs which present themselves to you through research by way of the scientific method, and you do not attribute everything you do not have proof for to a deity which there is no proof for, then you can end up being an atheist.
You see, atheism is unique from religion in that it does not rely on assumptions or faith, it relies on proof.

Quote from: "minstrelofc"If you feel I'm not making sense, DON'T just give up. Point out *exactly* what I said that didn't make sense. I'm not trying to confuse; I'm trying to be clear.

I have been pointing out what has not made any sense in your previous posts. I feel like this is the first post to me which you have actually spent time attempting to make it clear what you are trying to say to me. You did not respond to 5 different people in one post this time. You responded to me. Thank you for that.

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"

Quote from: "minstrelofc"Can we agree on that point?

That's a valid point.

Yay! We agree!

Quote from: "Ihateyoumike"

Quote from: "minstrelofc""minstrelofc, you're wrong! Assuming that you know anything to start with is faulty logic!"

Assuming that you know the answer to questions that have not been answered is faulty logic, and leads to not searching for the truth.

Quote from: "minstrelofc""minstrelofc, you're wrong! Assuming that you know nothing is not really an assumption!"

It's an assumption, a slightly lazy one perhaps, but an assumption. In my opinion, it's a better and safer assumption than assuming there is a god.

Quote from: "minstrelofc""minstrelofc, you're wrong! If you assume you know nothing, you'll end up Atheist, not Agnostic!"

Nope. If you assume you don't have the answers, that would be agnostic. If you don't have the answers but open your mind to the proofs which present themselves to you through research by way of the scientific method, and you do not attribute everything you do not have proof for to a deity which there is no proof for, then you can end up being an atheist.
You see, atheism is unique from religion in that it does not rely on assumptions or faith, it relies on proof.

Wow, I wasn't expecting you to answer my proposed counter-arguments.

I'm glad you agree that assuming you know nothing is actually an assumption. I'm not so sure it's a lazy assumption - it seems fairly good to me. In fact, if you are going to end up with all the data, then starting by assuming you know nothing is the very best assumption you can have - it ensures that you will approach the data in an unbiased fashion, and will end up with the correct conclusion. It's even better when teamed up with Science, whose very purpose is to get *all* of the data.

Assuming you already know something, however, is dangerous. If you're wrong, then even if you end up with all the data, you could very easily end up with a biased conclusion.

I'm fairly sure you'd agree with all that; the only sticking point I can see is the "getting all the data" part.

Personally, I believe that as you encounter the data (in your quest to get it all), you could very easily end up with some sort of data bias - you've got 20% of the data, but you have no way of telling if that data is representative of the rest of the data. (If you were getting all of the data in a random fashion, you could determine the probability of the rest of the data conforming to the data you have, but how can you ensure you're getting the data randomly?) If you are getting data bias, then at any one point on your journey, you could be significantly incorrect - even though you will end up correct in the end.

On the other hand, if you assume something, and by some freak chance you're right, then you've got a good idea where the other data will eventually lead. This could be an advantage, especially if all of the data that exists will not be collected within your lifetime.

Now, before I make my last point(s?), does all that make sense? Any parts you disagree with?

This is my most rational argument against the Bible being valid. Nearly any Christian in the world asserts that God allows bad things to happen. Of course it's out fault, we're the sinful humans and it's all our fault, but no Christian can say that bad things don't happen.

So here is my most rational argument against the Bible - if God didn't stop the Holocaust, God didn't stop killer viruses, God didn't stop all the Earthquakes and tsunamis, God didn't stop the rise of 10,000 false religions, why would God stop anyone's attempt to distort the Bible and rewrite it? It's clear that the Christian perspective involves God never physically stopping sinners, so why would God prevent the Bible from being distorted over 2000 years if he protected nothing else in the world?