The Bible is literally true.

[Jingus 0]

Allah. Or G-d. Any monotheistic god who isn't the Christian God.

[Nighthawk 0]

If Catholics aren't Christians, then are you saying that Christianity didn't really exist from Catholicism's rise to power until the time of Martin Luther?  (And no, the Greek Orthodox doesn't count.)  Also, I still don't see how one man has the right to tell another one what religion he does or doesn't belong to.

 

Christianity can exist outside an organized church. It's also worth noting that the Catholic church of today is far different from the way it used to be, and I was speaking of the church of today. It was actually far worse in Luther's day, but you can't generally say "Catholicism" and have it mean the same thing throughout it's history. One man has the right to tell another that based on Biblical authority. The other man is free to retort from the Bible. I'm speaking of Christianity, because it is defined by the Bible. You can make exclusitory statements based on the defining structure of a religion (or anything else for that matter), in this case, the Bible.

 

You're presuming that I don't know anything about quantum physics or prehistoric science in general.  It's true, I don't know all that much, but you didn't know that before calling me "uninformed".

 

No, I'm presuming that you don't know that carbon 14 has no relation to prehistory. A presumption which I was correct in, based on your response. It's all layed out a couple pages back if you want to see what I mean.

 

The basis of reasoning and logical proofs is rationality.  Honestly, I think that mathematics are the only thing in the universe that are infallible; one plus one always equals two, and there's really nothing else in the universe which always has the exact same outcome every single time given the same opening circumstances. 

 

How is rationality a bias, or circular reasoning?  Aside from the possible argument that all humans are flawed and cannot possibly know or espouse real truth, I really don't see where you get this plot point.

 

But you forgot Chaos Theory, d00d. The issue is that rationality presupposes that something cannot exist outside reasoning and logical proof, therefore, reason is the ultimate authority. Christianity presupposes that God is the ultimate authority, and can transcend reason and logical proof. Since one counters the other, you reach an impass as far as who speaks with greater authority.

 

How is the lack of God "scientifically laughable"?  I'd say the exact opposite is true.  If anything, the vast majority of scientific evidence strongly disagrees with the Bible's version of the world.

 

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but if you say there's no God and never was, you're saying that everything that exists came into being out of nothing, motivated by nobody, and that is utterly ridiculous. Step outside what you've been told all your life and you'll see that it is. This is the Big Lie all over again. I didn't say science proves the Christian God, just that a God is the logical conclusion.

 

That's my problem: God has been, shall we say, less than clear with me about what his ultimate goals are.

 

God wants you to love him for who he is.

 

My point is, I don't think that I should be arbitrarily judged impure for a lot of the stuff that the Bible says I will be.  Like whose holes I stick my dick into, for example.  One would think that God has more important matters to attend to.

 

Well, if God said it, it's not really arbitrary. I could speak more on the subject of sin, but it's a less pressing issue at the moment. Sometime you might want to read 1 Corinthians 6, it presents a perspective on sin that I think most Christians don't grasp as well as they ought.

 

So explain to me what I don't understand about it.  God knows who will be saved or not ahead of time, being omnipotent; he either does or does not take action one way or another to change a soul's destination.  Thus, God decides whether a person is saved or damned long before they even exist.  Is that not correct?

 

It is, but free will is true at the same time, which is the part you don't understand. God gave us free will, but because he is God, he is somewhat outside the concept of it. It's not the easiest thing to understand. I think you've read Watchmen, the chapter with Laurie and Jon on Mars helps some people to understand a truer concept of predestination.

 

So if you were God you'd do it differently, eh?

 

Yes.

 

This reminds me of a Jim Carrey movie... what was it? Oh yeah, Dumb and Dumber. But no, I think most people would have their own ideas. Even me. But then, we're not God, so we don't really know. It depends on what you wanted to accomplish. I'll refer to that later.

 

Or he could've found a way to make humanity exist with choice but without suffering; with souls, but without misery.  With happiness and without sorrow.  A contradiction, yes, but I'm sure he could've managed.  He's God, he can do anything, right?

 

He's God, not Santa Claus. Actually, God can't do anything, now that you mention it. He's bound by his own nature. He can't sin, for example. There's also stupid Zen riddles like creating a rock so big he can't lift it, but that's sunday school nonsense. But I digress... in a long handed way, I think you've asked God to make 2 plus 2 5, another thing he can't do.

 

And I completely fail to see how there is no other way.  There are infinite other ways.  With an omnipotent being, the choices would never merely be A or B.

 

Ok, yeah. I'm presupposing the existance of Hell as we know it to say that by God's nature he must send someone there. But then again, I could say some things about the Bible's teachings on Hell. I wouldn't defend the lake of fire version with as much vigor, because I think there's some unexplored territory with Hell, and Satan also. SP and I might discuss it sometime, because I don't think you guys would debate me. Maybe once I have some time, weekendor so, I'll talk a little about that. But even without that, God doesn't send someone to Hell if they don't deserve it, and it's his place alone to decide who does.

 

If I'm predestined to do something, then I'm hardly "free" to do anything, by the very nature of the concept.  Also, where'd this "sovereignty" and "trinity" stuff come from?  Why the descent into ten-dollar preacher words all of the sudden? 

 

They're true at the same time as I alluded to earlier, a concept contradictory on the surface. I used the preacher words because I thought it was funny, and I'm glad you picked up on it.

 

And what happens to all these souls damned before the miracle of Jesus?  Does God just say, "Oops, I sent you to Earth too early, now BURN FOR IT!"?

 

No, there was a different system of salvation before Jesus. They were still saved by him, but by looking forward to it, as opposed to us looking back on it. That's why there are old and new testaments. Testaments refers to the covenant of salvation.

 

Firstly, definre what you mean by "sovereignty and cause" in this context. 

 

Secondly, I'm older than you, booger-head. 

 

I mean that there is a difference between God knowing and having control over something simply by his nature as God, and God making something happen. It's a common error, which I didn't explicity see you bring up, though you were in the neighborhood.

 

If God didn't want them to go to Hell, why didn't he just, y'know, NOT SEND THEM THERE?  Once again: he can do anything he wants, he's God! 

 

Ok, avoiding the Hell issue again, God wants something else. He wants you to love him, but not just cause he's God.

 

Now you're using the suffering of Christ as an example of the worst thing a person can go through?  Jesus spent a few hours on a cross.  A nasty way to die, yeah, but hardly the worst.  Call me back when Jesus dies after spending decades paralyzed in bed from an agonizing brain tumor.

 

There was spiritual suffering here as well. He was enduring the punishment for all the sins ever. It was the worst part, and that's why it was worse than the movie.

 

Me too.  I hadn't gotten to it yet, but burning babies is actually one of the trademark points I make in these discussions.

 

Oh, I can counter it just as well, which I will, when I work through Aleister LaVey's post down there.

[Nighthawk 0]

I'll rephrase:

 

Disproving the existance of one god does not prove the existance of another.

Nope, sure doesn't.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

The alternative is no God, which in an unbiased world would be scientifically laughable, or a different God, which can be proven false.

 

I'm interested to see how you would prove that there isn't a different God.

Give me a god and I will. I can't do them all at once.

Ok....um...

 

Prove that there is no Zeus.

 

Or better yet, go for Vishnu - I think I spelled that wrong, but you know - the Hindu God.

[Nighthawk 0]

Plants couldn't have been here before the sun.  Neither could sunlight.

 

Has anyone here not heard this before? No? Let's move on.

 

The moon isn't a lesser light.

 

If you've ever used the word sunrise, you've violated your own logic.

 

Serpants don't talk.

 

Not anymore.

 

The sun and the moon are not set in the firmament.

 

There are two answers to this. One, the sunrise thing again. Two, study some Hebrew. Both will work.

 

There was no global flood.  There's a billion reasons why it didn't happen.  Everything from the mathematical reasons as to why you couldn't, for example, keep all those animals in a boat that size. To the flora that would all be dead since they can't survive submerged in water, nevermind that much for that amount of time. To the diseases that couldn't exist. To the fish that would have died. To the fact that there's no physical evidence for a global flood. To the fact that millions of animals can only survive in one place and only eat certain types of plants, and every single species wouldn't all be able to survive in one place at one time.

 

We talked about that already.

 

Earth is older than 6000 years.  We have records that go back further than that.

 

I never said it was 6000 years old, and the Bible doesn't either. Everything that you been saying is all bad.

 

The world is not flat with pillars holding the four corners, the sky is not a dome with little holes for the stars,  the sun doesn't travel around the earth and demons don't cause sickness.

 

The Bible's not allowed to use poetic language? It assumes you're smart enough to tell the difference. The Bible doesn't say the sun travels around the earth, it says the sun makes a circuit across the sky, which it does, from the perspective of the earth. The demons thing, you'd have to be more specific.

 

There's hundreds of contradictions.

 

Start naming them. But please check to see if someone has already tried.

 

Oh my god.  Please go here and educate yourself.  http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html  Be sure to look at the link with the observed instances of speciation.

 

I read that already. I'll note that I never denied evolution as a concept, I deny it as a theory of the origin of life and species. The theory is just that obviously wrong. Anyone who espouses it is ignorant (most people fall here, so that's not so bad), deluded or stupid.

 

There are really only two explanations for the universe, God or chance.

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-miscon...ons.html#chance

 

What did I just say? I should also mention that the linked text excludes itself from relevance to my statement, by the last sentence.

 

The Christian God is supposed to be love.  It isn't possible for something to be love and then create a hell where billions of people suffer forever. It isn't possible for God to be all-love and omnipotent and omniscient and then make a world full of evil, diseases, earthquakes, hurricanes, murderers, etc.. It's not just unlikely that he exists, it's impossible.  There you go.

 

Yeah, that is possible.

 

And one alternative is the Deistic God, who just created the universe and let it run on it's own, then went sleep somewhere.  I'd love to see you try to prove that false.  Another alternative is that we were created by a magic invincible goat from outer space.  Prove that false.  Or that the universe just always existed.  Prove that false too.

 

Easy. Those are proved false by Genesis.

 

This is a gimmick, right?  If God didn't send people to hell, we would be robots?  Do you also think that if Hitler didn't gas jews, they would be robots?

 

You've forgotten that I'm smarter than you. I addressed this in my response to Jingus.

 

There most certainly is another way.  He can NOT send people to hell.  Simple enough.  He's God, he can do anything.  He can create heaven for people that want to be him and then he could create a place like Earth for people that don't want to be with him.  If that's too much to ask, then he could simply snap his fingers and just make us all disappear.

 

Or he could torture everyone for fun. Yeah, what I said to Jingus again.

 

Anyone cold-hearted enough to accept someone who tortures people for eternity for not believing in him gets zero respect from me.  It's no different than nazis following Hitler knowing what he was doing.  But for some people, as long as he's nice to you, everything he does is fine I guess.

 

I'm a sick bastard, that's for sure.

 

No, he didn't.  He died for no reason at all.  The only reason he had to sacrifice himself so our sins could be forgiven was because God wanted himself to be sacrificed.  If he didn't, he could have just forgave sins without the sacrifice.  Jesus didn't die for us.  We weren't the ones that required a human sacrifice to fix sins. That was all God's idea.  Just think about what you're saying. God sacrificed himself to himself in order to save humanity from himself. It's hard to get more nonsensical than that.

 

This is what I meant by both sides of the argument being circular. You can't understand it, and since your understanding is the ultimate authority, it didn't happen. If God is the ultimate authority, you don't have to understand it, but that doesn't mean you can't. Again, God is omnipotent only to the point he isn't bound by his nature. Why do you think God gave us free will? He didn't have to, he was certaintly in no position to be swayed by our preference. You're right, God didn't have to sacrifice himself, so why did he? What would God gain by creating man in the first place? The answer's there, find it.

 

You can do more than that, you can prove it.  The bible says a belief in God is required, it doesn't make any exceptions.

 

Untrue. The standard of salvation is proportionate to your capability. This is also what applies to the people who have never heard of Christ. God doesn't demand more than someone can give. If you've never heard of Christ, believe in God in some loose, hippy way. Jesus said of children "such is the kingdom of heaven". David had a baby die (God killed it to punish him, so sit on that). He knew the baby went to heaven and said as much. Despite the popular image, God is not some oagrish taskmaster meting out judgement and holding man up to some impossible standard. It's easy to be saved. It's just that some people look it in the eye and say no. But all retards go to heaven too, so you'll be safe. Nah, I'm just playing.

[Nighthawk 0]

Ok....um...

 

Prove that there is no Zeus.

 

Or better yet, go for Vishnu - I think I spelled that wrong, but you know - the Hindu God.

Ya'll are missing the point. Do you worship Zues? Then who gives a shit. I'm not saying I want to sit here and play darts with a panteon of gods. I've chosen the Christian God, and several of you have attempted to discredit this viewpoint, and I have countered. If you follow some other god, I don't mind picking it apart as you have tried to do, and I'm confident you wouldn't be able to defend it as well as I have. Yeah, it's kind of hard to prove a negative, which is why people don't believe in gods who have no testable essence to them, such as the invincible goat. The Christian God does, however. Allah I could see. I don't feel like delving into Allah when I don't think there's any Muslims here, but I could. The same goes for Visnu.

[Guest Brian]

Serpants don't talk.

 

Not anymore.

I'm hoping to fucking god you're not serious.

[Nighthawk 0]

Serpants don't talk.

 

Not anymore.

I'm hoping to fucking god you're not serious.

Do you even know who I am?

[Guest SP-1]

Chaos tends to stick to the English, IDRM. Telling him to care about the Hebrew or any of that biblical study/proper interpretation stuff isn't going to get you very far.

[Guest SP-1]

UYI: Let me check some research and I'll get back to you on the Mark debate. I haven't forgotten our emails or PM's.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Not a problem, SP.

 

I'd just like to further my point - you make a legitimate claim that the Bible's consistency indicates truth and that if there was contridiction present in the information present within the Gospels, it would clearly signal falsity. However, consistency does *not* indicate truth at all. I found a great written piece on it recently:

 

CONSISTENCY (Ankerberg lists consistency and lack of

contradiction as two items; I fail to see the difference, so I

will treat them together):  Here, again, the Christian apologist

makes the mistake of taking the reverse of a valid rule of

evidence and creating a new (but invalid) rule.  A valid rule of

evidence is that contradiction indicates falsity (or: lack of

consistency indicates falsity).  The reverse of that statement

(consistency indicates truth) is NOT a valid rule of evidence.  I

have some personal experience dealing with witnesses at trial who

told very complex stories that were very consistent.

Nevertheless, the witnesses were lying.  The valid rule of

evidence, as I stated it above (contradiction indicates falsity),

is put to use with such lying witnesses by trying to get them to

make more and more statements in the hope that they contradict

themselves.  It is their contradiction that proves them to be

liars.  And only a few contradictions are enough to show that

they are lying.  If you cannot make them contradict themselves,

it does not prove they are telling the truth.  It only shows that

you have been unable to unmask them as liars.  In other words,

consistency in the Bible would not prove its truth - Richard Packman

 

UYI

[Guest croweater]

I just have a couple of points to make about this thread.

 

A lot of current arguments are being rehashed from previous thread pages. If you're going to make a new point it would be polite to at least skim through the thread (although I know it is getting quite long).

 

Secondly, I find the whole "if there is a God thenwhy am I here?/ Why is there suffering in the world?" thing to be quite pointless. To get the answers to these questions would be like reading the final page of an amazing book before reading the start. We are at the start of our own long story, why should we need to know what happens in the end when we haven't got the whole picture of information to make sense of it?

 

I also find the whole God vs. Chance point to be rather silly. The Universe happened by chance? It makes no sense whatsoever. SO it was just out of chance that a dense cluster of fused atoms appeared and started the known world? How exactly did they get there........ oh, it was chance that they were there. How were they formed then..... by chance? The chance of something coming out of nothing will always be 0!

 

Or he could've found a way to make humanity exist with choice but without suffering; with souls, but without misery.  With happiness and without sorrow.  A contradiction, yes, but I'm sure he could've managed.  He's God, he can do anything, right?

Well, if you consider the garden of Eden true then God gave us this existence and we chose to not have it. Everything you described there sounds like heaven anyway, which of course, God did create.

[Guest SP-1]

Not a problem, SP.

 

I'd just like to further my point - you make a legitimate claim that the Bible's consistency indicates truth and that if there was contridiction present in the information present within the Gospels, it would clearly signal falsity. However, consistency does *not* indicate truth at all. I found a great written piece on it recently:

 

CONSISTENCY (Ankerberg lists consistency and lack of

contradiction as two items; I fail to see the difference, so I

will treat them together):  Here, again, the Christian apologist

makes the mistake of taking the reverse of a valid rule of

evidence and creating a new (but invalid) rule.  A valid rule of

evidence is that contradiction indicates falsity (or: lack of

consistency indicates falsity).  The reverse of that statement

(consistency indicates truth) is NOT a valid rule of evidence.  I

have some personal experience dealing with witnesses at trial who

told very complex stories that were very consistent.

Nevertheless, the witnesses were lying.  The valid rule of

evidence, as I stated it above (contradiction indicates falsity),

is put to use with such lying witnesses by trying to get them to

make more and more statements in the hope that they contradict

themselves.  It is their contradiction that proves them to be

liars.  And only a few contradictions are enough to show that

they are lying.  If you cannot make them contradict themselves,

it does not prove they are telling the truth.  It only shows that

you have been unable to unmask them as liars.  In other words,

consistency in the Bible would not prove its truth - Richard Packman

 

UYI

Context, my padawan.

 

The synopticity of the Gospels as evidence to support them is because it's within the realm of historical study. As I've come to understand it, historians tend to lend more credence to documents mentioned or verified by other documents from around the same time frame. As close to the original event the document(s) are, the better.

 

So why does this help the gospels within the context of historical verification?

 

Because you have four documents written or dictated not only within an eyewitness generation of the events depicted (rare), but also written or dictated by participants of the events themselves. When you factor in that the documents were not written at the same time, under the same circumstances, or in the same location, it begins to look all the more interesting when you then factor in that they tend to line up their claims rather well.

 

In a court case, the lying people on the stand have had a chance to get together and paint a certain picture amongst their stories within a prety recent amount of time. The apostles and Luke did not. Were they lying, time and seperation should have ended up in large disagreements.

 

Of particular interest is Luke. Who was a greek, not a Jew. Likely a convert, not a disciple. He traveled with Paul. It's also believed that he was a physician. A learned man. An educated man. Wrote both his Gospel account and Acts (he wrote Acts as well). Luke spent time researching the events he described insofar as the lifetime of Christ and the ressurection. He talked to people, did his homework. Do you not think that an educated man within the eyewitness generation would have noticed things like, say, the absence of an eclipse around the timeframe of Christ's death if it didn't happen (this is, by the way, verified independently of scripture)? Or differences in the accounts of the apostles? That Luke was convinced enough to write his accounts of both Christ's life/death/ressurection and the birth of the church to Theophilus raises some common sense questions that your passage hasn't addressed in it's obvious bias. (Not bashing you, just pointing it out)

[Guest Brian]

Big bang is not based on chance, croweater.

 

There are lots of things in this universe that we don't fully understand. There are galaxies far further out of are reach, which would serve God very little, and we know very little if anything about. We know very little about the dark matter beyond the reach of our universe.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Saw this posted over on WDI. Some of you may (or may not) get at least a chuckle out of it.

 

God FAQ

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Ok....um...

 

Prove that there is no Zeus.

 

Or better yet, go for Vishnu -  I think I spelled that wrong, but you know - the Hindu God.

Ya'll are missing the point. Do you worship Zues? Then who gives a shit.

Booooo.

 

I give a shit dammit - not that I worship either of those Gods, but I'd still be curious to see how you would disprove a God.

 

Also, I'd like to point out that I don't see how some atom exploding and creating the entire universe from nothingness makes any more or less sense then an invisible man who did the same thing.

[Guest SP-1]

Big bang is not based on chance, croweater.

 

There are lots of things in this universe that we don't fully understand. There are galaxies far further out of are reach, which would serve God very little, and we know very little if anything about. We know very little about the dark matter beyond the reach of our universe.

And where did the material required for the Bang originate?

[Guest Brian]

It seems to have come from a singularity, otherwise known as the center of a black hole, the physics behind which totally work against all modern laws and definitions.

[Guest SP-1]

And where did the matter for the black hole come from? And careful, if you say a star that collapsed then the same question arises: where did the star come from?

[Nighthawk 0]

You read that in a comic book.

[Nighthawk 0]

Also, I'd like to point out that I don't see how some atom exploding and creating the entire universe from nothingness makes any more or less sense then an invisible man who did the same thing.

Because spontaneous generation was disproved long ago. Matter just can't do that. What can? God. Major duh.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I don't think IDRM is sincere in his supposed beliefs at all, but the intellectual exercise has been interesting to watch, if nothing else.

That's what I mean, he doesn't really seem like he actually believes what he's saying, rather he's just loving to argue. I don't know for certain, but considering the way he is in every other thread he's been in, I find it hard to believe.

 

And yes, *I* would like to know.

[Guest BDC]

I don't think IDRM is sincere in his supposed beliefs at all, but the intellectual exercise has been interesting to watch, if nothing else.

That's what I mean, he doesn't really seem like he actually believes what he's saying, rather he's just loving to argue. I don't know for certain, but considering the way he is in every other thread he's been in, I find it hard to believe.

 

And yes, *I* would like to know.

Regardless, his argumentation is very good.

 

This thread is, I believe, what real biblical debate should be about. Responses make sense, no easy-out responses and so on. It's fantastic to read.

[Guest SP-1]

I'm enjoying it as well. Oddly, a Bible thread in HD is thriving about 7 1/2 longer than it would in CE.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Also, I'd like to point out that I don't see how some atom exploding and creating the entire universe from nothingness makes any more or less sense then an invisible man who did the same thing.

Because spontaneous generation was disproved long ago. Matter just can't do that. What can? God. Major duh.

I know matter doesn't just come from nothing.

 

All I'm really saying is, I don't see how people can so easily accept the big bang theory, yet be so against the possibility of God at the same time.

 

We don't fully understand how either of those things could have happened, so to say "this one is true because it sounds more scientific" seems kind of silly to me.

[Nighthawk 0]

I'm with you.

[Nighthawk 0]

Which one? I don't read comic books. A friend of mine who does might have though... I dunno, it was too long ago to remember when or where I heard that.

I don't know. I heard Alan Moore say it in an interview, he probably wrote it somewhere.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

We can however turn matter into energy, so why couldn't energy abundant in the universe condense into matter? Given thermodynamics, the universe has the same amount of energy as it always has.

 

"so where did the ENERGY come from?"

 

I don't know. That's a much more human answer than being positive it was god.

[chaosrage 0]

The flaw with your reasoning about the character of God, chaos, is that you're applying your somewhat sappy understanding of "love" to God.  It must be the other way around.  God defines love.  Love does not define God.  You're also failing to take into account an overall view with the sin issue, demonstrating a lack of understanding of what sin is and what it does.  But then that goes back to what I said above:  You apply a flawed, human definition to concepts that God laid out.

No, you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. If God existed, you're right, he would be love because that's who he is. What I am saying is he doesn't exist because what he does or what he allows isn't love. A good, loving god doesn't torture and kill his creations. A good, loving god doesn't allow his creations to torture and kill each other. If a god does this, he isn't a good loving God, so the fact that the universe has things like an eternal torture chamber, earthquakes, and murderers means the christian God can't exist.

 

If you call God love, you either A) call him that because you read it in the bible and you think the bible has to be true. In which case, you're using the same logic that people who fly planes into buildings use. "God is love, whatever he says to do must be right no matter what. After all, the book even said he was." So if you think he says to kill random people, you don't have to question it or bother thinking for yourself, just have faith and be convinced that it's love and has some greater good behind it.

 

OR B) you have arrived at this decision based on some understanding of the word. If you call a being who tortures people love, you must think torture is a good and loving act. It either is, or it isn't. If it's love for God, it has to be love for us to do it too. Especially if God defines what love is.

 

So which is it? A or B?

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Those are pretty good options to conjure up if you're a retard. In some cases, people being tortured and killed is a good thing. I'm not a christian though.