Science, Religion, and Ignorance.

demon of the leaf · Sep 25, 2017

Multiply said:
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Let me guess. You don't see how that's literally not a historical fact? That's literally the opposite.

If its not then do post evidence to counter the hows and the whys please

Multiply · Sep 26, 2017

Deadlift said:
If you disagree you're more than welcome to join forces with Lightbringer. You might start by presenting a detailed rebuttal to the points I made in my previous reply. And no, GIFs and unsubstantiated cheap shots don't constitute rebuttals at all.

Unless and until you do that, you fall right into the fundamentalist category as well.

If you can't see how what I outlined was not historical fact then I have no business debating you in the first place.

demon of the leaf said:
If its not then do post evidence to counter the hows and the whys please

Humans can't come back to life after three days.

The ball is in your court my guy. I expect evidence that shows how humans can come back to life after three days of death. If you use the ol' 'God did it' argument just don't reply. You're wasting your time. I won't respond.

demon of the leaf · Sep 26, 2017

Multiply said:
If you can't see how what I outlined was not historical fact then I have no business debating you in the first place.

Humans can't come back to life after three days.

The ball is in your court my guy. I expect evidence that shows how humans can come back to life after three days of death. If you use the ol' 'God did it' argument just don't reply. You're wasting your time. I won't respond.

Lol and jesus is the son of god and during those three days he spent it in hell
Each piece had a specific purpose

Multiply · Sep 26, 2017

demon of the leaf said:
Lol and jesus is the son of god and during those three days he spent it in hell
Each piece had a specific purpose

Sorry, where was the evidence in this post?

demon of the leaf · Sep 26, 2017

Multiply said:
Sorry, where was the evidence in this post?

Look in the bible i forget which scripture but ether way i know no matter what we say you arent going to read but here knock yourself out

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Deadlift · Sep 26, 2017

Multiply said:
If you can't see how what I outlined was not historical fact then I have no business debating you in the first place.

If it's not a historical fact then it certainly looks like one, and it gives the same impression to conservative, liberal and skeptic scholars alike.

In their own words:

E.P. Sanders (liberal/progressive Christian, retired professor of Religious Studies at Duke University):

That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know. “I do not regard deliberate fraud as a worthwhile explanation. Many of the people in these lists were to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming that they had seen the risen Lord, and several of them would die for their cause. Moreover, a calculated deception should have produced great unanimity. Instead, there seem to have been competitors: ‘I saw him first!’ ‘No! I did.’ Paul’s tradition that 500 people saw Jesus at the same time has led some people to suggest that Jesus’ followers suffered mass hysteria. But mass hysteria does not explain the other traditions.” “Finally we know that after his death his followers experienced what they described as the ‘resurrection’: the appearance of a living but transformed person who had actually died. They believed this, they lived it, and they died for it.”

Bart Ehrman (agnostic and critic of Christianity, James A. Gray distinguished professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill):

"It is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection." (emphasis mine)

Ehrman also says:

"We can say with complete certainty that some of his disciples at some later time insisted that . . . he soon appeared to them, convincing them that he had been raised from the dead."

Ehrman also goes on to say:

"Historians, of course, have no difficulty whatsoever speaking about the belief in Jesus’ resurrection, since this is a matter of public record.

Why, then, did some of the disciples claim to see Jesus alive after his crucifixion? I don’t doubt at all that some disciples claimed this. We don’t have any of their written testimony, but Paul, writing about twenty-five years later, indicates that this is what they claimed, and I don’t think he is making it up. And he knew are least a couple of them, whom he met just three years after the event (Galatians 1:18-19)."

Marcus Borg (liberal/progressive Christian, retired as Hundere distinguished professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University):

"The historical ground of Easter is very simple: the followers of Jesus, both then and now, continued to experience Jesus as a living reality after his death. In the early Christian community, these experiences included visions or apparitions of Jesus."

Obviously the guys I quoted aren't alone in affirming the historicity of Jesus' post mortem appearances and the early disciples' belief in His death and resurrection. Historian and philosopher Gary Habermas reviewed around 1200 scholarly papers in English, German and French on the historical Jesus and came to the conclusion that the virtual entirety of the scholars who study the subject are in full agreement on this issue.

If you don't want to debate me don't, but you certainly need to provide a strong justification why all the eminent New Testament scholars I quoted and their colleagues are producing bad arguments for the historicity of the fact we're talking about, and also you need to present a robust positive case for its a-historicity.

Or as you would say, "the ball is in your court".

Multiply · Sep 26, 2017

Deadlift said:
If it's not a historical fact then it certainly looks like one, and it gives the same impression to conservative, liberal and skeptic scholars alike.

"It is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection." (emphasis mine)

You are disproving yourself in your own statements. Also why does this persons' political leaning mean anything?

This is not historical fact. It never once says that it is a fact that Jesus came back to life. It says that his believers believed he did. I can also find people who believe the Earth is flat. That does not make it historical fact.

Deadlift · Sep 26, 2017

Multiply said:
You are disproving yourself in your own statements. Also why does this persons' political leaning mean anything?

This is not historical fact. It never once says that it is a fact that Jesus came back to life. It says that his believers believed he did. I can also find people who believe the Earth is flat. That does not make it historical fact.

I'm not sure if you are a troll or simply unable to read, but I guess that the most reasonable conclusion is that you're both.

What I was talking about in my reply to Lightbringer was the solid historical data concerning the historicity of Jesus' post mortem appearances and the early disciples' belief in the resurrection.

A case for the historicity of the Jesus' resurrection is something I've never tried to made, if you felt otherwise I think you really need to read what I originally wrote once again.

Also, the "liberal Christian" label has nothing to do with political affiliations, as you should know, so that other complaint of yours holds no weight.

Wolves · Sep 26, 2017

This type of entertainment shouldn't be free :lmao:

Lightbringer · Sep 27, 2017

Deadlift said:
While I find it nice to see that you responded to my post I can't help but notice that you didn't pay much attention to it as you misunderstood my argument right off the bat, and in the most basic way. I never said what's written in the Bible is purely a product of man working all on his own. Rather, I believe I was very explicit that God did speak, that God did inspire and assist. (Hence why I call my view progressive REVELATION, not progressive pondering.) What I was arguing against was the idea that the Bible (all of the combined canonical writings) were whispered word for word as a "cover-to-cover history“.

Ok, well it's nice that you totally neglected the bible passages which contradict your point.

I'll repost it.

3:15 "and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in"

I don't know why you keep bringing up the progressive God thing when this notion is unsupported in the bible and already has been debunked in my previous post?

Deadlift said:
I absolutely affirm that God did speak to the authors of the Bible, but not with the goal of presenting them the entirety of revelation right away, but rather as working in the given limitations of the author in question and slowly shedding those limitations away as the generations went by.

I already said this before, all the texts were written by people who lived in a certain historical period, were influenced by it and recorded the events they witnessed through the lenses of it. For there to be human agency in the revelation process, the revelation must've inevitably been looked at through human eyes.

What you said isn't supported by the bible. I've already gone through this point in my last post.

Deadlift said:
Now, I see you decided to actually provide some support for your fundamental assertion which underlies all your other arguments one way or another and you did this by attempting to show that the Biblical writings themselves show that God preached literally a cover-to-cover history. While I am going to tackle all of these in a moment I first want to stop and reflect on the fact that you merely pasted incomplete verses without even mentioning the texts from which they were taken.
This is a crucial point because every verse in the Bible is dependant on the general nature of the text from which it was pulled. I find this effort of yours to be deeply flawed and incomplete and I now run the risk of confusing the passage you provided with some other passage from some other text which you did not in fact quote.

@Bold: I've been quoting the bible since the start of this debate. If you say that the bible is fundamental, then maybe you should rethink your stance on the matter.

I enjoy the idea of texts contradicting each other. Please enlighten me.

Deadlift said:
Nonetheless, I will do your work for you, but you should really try to take more responsibility in your position. Now I will look at the individual verses. Needless to say, doing so will require quite a lot of text given how you shot-gunned me with literally a dozen verses.

Deadlift said:
I believe this verse is taken from the Book of Exodus and is referring to the decalogue being given to Moses. After I said this one sentence, any support that this may have seemed to give to your position immediately evaporates as this is referring to just one part of a narrative which was itself written from the perspective of Moses and this particular quotation is an announcement of God revealing the ten commandments to Moses.
It is NOT a statement of endorsement for everything that was written by every author in every of the religious texts found in the Bible. (There wasn't even such a body of texts to be confirmed at the time of this narrative) The verse is thus incomplete and taken out of context.

Go read my comment again. The context is irrelevant to my point. My point was that God directly spoke to people in order to write down his words. This was one example

Deadlift said:
Now here you're quoting a verse from the Epistle to Timothy, one of the pseudodigraphical Pauline epistles written to an early Christian, Paul's disciple Timothy. I have a couple things to say about this:
1) All the verse says is that the scripture was breathed out by God, meaning inspired and theologically significant which I never denied but instead affirmed
2) Timothy too (much like Paul who was his mentor and whose theology he inherited), being a Christian, believes in the fundamental tenets of Christianity which I will mention later on in this post, so brace yourself before I get to that.

All words breathed out by God means all the WORDS were from GOD. Stop twisting the meaning.

Deadlift said:
This is a quote from another epistle, namely to Hebrews, which was written by a Hellenistic Jew who converted to Christianity and for a long time attributed to Paul. I will again tell you to remember point (2) in my previous rebuttal as I will get to that later on.
Regardless, nothing here supports your fundamentalist views. All the verse says is that God spoke, He said something. Ironically, here we see the verse mention God speaking in "various portions and in various ways“ which actually lends slight credence over to what I've been saying. God talks to different people differently.

It's also contradictory to other verses. What's new?

Deadlift said:
Again, this is another quote from the Exodus which portrays God revealing what is essentially the Law later presented in Leviticus and it has nothing to do with such a fundamentalist understanding of the Bible.

Again, my point here is that God's own words were recorded.

Deadlift said:
Just a passage from Deuteronomy which is a retelling of the Exodus story and a repeated affirmation of the law given to Moses by God. Has nothing to do with the topic.

My point here was to contradict your notion of historical context of words as Samuel's commanding his kids to be taught the "inscribed words" as they were to their descendants.

There are other passages which support this and contradict you.

Deadlift said:
This here is taken from the second book of Samuel and is a part of a greater recalling of David's days as a ruler. In this text David is again not talking about the same thing we are talking but is poetically describing his confidence and trust in God. He portrays all the troubles he faced as king, the pressures his enemies put on his kingdom and describes God as the "Rock“ on which he can rely on, the Lord who is his shield and sanctuary. This is what this particular verse refers to:

Once again, you failed to see my point. What you're saying is not relevant to this discussion nor is it in any way shape or form refuting my point.

Deadlift said:
It is clear that he is referring to God's own instructions to him and help He has recieved during his rule rather than being an endorsement of a certain view on exegesis.

Tired of repeating myself.

Deadlift said:
And finally, we get to the only verse here that seems to give some shred of support to what you're saying but this too is only if we take it at face value and ignore its origin. You are here quoting an enigmatic figure called Agur who is featured only in a single chapter of the Book of Proverbs and of whom nothing else is known. (Further pointing out that the Book itself isn't a history book that doesn't allow people to study it.)
Proverbs itself is a part of the larger collection of books called the Books of Wisdom or „Writings“ and interestingly enough, much like the Book of Psalms it doesn't present hard-cold dogma but personal philosophies. It's an excellent example of Jewish thought which was divided into multiple camps. For example the other books of Wisdom disagree with Proverbs, and even different people mentioned in the proverbs disagree with each other.
The book doesn't present infallible dogma but lessons on life, morality etc. Much like how Psalms are poetry which has for its purpose the use in liturgy, it is of a second-rate theological value, and the prophetical narratives (which are themselves conclusively trumped by the New Testament writings) take priority over it. (Even more so when the author you're quoting is an insignificant figure himself.)

He's so insignificant that he's in the "holy" bible. I don't see how you're refuting my point? You've already admitted that the bible was wrote through divine assistance. If these words didn't matter and weren't important to God's "message" then it wouldn't have been included.

Deadlift said:
Again, you're quoting Timothy here and I will tell you to stick to that point (2) for a bit longer. Also this is taken from a letter that is foreshadowing a moral and spiritual blindness and degradation. Just a few verses earlier, Paul talks about how terrible things will happen in the last times and how as Christians we must stick to sound teachings. The same message is also talked about immediately after the verse you provided hence you're hiding the original context of the letter.

The point here goes in line with the next quote, which there is only one gospel and people will stray from what it actually says....

Here's the passages after the one I quoted. Irrelevant to my point.

As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
6For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

Deadlift said:
A quote from Revelation, the last book added to the Biblical canon and the most controversial one of them all. Not to mention, you conveniently used the translation which says „book“ when it can alternatively be translated as "scroll“ which actually refers to the Revelation itself which John (supposedly) saw and does NOT refer to the entirety of the Biblical texts which we are talking about.
This would be crystal clear to anyone who bothered to actually read the Book of Revelation, and the fact that you come up with an objection like this constitutes, perhaps more than everything else you said, a knock down proof of your incompetence, your dishonesty. your bad faith and your hopelessness.

It being the last book talking about the Apocalypse is irrelevant once again. These words are transcribed in the bible, a book which is considered the message of God and is meant to be conveyed in its entirety. The apocalypse has not happened yet, thus the message remains prevalent to all those who read revelations in the present.

The message is clear, do not add your own meaning to the bible. The fact that I'm citing revelations does not mean this message is not supported by other verses in other books.

Deadlift said:
Another quote from the Pauline Epistles. This time it's Galatians and is actually referring (as it plainly says) to the Gospel which refers to the story of Jesus, the message of salvation which is again not something that has to do with the entirety of the Biblical texts.

Goes directly hand-in-hand with my last comment. Do not add your own words to the bible.

How are you not getting this? I sourced only a handful of many texts that support this, from different books within the bible.

Deadlift said:
Seeing how the last quote was a Pauline quote, and seeing how I've covered all the quotes you've provided, I think it's good time to shed some light on the mysterious point (2) which I brought up way back in your first point on Timothy.
What we're talking about here is a Christian Bible, not the Jewish Tanakh, not the Islamic Quran. The Christian Bible takes the Old Testament from Judaism and it ADDS onto it the New Testament, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ. When it comes to theological matters the New Testament ALWAYS takes priority over the Old Testament. The Old Testament is read and interpreted in the light of the New Testament. This is true for the Church today, for the Church of the past as well as for the early Christians (who are the authors of the New Testament texts) and even Jesus (the God of Christianity) himself.

The entire idea of Old and New Covenants is that of surpassing the old and going into the new. Jesus himself was crucified for spreading what the Jews considered heretical and his very notion of being a messiah, while expected by the Old Testament texts, is understood in a completely new light. Far from being a superior leader who will bring armies to defeat Israel's enemies, the messiah came to die the most humiliating death, rejected by the very people that expected him, in order to cast light in the darkness that was creeping over not just the Jews but humanity as a whole.

Right here, the most important apocalyptic event of them all was turned on its head and by none other than the God incarnate himself. The early Christians all believed this and they wrote the texts with such an understanding. Paul believed this too, so I found it particularly amusing that you quote him as he himself is a radical example of progressive revelation. A man who used to be a strict follower of Judaism turned the greatest apostle of them all.

Given how in Christianity the Old Testament is merely a foreshadowing of what is to come in its fullness all of those passages you quoted from it are completely overturned by the New Testament writings. And the New Testament writings are all product of the view that I just described. In fact, the entire history of the Biblical faith is that of radical change and progress. It started with Judaism but ended up transforming into a religion completely distinct from it. The first and last stages are unrecognizable. Christianity is as such fundamentally a message of change and progress from old understanding to a new one, it always was and still is.
You may think the message of change is merely giving in to the pressure of the secular but in reality it is the other way around. It is the worldview which I'm advocating here (which you condescendingly consider a mere product of not having read the Bible) that was the original view of the Church.
As St. Augustine of Hyppo, perhaps the most important of the Church Fathers, concluded: "I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church" (Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus, 5)

It is instead the fundamentalism which you are proposing that came around in the early 20th century under pressure of secular discoveries on one hand and rogue liberal theology on the other.

The Old Testament is still incorporated to the bible, it is still accepted as God's message. The new testament only expands on that message. The fact that the new and old testament are at odds with one another is still a contradiction within the bible as the Old Testament is still part of the bible. The God in the Old Testament is accepted as the one and the same as in the New Testament.

You can rationalize this however you want, but it is still a contradiction.

Deadlift said:
On what basis do you conclude that revelation being progressive requires God not to work directly? The God we're talking about is a God who became incarnate, one of us, who lived with us, talked to us and died for us so we could be saved. It is absolutely impossible to get any more intimately and directly in contact with us than that.

Did you not read my point about Noah? I'll repost it.

Incarnating as a mortal while already knowing every single outcome of every single event isn't progressive, especially since it was already stated that God dictates when everything happens.

And before you that quote is part of the Old Testament, let me reaffirm that it is still accepted as part of the bible and this was cited by St. Augustine of Hippo, who you said was "perhaps the most important of the Church Fathers."

Then why would God directly intervene if he simply wanted progressive revelations? Take Noah for example. God flooded the entire Earth because he didn't like the way it turned out. How is that progressive?

That is also a contradiction in itself as God claims to be giving humans free will, yet destroys them when he doesn't like the choices humans make, even though he should already know the outcomes of those choices even before he creates them. There are passages in the bible that contradict God giving humans free will and state that God dictates everything in our lives. So the argument of having a progressive God wouldn't even make sense.

God created man in his image, yet flooded the world because man became wicked and corrupt. So would that not mean that God is also wicked and corrupt? But then there are other passages that state that God is also benevolent which is another contradiction.

How many more contradictions do you need?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

"1 Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses. 2 He sets the time for birth and the time for death, the time for planting and the time for pulling up, 3 the time for killing and the time for healing, the time for tearing down and the time for building. 4 He sets the time for sorrow and the time for joy, the time for mourning and the time for dancing, 5 the time for making love and the time for not making love, the time for kissing and the time for not kissing. 6 He sets the time for finding and the time for losing, the time for saving and the time for throwing away, 7 the time for tearing and the time for mending, the time for silence and the time for talk. 8 He sets the time for love and the time for hate, the time for war and the time for peace. 9 What do we gain from all our work? 10 I know the heavy burdens that God has laid on us. 11 He has set the right time for everything. He has given us a desire to know the future, but never gives us the satisfaction of fully understanding what he does. 12 So I realized that all we can do is be happy and do the best we can while we are still alive. 13 All of us should eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for. It is God's gift. 14 I know that everything God does will last forever. You can't add anything to it or take anything away from it. And one thing God does is to make us stand in awe of him. 15 Whatever happens or can happen has already happened before. God makes the same thing happen again and again."

Deadlift said:
Also, the "image of God“ is a subject of an ongoing debate between theologians (then again, pretty much everything is). The fact that God made man in his image doesn't mean he made him exactly the same. Obviously if this were the case there would be no difference between us and God. Whatever the meaning of that phrase may be it is to be found elsewhere such as the theory that it means having the ability to come to know God and love him, a higher purpose than that of other creations mentioned in Genesis or something else along those lines.

Regardless, if everything came from God and if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent then wickedness and corruption is also a part of his being as he exists in every part of the universe including within Satan. Evil could not exist if God didn't create it.

Deadlift said:
The supposed contradictions only exist if you approach the Christian theology uncritically.

The contradictions don't exist to those who follow blindly and revise the narrative to justify it.

Deadlift said:
The links might have broke after I copied the post from Word. Here are the links:

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And I am disheartened to see you actually believe a Christ myth theory. The idea that Jesus of Christianity didn't exist (while at most conceding merely some random person named Jesus as possibility) is a historically laughable one. If you actually did research you'd know that. I watched scholars debate, read their articles and checked the consensus. As far as scholarly circles are concerned, there is as much debate on Jesus' existence as there is on the Earth being flat, meaning on one side we have an overwhelming consensus of credible scholars who deploy universally accepted methods of research to reach a conclusion while on the other side we have a small circle of crackpots with an agenda and passion for conspiracy theories. If I were you, I'd take a minute and reflect on the fact that you have found yourself in the latter group.

Deadlift said:
Jesus is almost universally recognized as having been an Israelite preacher, healer and an exorcist. A prophet who was christened by John the Baptist, who gathered followers, was tried for causing unrest among the Jews and was sentenced to death on the cross after which his followers have come to believe that he rose from the dead and carried on his message.

This is not religious fantasizing. This is a historical fact. The fact that you don't know this and are actually telling others to look for the truth is an ironic one indeed.

If you can cite me a well known and credible archaeological/historical source that is bi-partisan and doesn't acknowledge itself as Christian, then we'll continue this discussion.

I've search up the Wikipedia pages you've posted and they got their citations from christian organizations. Color me surprised.

Deadlift said:
If you're going to discredit what I'm saying because I linked you to Wikipedia… don't. Wikipedia is a reliable reference point and while it can theoretically be edited by anyone, it is also tightly moderated and any claim that lacks sources is regularly removed. Also, the only reason why I linked to Wikipedia is because you clearly haven't done any research yourself and are in need of a starting point that summarises the current state of affairs. (Not to mention the fact you yourself didn't point to any source for your claims so what gives you the right to question mine?)
Also, the verse you quote from Matthew further solidifies your utter ignorance of how the historians approach the case. Just because a document has elements of myth that doesn't mean it has no historic value. Furthermore, the verse you posted is almost certainly apocalyptic imagery added to the narrative recorded in Mark so as to glorify it. Nevertheless, I told you already, if you're going to resort to a flat-earth level of position then I will not waste my time on this issue with you. I've told you the state of the consensus and gave you 3 links rich with references to the most credible scholars working in the field. Further educating you on this issue is not something I will do here.

Clearly you didn't do your research as you sourced Wikipedia to support your argument.

I've already mentioned that the earliest texts to the existence of Jesus were 25 years after his supposed death. 25 years is a long time to start mentioning a messiah.

Also, I've already stated that the a persona named Jesus being crucified could be true. That is not the point. The point is the legend behind the man, which aside for religious texts, is unsubstantiated. Something you conveniently left out in your response to my comment.

Deadlift said:
This is only true if your fundamentalist assumptions are true. You need to provide a sound justification as well as a rebuttal to my counterarguments to show how Christians and non Christians ought to interpret the Bible in a literalistic fashion, And you certainly haven't done so.

I clearly did, but you just manipulate the text to fit your own narrative and not follow what it actually says.

You're arguing that the bible was never taken literally, which it was for a very long time. It's just convenient to suggest that it no longer does because it doesn't line up with societal norms and scientific/historical discoveries, and so you need to find a way to justify the authenticity of the bible.

Deadlift said:
Far from proving my argument to be contradictory to the teachings within the Bible, you've demonstrated your lack of engagement with the material at hand on a stellar level. If I had to draw together the threads of this debate so far it'd be as follows:

You attempted to support your fundamentalistic assertion by pointing to the Bible as saying the same thing you did, but after actually presenting these verses in a complete and transparent matter it became clear that they fell a far cry from your hopes and aspirations.

We just established in your reply that you couldn't comprehend my points. I had to spell it out for you so you wouldn't simply deflect my points and go on a useless tangent.

Deadlift said:
Not only that, but I went on and explained how Christianity is fundamentally non-fundamentalist by pointing out that the authors of the New Testament texts themselves took a policy of reintepretation as well as pointing out even earlier disputes in theology among the Jewish people which wouldn't have arisen had they understood the Biblical texts as literal face-value truths. I further cemented my position in the fact that the very God we're discussing has definitively denied the expectations and prior understandings seen in the Old Testament and have shown how the entire history of the Christian message is rooted in such a reasoning. No amount of extrapolated verses is going to overturn that.
You hence have yet to adequately address my main as well as other objections such as you claiming to know what would be the best way for God to reveal himself which requires meeting a burden of proof impossible to bear.

You on a tangent that had no bearing to the discussion nor refuting my points. Nice try.

Deadlift said:
When speaking about Jesus, you revealed yourself to be a proponent of the Christ myth theory and have thus lost any credibility on the topic of historical Jesus you might have had, and in response to my statement that science and theology are leading a constructive dialogue (which you'd know if you actually kept in touch with modern theology) you simply reiterated the very same fundamentalist assertion that you failed to justify.

I presented contradictions, quoted from the bible. All you did was give the context of those quotes, which still support my argument over yours.

Deadlift said:
Unlike yourself, who prefers to jump to conclusions about others having done so, I am more than happy to concede that you have read some chunks of your Bible, but reading the Bible in a shallow and surface-level way is worse than not reading it at all. The Bible is to be studied, not merely read and then accepted or rejected at face value while acting in a manner that would make a father of any exegesis roll in his grave.

Honest to God, you cannot comprehend this debate. No pun intended.

You can read the all of the responses I've did as I've responded to each point, but I would ask that you stick to the topic at hand as you are stretching it out unnecessarily long and I'm not able to progress through my argument.

I am going to go break this argument down in kindergarten fashion so we can get this puerile segment out of the way.

1. I started off by saying that the bible is the Word of God. This is supported by texts within the bible.

2. You, in response claim that it is not a word-for-word manuscript.

3. I then give you text that support this notion.

4. You then deny this as a way to either deny that contradictions in the bible do not discredit it as a holy book or as a way to argue that there are no contradictions whatsoever. You proceed to go off on a pointless tangent.

5. You admit that the Bible is a holy book that was written with the assistance of God and the divine. They, speaking through the writers.

6. MY POINT.

God speaking through or assisting the writers of the bible supports the notion that the book is the word of God. The word of God, literal speech or not, is by definition infallible because it is God's message and used his direct influence to write the bible. However, there are contradictions and fallacies within the bible which question the credibility of the bible.

7. We argue about the historical evidence of Jesus.

8. You source Wikipedia.

9. I use your own source to convey my point whilst also bringing up the fact that Wikipedia is not a reliable source.

10. I agree with the notion that Jesus might have existed as a regular person and had a myth built around him. I bring up the fact that the legend and the man could be completely different.

11. I quote the New Testament about the Resurrection of Jesus, which you ignored and didn't respond to. This quote supports my point about the legends revolving around Jesus are unsubstantiated and most likely false as the quote directly stated there were many witnesses to this miracles, yet no mention of this in any non-religious historical document or testimony.

27:51 "At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After Jesus’ resurrection, when they had come out of the tombs, they entered the holy city and*appeared to many people.…"

12. MY POINT.

This discussion about the existence of Jesus is pointless as it is straying away from the actual topic at hand, which is contradictions within the bible and the authenticity of it being a holy book.

13. The points I've made thus far were lukewarm at best as I didn't get to mention other contradictions of the bible, which I have in previous posts that you ignored.

Let's start off with this:

GENESIS 1:24-27 Animals were created before man was created.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

GENESIS 2:7, 19 Man was created before animals were created.

"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."

I just want to leave this up because it is hysterical.

Deadlift said:
Jesus is almost universally recognized as having been an Israelite preacher, healer and an exorcist. A prophet who was christened by John the Baptist, who gathered followers, was tried for causing unrest among the Jews and was sentenced to death on the cross after which his followers have come to believe that he rose from the dead and carried on his message.
This is not religious fantasizing. This is a historical fact.

Deadlift · Sep 27, 2017

Lightbringer said:
Honest to God, you cannot comprehend this debate. No pun intended.*

I am glad that my posts are making you more religious but I'm afraid your accusations are misapplied. While you put the actual counter-argument in a spoiler and instead put the focus on an inaccurate, uncharitable summary of the debate so far, I will format my post in an opposite fashion. I will address your arguments first, and then comment on the flow of this debate in a spoiler as the arguments themselves are the important part of a debate and they do not deserve to be hidden. Let's begin.

In response to me explaining my original point after I noticed you misunderstood me, you say the following:

Ok, well it's nice that you totally neglected the bible passages which contradict your point.*

I'll repost it.*

3:15 "and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16*All Scripture is breathed out by God*and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in"

I don't know why you keep bringing up the progressive God thing when this notion is unsupported in the bible and already has been debunked in my previous post.

What you said isn't supported by the bible. I've already gone through this point in my last post.*

Perhaps you may not know this, but conclusions are listed after you've showed the arguments that lead to that conclusion. Here you are simply reasserting what I already responded to before you even got to the point when you answered my objections. I find this abominable flow of thought in this post particularly amusing as you previously accused me for not managing my posts well.

Be that as it may, I'll ignore this until I actually take a look at how you responded to my objections. Now off to that.

The verses

In response to the post pulled from Exodus you say this:

Go read my comment again. The context is irrelevant to my point. My point was that God directly spoke to people in order to write down his words. This was one example

The context is irrelevant? Whatever your point may be (and I'll remind you what it was) the context is always THE MOST relevant thing when we're arguing on the basis of ANY scripture in general. As for your point, your point wasn't merely that God spoke to people to some extent (I affirm this too) but that he dictated EVERYTHING found in the Bible word for word and with no other meaning in mind but that of literal, face-value truth.

As we can see, what you said here in no way answers my point that the verse is simply portraying God as explicitly giving the decalogue. Nothing more, nothing less.

___________

Moving on, in response to my claim that Timothy can be simply understood as the Scripture being inspired (which again, I absolutely affirm) and for which I provide further support in point (2) which you didn't address here, you say:

All words breathed out by God means all the*WORDS*were from GOD. Stop twisting the meaning.*

Nothing but stubborn reiteration of what you said before. Unless you actually engage with my major argument which I refer to at this point as "point (2)", it doesn't matter how many times you repeat an unsubstantiated claim nor how much you bold and underline it. It will still remain an unsubstantiated claim.

___________

Next, in response to what I said about the Epistle to Hebrews, the second Exodus quote and Deuteronomy you don't say much, namely:

t's also contradictory to other verses. What's new?

Again, my point here is that God's own words were recorded.*

My point here was to contradict your notion of historical context of words as Samuel's commanding his kids to be taught the "inscribed words" as they were to their descendants.*

There are other passages which support this and contradict you.*

The first two quotes don't say anything and merely rely on what you said in the first response to Exodus (while providing unsubstantiated accusations of contradictions). You never tackled my point about all of these passages referring to the Law (which was interestingly enough later explicitly denounced as outdated by Jesus as well as Paul) and are instead extrapolating them to mean the entirety of the Biblical texts.

___________

In response to David's Last Words you say:

Once again, you failed to see my point. What you're saying is not relevant to this discussion nor is it in any way shape or form refuting my point.

Simply asserting that what I'm saying is irrelevant while insisting your point still stands. Sorry, but this isn't a competition in who can say "I'm right“ more times. I gave you a detailed account of what the verse is actually referring to and stated how this doesn't support you. If you want to reject that you'll have to go back to my post and actually tackle what I said.

___________

Going on to the „Sayings of Agur“ you respond:

He's so insignificant that he's in the "holy" bible. I don't see how you're refuting my point? You've already admitted that the bible was wrote through divine assistance. If these words didn't matter and weren't important to God's "message" then it wouldn't have been included.*

But here you focus on my remark that Agur is an insignificant figure while completely ignoring everything else. I didn't say his words are insignificant. I said that he himself is an insignificant figure and I said this because:

1) he is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible
2) his status is not clear (we don't know if he is a prophet, a philosopher, a poet or something else)

I further pointed out that the scriptue which you are quoting is reflecting personal philosophies which were debated internally withing the Wisdom books themselves. They were a counter-movement to the Greek influence being pressured at the Jews at the time. Much like the Psalms, it is inspired only in the sense as serving a divine purpose of providing a culture for Israel, not for showing hard-cold dogma.

This is based on both the observations of texts themselves as well as on the theological primacy given to the Prophets and ultimatively the New Testament, neither point you actually challenged here so my arguments remain untouched.

___________

As for the Revelation quote:

It being the last book talking about the Apocalypse is irrelevant once again. These words are transcribed in the bible, a book which is considered the message of God and is meant to be conveyed in its entirety. The apocalypse has not happened yet, thus the message remains prevalent to all those who read revelations in the present.*

The message is clear, do not add your own meaning to the bible. The fact that I'm citing revelations does not mean this message is not supported by other verses in other books.*

Indeed, it being the last Book added may not be relevant to you but it absolutely is relevant for those who do not know where the quote is pulled from. The introductions weren't aimed at you but the public who may actually read it. Also, it is mandatory to provide the source of the quote which you failed to do, hence me doing your job for you.

In response to what I actually said about the Revelation talking about itself (the vision John received) you just childishly continue to insist that you're right. That's not an argument.

___________

In response to the last verse from Galatians:

Goes directly hand-in-hand with my last comment. Do not add your own words to the bible.*

How are you not getting this? I sourced only a handful of many texts that support this, from different books within the bible.

You simply insist that I'm adding my own words to the Bible. Quite the contrary, I am taking into consideration the actual context and background from which the verses you quote came from. If you think it is wrong, challenge it by providing an alternate exegesis instead of merely insisting it's literal.

Again, if you want to challenge the conclusion I've reached, challenge the premises.

The knock down argument: Point (2)

Now, when it comes to my main argument against your position which I believe constitutes a knock-down proof of how your position is invalid, you are embarrassingly silent. This is all you've been able to say:

The Old Testament is still incorporated to the bible, it is still accepted as God's message. The new testament only expands on that message. The fact that the new and old testament are at odds with one another is still a contradiction within the bible as the Old Testament is still part of the bible. The God in the Old Testament is accepted as the one and the same as in the New Testament.*

You can rationalize this however you want, but it is still a contradiction.*

In response to me basing my argument on:

1) the undisputable mindset of the early Christian authors
2) the figure of the God we're talking about
3) the actual position of Christianity towards the Old and New Testaments
4) significance of change in moving away from literally one culture to another
5) the theological disputes among the Jews as well as the Christians which wouldn't have arised had they understood the Bible at face-value

All you have to say is this? Really? You didn't address any part of my argument and merely asserted that the Old and the New Testaments are contradictory. You didn't say they were different, you said they were contradictory. The only way that they can be contradictory is if you walk out of the mindset that has been historically ascribed to the authors of the Biblical text and completely ignore all of the 5 things I built my argument on while at the same time endorsing your fundamentalist assumption – the very thing we're disputing!

This is just complete incompetence on your side to actually deal with my argument. I can actually see why you'd prefer to hide this in a spoiler tag as it is just bad. Until you actually tackle my points they remain standing and the more you simply insist on being right and beg the question, the more you lose any and all credibility on the topic.

Until you properly deal with this section here, none of your other arguments can actually kick off.

In response to my answer to the question of Noah you yet again merely reassert what you said before without actually explaining why my answer fails to satisfy.

Did you not read my point about Noah? I'll repost it.

Incarnating as a mortal while already knowing every single outcome of every single event isn't progressive, especially since it was already stated that God dictates when everything happens.*

Sorry, but simply stating it doesn't make it so. Explain why it is not progressive and explain why my answer is wrong.

As for the image of God:

if everything came from God and if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent then wickedness and corruption is also a part of his being as he exists in every part of the universe including within Satan. Evil could not exist if God didn't create it.*

You're basically asking where evil came from. Evil didn't come from anywhere. It's not a material thing that one can create. It is a mere lack of goodness. Moreover Satan is not some kind of a physical location, so your point about Divine Omnipresence, especially the one you endorse, simply doesn't apply.
Regardless, this is a textbook example of red herring fallacy. For someone who later in his post was complaining about going off tangent you sure do so when you go into the territories of theodicy after starting on historical accountability.

Theology and science

In response to me saying you never adequately supported you fundamentalist view you say:

I clearly did, but you just manipulate the text to fit your own narrative and not follow what it actually says.*

Let me enlighten you, oh Lightbringer, what manipulating the texts actually means. It means neglecting to take into account the following:

1) the author's background
2) the author's historical context
3) nature of the text in question
4) it's historical relation to the other texts of the same kind
5) the intent of the author as either implied or explicitly stated in the text

You did all of these, not me. I was the one who provided the absolutely crucial commentary on what the text is and where it came from. You on the other hand simply dropped it and lied about how it confirms what you're saying. If you want to challenge what I said about these texts you must yourself provide an alternate exegesis, not just insist "oh it's God's word hence it's 100% literal“ and good luck with that because ALL theologians and ALL scholars of Biblical criticism will tell you what I am telling you.

You're arguing that the bible was never taken literally, which it was for a very long time. It's just convenient to suggest that it no longer does because it doesn't line up with societal norms and scientific/historical discoveries, and so you need to find a way to justify the authenticity of the bible.*

The Bible was never understood literally as you are understanding it. Certain texts were interpreted literally such as Genesis, Noah etc, but this wasn't done because of some dogma that treated the Bible as you want it to be treated, but because no alternative interpretations (which were heavily debated at all times of Church history) were considered as plausible.
After science provided a certain discovery, the literal interpretation of some texts lost it's strength and alternate interpretations which already existed before gained the upper hand. This is the exact constructive dialogue which I am talking about.

As the eminent philosopher and patrologist David Bentley Hart, who recently released a translation of the New Testament for Yale University Press, points out:

"What was the literal reading of Scripture in the Patristic and Medieval period? It meant reading ad literam, it meant taking the literal text and following its meaning through, but it wasn't literalist, it wasn't the presumption that everything described there actually happened (....) The Patristic and Medieval traditions had varying degrees of people holding to literal beliefs, I mean, Augustine believed the story of the Garden of Eden (no reason he shouldn't, he didn't have geology at the time), Origen believed that that was allegorical all the way through. But none of them is a literalist, none of them believes that the truth of the Bible had anything to do with whether it's simply "always what it's describing is a historically objective event"."

Sure, there were controversies stirred by some Church leaders in response to a certain discovery such as the famous trial of Galileo but this too wasn't a product of a dogma as the dogmas and the process of creating them has remained the same throughout the Church history, be it the rule of the less willing to accept non-literal explanations and those who were more open to them.

So about that summary....

1. I started off by saying that the bible is the Word of God. This is supported by texts within the bible.*

First point aaaand we're done. You didn't simply say this, you said that it being the Word of God must be understood as being a 100% literal. You agreed that any difference in the text is to be claimed as contradiction and you insisted that no other perspective such as the universally accepted in the Church progressive revelation view is biblically faithful.

The rest of your summary is just as dishonest and uncharitable.I will however comment on some things though.

You said that because I used Wikipedia in reference to Jesus I didn't do my research. You completely ignored both what I said and actually did as my research and what the only goal of me linking Wikipedia is. You never established Wikipedia's unreliability nor have you tackled my points for it being reliable. Two more points on Jesus:

1) I brought the Historical Jesus up back in my first post in order to give an example of a Biblical text that enjoys tremendous support in contrast to Exodus which isn't as good as some would want it. It is not off-tangent.

2) You say because some experts here are Christians (because they're from Christian organizations) they're not credible. Pure confirmation bias. If someone agrees with me they must be right but if they don't then they're just lying partisans. Never mind the fact that I actually provided links to atheist authors but you didn't bother to mention any of that.

Also, you lie about how I ignored you quote from Matthew when I explicitly addressed it and used it as an example of your ignorance on how the historians approach the topic. How about you actually listen to what is being said before you try to make a summary of the debate?

On a final note, I will just spend a couple words about what you called a "hysterical" quote.
I confess I was simply astonished when I found out you sacrificed the last modicum of your intellectual honesty to a rhetorical jab.
What that sentence was referring to was the robust historical evidence concerning Jesus' post mortem appearances and the disciples' belief in His resurrection, not the actual historicity of Jesus rising from the dead.
Now, not only this should have been clear to anyone who read the quote in context, but yesterday I had the occasion to point out this very issue as a response to Multiply and you couldn't have not read it, since it was the last post before yours (besides Wolves' brief comment).

The fact that you feel the need to retort to dirty tricks and known lies to score points shows how deeply desperate your case is, and it proves, once again, that you're exactly the same as the fundamentalists you make fun of.

Our Lord Sasuke · Sep 27, 2017

Oh it seems that the WWIII will be between theists and atheists

Lightbringer · Sep 27, 2017

This wall of text is nice and good if only it had some substance to it. You're still regurgitating the same drivel from your last post and not comprehending the points I was making.

Let's try to move forward and keep these absurdly long points concise and constructive.

Deadlift said:
All you have to say is this? Really? You didn't address any part of my argument and merely asserted that the Old and the New Testaments are contradictory. You didn't say they were different, you said they were contradictory. The only way that they can be contradictory is if you walk out of the mindset that has been historically ascribed to the authors of the Biblical text and completely ignore all of the 5 things I built my argument on while at the same time endorsing your fundamentalist assumption – the very thing we're disputing!

This is just complete incompetence on your side to actually deal with my argument. I can actually see why you'd prefer to hide this in a spoiler tag as it is just bad. Until you actually tackle my points they remain standing and the more you simply insist on being right and beg the question, the more you lose any and all credibility on the topic.

Until you properly deal with this section here, none of your other arguments can actually kick off.

Once again, you cannot comprehend the point I'm making and shifting the argument into some other topic.

I'll break it down for you. This isn't the main argument. The main argument is further down. This section isn't meant to be responded to.

So far, what I was trying to establish was this:

-The bible is God's word; literal or not, the idea of divine assistance is part of my argument.

-The old testament has contradictions.

-The old testament is part of the bible.

-There are contradictions in the new testament.

-God is infallible, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.

We so far argued that all of this because you tried to argue that the bible is not God's word as a way to rebuke a contradiction within the text.

And then you finally came to the conclusion that it is in fact written with the help of divine assistance, which still goes in line with my main argument.

The secondary point, which you wouldn't let me get to finish, was about conveying the hypocrisy of Christian teachings if the bible was literal and how it's convenient to put any meaning to the text of the bible in order to justifies it's existence within today's society.

I have still not been able to finish my argument because you are impatient and stubborn to let me conclude. So I'm going to restart this argument later in the post.

Deadlift said:
YAs for the image of God.

You're basically asking where evil came from. Evil didn't come from anywhere. It's not a material thing that one can create. It is a mere lack of goodness. Moreover Satan is not some kind of a physical location, so your point about Divine Omnipresence, especially the one you endorse, simply doesn't apply.
Regardless, this is a textbook example of red herring fallacy. For someone who later in his post was complaining about going off tangent you sure do so when you go into the territories of theodicy after starting on historical accountability

@Bold: The devil makes direct appearances in the bible. How is he not in a physical location?

I may have gone off tangent from the original topic, but it was going to be brought up at some point if we're discussing the bible's version of God.

God, being the creator of everything, defines what is and what isn't. How can something exist without him allowing it to exist?

If God is omnibenevolent and omnipresent and is within all that encompasses the universe, then how can there be a lack of goodness which would then spawn evil?

Also if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then he as an omnibenevolent being would want to prevent all evils. God being omniscient means that he knows every way in which evils can come into existence, and knows every way in which those evils could be prevented. God, being omnipotent, has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.

So a being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, then no evil exists, but it does.

________________________________________________________________

*You did not tackle the bible contradiction of my last post.

GENESIS 1:24-27 Animals were created before man was created.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

GENESIS 2:7, 19 Man was created before animals were created.

"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."

_______________________________________________________________________________

Now to finally explain my point I was trying to establish about God's word and the bible. First realize that the argument about God's word being literal was an opener to a follow up statement which you didn't let me finish.

1. If the bible is God's word, in the literal sense, then it is by definition infallible and has value. However, we know that there are contradictions within it, which puts into question the credibility of the bible as God's word and his existence.

2. If the bible is God's word, in the metaphorical sense, and by this I mean that he used his divine presence in order to directly influence the writing of the bible, then shouldn't it also be infallible? God's spirit helped these men write his message and gave clairvoyance to directly see knowledge that humans couldn't possibly posses, such as direct quotes from God himself and the events of Noah and Genesis. Yet there are still contradictions and irregularities even with the help of the holy spirit. Is God not infallible? God, who is supposedly omniscient and omnipotent, influenced a book which would later be cited to question his own existence and laws in the face of new discoveries.

3. If the bible is metaphorical then so is God. There is no consistent interpretation of the bible and every phrase can be twisted to fit any narrative one sees fit. What point is there to God's message if the message can be molded into any sort of justification? If Genesis, for instance, is not meant to be taken literally, then why believe anything the bible says? It's easy to find any meaning in vague platitudes. If the message can be anything, then the bible is nothing and has no value.

This then transitions to the point about the bible simply being written by men who are fallible and God being a fiction of their imaginations.

Deadlift · Sep 28, 2017

Lightbringer said:
This wall of text is nice and good if only it had some substance to it. You're still regurgitating the same drivel from your last post and not comprehending the points I was making.

Let's try to move forward and keep these absurdly long points concise and constructive.

So after I call you out for not dealing with my points, you not only do it again but you choose to drop most of the debate so far and dismiss it as nonsense without any elaboration whatsoever. This is not only dishonest, but also disrespectful to my effort to present an argument and to the readers who may want to read our exchange to get a picture of how Christianity deals with the Bible.

The incompetence is made even more obvious given how what I'm describing is the position of every expert working in the field, another point which you completely failed to address.

So far, what I was trying to*establish*was this:

-The bible is God's word; literal or not, the idea of divine assistance is part of my argument.*

Mere divine assistance doesn't get you where you want to be. You're defending the fundamentalist view that the Bible in its entirety (meaning all of the Biblical texts) is to be understood as being literally dictated from God word for word, with no other intent but that of relaying actual literal history which is obviously conveyed as a face-value truth.

Don't try to make your premises humble while jumping to an extravagant conclusion.

-The old testament has contradictions.*

-The old testament is part of the bible.*

-There are contradictions in the new testament.

Right here a point I raised in my main argument against your position (which you deemed irrelevant) resurfaces. There are disagreements in the writings of the Old Testament. There are disagreements between the writings of the New Testament. I not only accept this but my entire position requires this.
But you cannot claim (at this point of the reply at least) that there are contradictions as the contradictions are of relevance only if the text is looked at from a fundamentalist perspective (as on the progressive view they are merely reflections of the 5 points which I pointed out in my argument which you ignored and refused to tackle).

This perspective is the exact thing in question and you cannot simply assume it to defend it. That's begging the question.

-God is infallible, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.*

Never denied that.

We so far argued that all of this because you tried to argue that the bible is not God's word as a way to rebuke a contradiction within the text.*

And then you finally came to the conclusion that it is in fact written with the help of divine assistance, which still goes in line with my main argument.*

You're once again lying about what happened. I didn't start off by saying the Bible is not "God's word" only to "finally" reach "the conclusion" that it is. The whole purpose of this debate was to establish the correct meaning of the Bible being Word of God. (Post #101)

We both started off as enunciating our positions. You adopted a fundamentalist meaning of the term, I adopted a progressive revelation view. That's what this debate is about. I therefore never said it wasn't God's word, I just took a different perspective on it.

Now to*finally explain my point*I was trying to establish about God's word and the bible. First realize that the argument about God's word being literal was an opener to a follow up statement which you didn't let me finish.*

First of all, this isn't an oral debate in which someone can interrupt you while you're speaking. This is a WRITTEN debate. I can't suddenly show up at your computer and prevent you from typing what you want to type. Stop blaming your failure to communicate your point in a manner which you would like on your opponent.

Second, you already said all this as I will now show.

1.*If the bible is God's word, in the literal sense, then it is by definition infallible and has value. However, we know that there are contradictions within it, which puts into question the credibility of the bible as God's word and his existence.*

You said this back in Post #106 and even earlier while talking to other people in this thread. This premise right here, clearly rests on your fundamentalist perspective on the Bible which I challenged in Post #107 by asking you for a reason why you think it is true. You tried to meet my challenge by quoting verses from various texts found in the Bible, all of which I disputed and concluded them as mere dishonest extrapolations to which you never gave an adequate reply and which you have now dropped entirely. I therefore consider my point to stand undefeated and yours refuted until further notice.

So, if you're not going to defend those verses, then I'll simply ask again, what is the ground for believing this?

2.*If the bible is God's word, in the metaphorical sense, and by this I mean that he used his divine presence in order to directly influence the writing of the bible, then shouldn't it also be infallible? God's spirit helped these men write his message and gave clairvoyance to directly see knowledge that humans couldn't possibly posses, such as direct quotes from God himself and the events of Noah and Genesis. Yet there are still contradictions and irregularities even with the help of the holy spirit. Is God not infallible? God, who is supposedly omniscient and omnipotent, influenced a book which would later be cited to question his own existence and laws in the face of new discoveries.*

I explained my view very clearly and in great detail in Posts #107, #142 and further elaborated so as to avoid any misunderstanding in Post #155. The fact that you are still insisting that anything in the bible should be infallible (a literal historical event) is just blind stubbornness. I already explained what the Biblical texts are, who wrote them, how they were written, for what purpose and in what sense can they be considered to be divinely inspired.

All you've done was call my arguments irrelevant yet here their relevance resurfaces. This premise as well, rests on the fundamentalistic view of the Bible despite you trying to phrase it as an alternative which I am supporting. Go back and address the arguments I've made or your point fails.

3.*If the bible is metaphorical then so is God. There is no consistent interpretation of the bible and every phrase can be twisted to fit any narrative one sees fit. What point is there to God's message if the message can be molded into any sort of justification? If Genesis, for instance, is not meant to be taken literally, then why believe anything the bible says? It's easy to find any meaning in vague platitudes. If the message can be anything, then the bible is nothing and has no value.*

If there is any quote that illustrates your fundamentalist presumption (around which the debate has been revolving better than this one) then I missed it. All of this was addressed in my previous posts and you never provided any response to that.

You can call my posts void of substance as much as you like but that doesn't make them so. Clearly, the points I've raised cannot but emerge in this debate and are as such of the highest relevancy.

Observations from your last reply

You completely dropped almost all points of contention, completely refused to tackle anything I said baselessly calling it irrelevant in an effort to distract me (and anyone else who may be reading this) from what has been said before and to restart the debate in a different fashion.

You're trying to countermand everything that has been said so far and are trying to draw the attention away from it by throwing red herrings relative to Divine Omnipresence, theodicy etc. and you really want me to follow them? Not a chance. I will not chase any other topics until we've settled what's been said before.

As if this weren't bad enough, you actually think doing this will make the points more constructive and concise? You apparently do not know the meaning of these words.

Until you actually do your job and respond to my points instead of attacking strawmen or running away from them, I will not budge an inch.

Finally, you tried to smear me with a quote taken out of context, and after I called you out on that you got shamefully silent. Useless to say that your apologies would be due and greatly appreciated.

Lightbringer · Sep 28, 2017

Deadlift said:
So after I call you out for not dealing with my points, you not only do it again but you choose to drop most of the debate so far and dismiss it as nonsense without any elaboration whatsoever. This is not only dishonest, but also disrespectful to my effort to present an argument and to the readers who may want to read our exchange to get a picture of how Christianity deals with the Bible.

The incompetence is made even more obvious given how what I'm describing is the position of every expert working in the field, another point which you completely failed to address.

Mere divine assistance doesn't get you where you want to be. You're defending the fundamentalist view that the Bible in its entirety (meaning all of the Biblical texts) is to be understood as being literally dictated from God word for word, with no other intent but that of relaying actual literal history which is obviously conveyed as a face-value truth.

Don't try to make your premises humble while jumping to an extravagant conclusion.

Right here a point I raised in my main argument against your position (which you deemed irrelevant) resurfaces. There are disagreements in the writings of the Old Testament. There are disagreements between the writings of the New Testament. I not only accept this but my entire position requires this.
But you cannot claim (at this point of the reply at least) that there are contradictions as the contradictions are of relevance only if the text is looked at from a fundamentalist perspective (as on the progressive view they are merely reflections of the 5 points which I pointed out in my argument which you ignored and refused to tackle).

This perspective is the exact thing in question and you cannot simply assume it to defend it. That's begging the question.

Never denied that.

You're once again lying about what happened. I didn't start off by saying the Bible is not "God's word" only to "finally" reach "the conclusion" that it is. The whole purpose of this debate was to establish the correct meaning of the Bible being Word of God. (Post #101)

We both started off as enunciating our positions. You adopted a fundamentalist meaning of the term, I adopted a progressive revelation view. That's what this debate is about. I therefore never said it wasn't God's word, I just took a different perspective on it.

First of all, this isn't an oral debate in which someone can interrupt you while you're speaking. This is a WRITTEN debate. I can't suddenly show up at your computer and prevent you from typing what you want to type. Stop blaming your failure to communicate your point in a manner which you would like on your opponent.

Second, you already said all this as I will now show.

You said this back in Post #106 and even earlier while talking to other people in this thread. This premise right here, clearly rests on your fundamentalist perspective on the Bible which I challenged in Post #107 by asking you for a reason why you think it is true. You tried to meet my challenge by quoting verses from various texts found in the Bible, all of which I disputed and concluded them as mere dishonest extrapolations to which you never gave an adequate reply and which you have now dropped entirely. I therefore consider my point to stand undefeated and yours refuted until further notice.

So, if you're not going to defend those verses, then I'll simply ask again, what is the ground for believing this?

I explained my view very clearly and in great detail in Posts #107, #142 and further elaborated so as to avoid any misunderstanding in Post #155. The fact that you are still insisting that anything in the bible should be infallible (a literal historical event) is just blind stubbornness. I already explained what the Biblical texts are, who wrote them, how they were written, for what purpose and in what sense can they be considered to be divinely inspired.

All you've done was call my arguments irrelevant yet here their relevance resurfaces. This premise as well, rests on the fundamentalistic view of the Bible despite you trying to phrase it as an alternative which I am supporting. Go back and address the arguments I've made or your point fails.

If there is any quote that illustrates your fundamentalist presumption (around which the debate has been revolving better than this one) then I missed it. All of this was addressed in my previous posts and you never provided any response to that.

You can call my posts void of substance as much as you like but that doesn't make them so. Clearly, the points I've raised cannot but emerge in this debate and are as such of the highest relevancy.

Observations from your last reply

You completely dropped almost all points of contention, completely refused to tackle anything I said baselessly calling it irrelevant in an effort to distract me (and anyone else who may be reading this) from what has been said before and to restart the debate in a different fashion.

You're trying to countermand everything that has been said so far and are trying to draw the attention away from it by throwing red herrings relative to Divine Omnipresence, theodicy etc. and you really want me to follow them? Not a chance. I will not chase any other topics until we've settled what's been said before.

As if this weren't bad enough, you actually think doing this will make the points more constructive and concise? You apparently do not know the meaning of these words.

Until you actually do your job and respond to my points instead of attacking strawmen or running away from them, I will not budge an inch.

Finally, you tried to smear me with a quote taken out of context, and after I called you out on that you got shamefully silent. Useless to say that your apologies would be due and greatly appreciated.

Are we not arguing the authenticity of the bible and the Christian God? There are more ways than one to approach this argument. Whatever points you are making are not relevant to this subject as you're not arguing anything that would support the validity of the bible and the existence of God, but merely the contextual analysis, which by your standard is metaphorical.

We started off by simply responding to posts without giving me a chance to make any fundamental arguments. And whatever topic we were discussing was at a standstill and pointless.

I have nothing to lose from this debate. Whether God exists or not, it has no bearing on my life. You're the only one here with something to lose and your desperateness is showing. If you can prove God, then it's still a satisfying conclusion for me. But thus far, you have not submitted any argument that would do so.

If you cannot tackle these contradictions and instead simply deflect them, then you are admitting to the flaws in your own religion by default.

If you want to make excuses and try to justify a way to dodge the contradictions I've laid out to you, then you are proving my point in the hypocrisy and ignorance of Christians.

You have failed to dispute these contradictions by giving non-answers or calling them red herrings as an excuse, when they are the very crux of the argument and quintessential to the topic of this debate.

Well, you've wasted my time as I predicted and didn't present any strong points that would support your side of the debate.

Deadlift · Sep 28, 2017

Since this is clearly your closing statement, I'm going to deliver one as well by responding to it.

Lightbringer said:
Are we not arguing the authenticity of the bible and the Christian God? There are more ways than one to approach this argument. Whatever points you are making are not relevant to this subject as you're not arguing anything that would support the validity of the bible and the existence of God, but merely the contextual analysis which by your standard is metaphorical.*

7 pages in and you have absolutely no idea what we were talking about. Good to see. Or at least that's what I would say if this was actually sincere. You know very well what the topic was and you debated it with quite some energy until you found your arguments utterly crippled after which you resorted to empty rhetoric much like the one which makes up the entirety of your last three posts.

Keep lying to yourself though, maybe you'll manage to fool yourself eventually, but if anyone else actually takes the time to read our debate, I think the conclusion they'll reach will be quite different from yours.

I have nothing to lose from this debate. Whether God exists or not, it has no bearing on my life. You're the only one here with something to lose and your desperateness is showing. If you can prove God, then it's still a satisfying conclusion for me. But thus far, you have not submitted any argument that would do so.*

I told you quite explicitly what my goal here is. If you find defending one's position through argument rather than empty hand-waving desperate, well that just says something about you, not me. Trash talk is easy. If you could back it up, you would. The fact that we're on the 8th page of this thread and all you do is throw unsubstantiated claims with the occasional cheap shot is a clear aftermath.

And oh, you are right on one thing. I definitely am the only one of us who actually has something to lose here. I may actually find out I was wrong. I may actually be forced to abandon my views and change my way of life and thinking. You know why? Because, unlike you, I am honest with myself. When my position faces an insurmountable objection, I don't hand-wave it, I actually do my research. I actually study the topics before starting debates about them. Throughout our debate I provided a rich background on theology, Church tradition as well as Biblical criticism while you went by baseless conjecture and empty rhetoric. I have challenged you to provide a rebuttal to my claims, you refused to do so. You have no right to call them poor.

Indeed, a closed mind has nothing to lose for it never had anything but illusions to begin with.

If you want to make excuses and try to justify a way to dodge the contradictions I've laid out to you, then you are proving my point in the hypocrisy and ignorance of Christians.*You have failed to dispute these contradictions by giving non-answers or calling them red herrings as an excuse, when they are the very crux of the argument and quintessential to the topic of this debate.*Well, you've wasted my time as I predicted and didn't present any strong points that would support your side of the debate.

If it weren't for my adherence to the principle of charity throughout the debate I could've just dropped one term for you and left you to your worth. There is a perfect term that describes your entire behavior here:

Pooh-Pooh.

You could at least go look that up if nothing else. As for what goes for my points, they remain unchallenged. I will take an objection to them anytime someone provides it. You made yourself crystal clear however that you will not do this. So by all means, you are free to go.

Be wary however because the next time I see you pressuring my fellow Christians and spreading falsehoods on the Bible, I will be there. I will say the same thing I said here and the outcome will remain the same - You will run away again. Keep running, I will stay firm.

Lightbringer · Sep 28, 2017

Deadlift said:
Since this is clearly your closing statement, I'm going to deliver one as well by responding to it.

7 pages in and you have absolutely no idea what we were talking about. Good to see. Or at least that's what I would say if this was actually sincere. You know very well what the topic was and you debated it with quite some energy until you found your arguments utterly crippled after which you resorted to empty rhetoric much like the one which makes up the entirety of your last three posts.

Keep lying to yourself though, maybe you'll manage to fool yourself eventually, but if anyone else actually takes the time to read our debate, I think the conclusion they'll reach will be quite different from yours.

Pretty sure that's exactly what my original comment was about. You're the one who couldn't comprehend what I was trying to establish throughout our debate, thus I had to move forward and condense the argument. The only person who doesn't know what we were arguing is you.

FYI, we've only argued for 4 pages with comments that stretched half the page. Don't exaggerate.

Lightbringer said:
I would ask that you read this in its entirety.

When it comes to the bible, the texts that tell historical events don't align with the evidence found through archaeology. A major example would be the Exodus. There is absolutely no archaeological evidence of Jews even being in Egypt in that time. Also the texts that write about the Exodus were written a thousand years after the claimed time period it takes place in. There are tons of historical inaccuracies which leads to question the credibility of the bible.

When it comes to Dinosaurs, Neanderthals, etc. We do have physical evidence of their existence, such as bones, footprints, DNA samples, tools, artwork, etc.

Yes, there is a lot of dispute about God. But take it from this perspective; we are not saying that there is absolutely no chance of God whatsoever, but based on what we know, it is unlikely.

Science builds on a foundation of observable evidence. It starts small then grows. We have thus far found no evidence to suggest the existence of the supernatural. Whether that might change or not is unforeseeable. But claiming that God exists as a certainty without evidence is disingenuous and unproductive. But if we're talking about an Abrahamic, Islamic, or Christian God; considering that the religious texts have historical inaccuracies, contradictions, and scientific implausibilities, it's safe to say that those Gods, along with all Pagan Gods do not exist. If there is a God, it's not going to be a God that humans have imagined in any religion.

As to blindly following science. Well we're not blindly following it. There is evidence available for us to see. It's just a matter of being able to comprehend that evidence. It's also incredibly important to have peer reviewed science. When scientists make theories or present data, it is then looked upon by other scientists and organizations to verify if what they are proposing is true or not. There is a process to this.

You cannot test religion to see if your God is real, but you can test and reproduce science which makes it real.

Deadlift said:
I told you quite explicitly what my goal here is. If you find defending one's position through argument rather than empty hand-waving desperate, well that just says something about you, not me. Trash talk is easy. If you could back it up, you would. The fact that we're on the 8th page of this thread and all you do is throw unsubstantiated claims with the occasional cheap shot is a clear aftermath.

You stated that your goal was to form a strong defense for Christianity. I'm still waiting for that.

We had a "discussion" on the what the word of God means. But as I've stated, both sides play into my argument. It being the literal word of God is one part of the argument. If you say that it isn't, then there is another aspect to that argument.

Even still, the idea that bible is not literal when God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and infallible is a fallacy within itself.

Deadlift said:
And oh, you are right on one thing. I definitely am the only one of us who actually has something to lose here. I may actually find out I was wrong. I may actually be forced to abandon my views and change my way of life and thinking. You know why? Because, unlike you, I am honest with myself. When my position faces an insurmountable objection, I don't hand-wave it, I actually do my research. I actually study the topics before starting debates about them. Throughout our debate I provided a rich background on theology, Church tradition as well as Biblical criticism while you went by baseless conjecture and empty rhetoric. I have challenged you to provide a rebuttal to my claims, you refused to do so. You have no right to call them poor.

Indeed, a closed mind has nothing to lose for it never had anything but illusions to begin with.

Really? Look back a few years, you'll find threads where I identified as a Christian and defended religion. But that was before I started looking into depth of my own beliefs and compared it to the findings of science, math, archaeology, and inconsistencies within the bible.

So your point is moot.

Deadlift said:
If it weren't for my adherence to the principle of charity throughout the debate I could've just dropped one term for you and left you to your worth. There is a perfect term that describes your entire behavior here:

Pooh-Pooh.

You could at least go look that up if nothing else. As for what goes for my points, they remain unchallenged. I will take an objection to them anytime someone provides it. You made yourself crystal clear however that you will not do this. So by all means, you are free to go.

Be wary however because the next time I see you pressuring my fellow Christians and spreading falsehoods on the Bible, I will be there. I will say the same thing I said here and the outcome will remain the same - You will run away again. Keep running, I will stay firm.

LMAO? Ok batman. You couldn't even answer the arguments I presented. All you did was stick with what you knew, which was your interpretation of the bible.

The ignorance is obscene.

I also find it amazing that you see yourself in such high regard while calling people who actually had the audacity to challenge these points as "weak." How modest of you. Maybe their arguments were terrible, but they still had more courage than you in at least attempting them.

Deadlift · Sep 29, 2017

Oh, so you replied? With nothing more than mere bickering, that is. I guess the only thing here that you consider to be a waste of time is actually making arguments and dealing with those your opponents make. Bickering out of hurt pride for the sake of having the last word is a perfectly valid investment right?

Lightbringer said:
The only person who doesn't know what we were arguing is you.*

Yet I described the topic in the same way you did and explained how what I'm talking about and the arguments that I brought to the table are exactly the topic being discussed here back in Post #158.

FYI, we've only argued for 4 pages with comments that stretched half the page. Don't exaggerate.*

I challenged you way back on page 2. Your problem that you refused to give a response for half the thread.

We had a "discussion" on the what the word of God means.

Exactly what I said the topic of the debate was. See Posts #101, #155 and #158. Again, what are the grounds for you to accuse me of misunderstanding the topic?

Nice to see you still resorting to meaningless rhetoric with the bold.

But as I've stated, both sides play into my argument. It being the literal word of God is one part of the argument. If you say that it isn't, then there is another aspect to that argument.*

Even still, the idea that bible is not literal when God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and infallible is a fallacy within itself.

I have challenged this already back in Post #107, you responded in Post #128, I countered and provided further support for my position in Post #142, you decided to dismiss most of what I said in Post #154, I again challenged you and further strengthened my objections to your argument in Post #155 after which you decided to dismiss everything that has been said before in Post #157 to which I responded point-by-point (in contrast to your general comments. Hypocritical much?) in Post #158.

If you want to still claim this, go back and actually engage with the arguments. Any child can put his fingers in his ears and yell "I'm right you're wrong“.

Furthermore, you keep misrepresenting my position. I've never said that the Bible is not the word of God. I affirm that it is and I've done so repeatedly during our exchange, and also explained what I (and indeed Christianity itself) mean by that in some detail.

Really? Look back a few years, you'll find threads where I identified as a Christian and defended religion. But that was before I started looking into depth of my own beliefs and compared it to the findings of science, math, archaeology, and inconsistencies within the bible.*

So your point is moot.*

I'm pretty sure I'm not talking to Lightbringer from 2012, 2013 or 2014. I'm talking to the current you who has proven himself to be as close-minded as one could possibly conceive, since you refuse to engage with my arguments while simply insisting they're irrelevant nonsense.

Funnily enough, I wasn't raised in a religious household and found God later on by doing exactly what you claim you did. You know what's the only way to see who's right? Providing arguments and rebuttals, thing that you have resolved not to do. If you wish to insist you're not close-minded, all you need to do is simply to prove me wrong. Go back and answer what you pooh-poohed.

LMAO? Ok batman. You couldn't even answer the arguments I presented. All you did was stick with what you knew, which was your interpretation of the bible.*

If you think my responses were inadequate you are free (and indeed utterly encouraged) to provide rebuttals, but you chose not to do that. I said it before and I'll say it again. It's easy to trash talk. How about you go and back it up?

Also, I like Batman so I'll take this as a compliment regardless of the satirical intent, thank you very much.

The ignorance is obscene.*

If you consider my views a product of ignorance then you're once again just reiterating what I already addressed. I pointed to the Church tradition, history of theology, the attitudes of the early Christians as well as the authors of the texts while also quoting scholars of Biblical criticism and Church history in support of what I'm saying.
I quoted a Church Father and a scholar illustrating the Fathers' approach to the Holy Bible and finally I pointed out how this is the official stance of the Church and a point universally agreed on by the scholars of the relevant fields, regardless of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof).
But never mind that though. Here is a guy claiming them all to be just ignorant folk who need to read their Bibles. I'm sure you have a lot to teach them all.

By contrast, I pointed out how the fundamentalist idea of a literal reading of the Bible you endorse is a late 19th - early 20th century product of a reaction to another movement generally known as "liberal theology",

Both these points you failed to address and merely resorted to snark and ridicule.

On a final note, I saw you keep insisting that I should have dealt with your points regarding the problem of evil etc. The reason I haven't touched those is, once again, because they're red herrings. No matter how loud you cry, as any competent debater will tell you, when your opponent commits a red herring fallacy you just point it out and move on arguing about the actual topic.

HOWEVER

If you really feel like those points need to be answered (and I would agree that a Christian needs to be equipped to do so) , there are a couple things you can do:

a) Drop this conversation entirely and make a new post in this thread that is focused solely on, say, the problem of evil

b) Post a thread on General Discussion regarding this sole issue

c) VM or PM me. I'll answer

Avani · Sep 29, 2017

Deadlift can you reply in one line what you are even trying to do here? Because I don't see why would you turn this thread in something about bible while not addressing the original post for several pages now?

Deadlift · Sep 29, 2017

Jean Grey said:
Deadlift can you reply in one line what you are even trying to do here? Because I don't see why would you turn this thread in something about bible while not addressing the original post for several pages now?

I answered the OP way back on page 2 and the topic I'm talking about with Lightbringer was the one brought up by him and in line with what the OP said.

I am not turning the thread into anything, why do you think I am?

Also why aren't you calling him out as well?

Regardless of that, I take this as an opportunity to invite you to join our discussion.

Science, Religion, and Ignorance.

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