Conflicting statements in the bible

[A_Nony_Mouse]

But the evidence isn't required. I've given examples and then they demand physical evidence when the topic is immateriality...

A thing which has no physical evidence cannot be considered more than imaginary. That which is "immaterial" can have any property anyone wishes even though contradictory and mutually exclusive. What is the point of such a topic when there is no definition of the topic?

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Well said but it looks to me he is claiming Rube Goldberg reasoning trumps a bullshit call.

Rube Goldberg reasoning? Saying that two verses could be describing two different battles is hardly “Rube Goldberg Reasoning”. If you’re asking Christians to give up one of their central doctrines (the infallibility of scripture) you’d better present some actual internal contradictions in that source, to date I haven’t seen anything presented that even comes close to being a contradiction. You’re going to have to do better.

Perhaps Rube Goldberg is more credit than it deserves. It hardly just different battles. It is the more recent writing did not know of the older writing OR if divinely inspired that the confusion over the two was desired.

For me, contradictions are one of the clearest reasons to consider the stories were originally considered some sort of fiction as those who were around when they were written could clearly see the same contradictions and did not even comment them nor attempt to correct them. The entire believer approach appears to be that it was only in the 19th c. people got smart enough to notice the contradictions.

As I recall from RC religions classes the answer was, don't think about.

The future is hypothetical. I do not choose to deal in hypotheticals.

So since you do not deal with the future science is now impossible since we cannot assume that what we observe taking place today will repeat under identical conditions in the future?

When you have the equations which predict human behavior into the future we can apply them and see what people will do in the future.