(June 6, 2018 at 10:03 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(June 6, 2018 at 7:36 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Why do they think that?

And I would note that this is you argument; not mine. I don’t think that they get a special no questions asked privilege.

I think that they think that, because religious belief is a meme that infects individuals and cultures; in other words, they are the product of the belief systems that they were raised in, just as you were.

In any case, neither of you have "good" reasons to claim what you do -- both the Bible and the Quran are products of the human imagination, nothing more.

I didn’t become a Christian until later in life. But nice try.. and from this thread, and the way you keep running away from critical thinking preferring to assume motivations, I’m not interested in your opinion. And don’t think you can support your claims.

(June 6, 2018 at 6:48 am)Tizheruk Wrote:

Quote:Then they are wrong, no error nor contradiction has ever been established or successfully argued. What I did was look up the maps and roads available to me last night and it made sense for Jesus to take the route He did. I see you failed to make a claim of your own that contradicts what I said. Brilliant argument.

Bullshit 

Quote:Yes there were, but the road from Damascus to the southeastern side of the Sea of Galilee was there before the Romans. Rome wasn't interested in building roads everywhere like we have today, they built roads to move the military quickly to different areas. There were trade route roads established in the Middle East long before there was a Roman empire.

False

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And more of roads ignorance as a cherry on top of GC shit sundae

 I've tried to say this in nicer ways in the past but you just want pay attention, you couldn't argue your way out of a wet paper bag, so just go to the corner and let others try to have a decent argument.

GC

Quote:but, I do think that it is reasonable to be able to  ask "why do they believe that", when they present their claim.

They have evidence which, if you'd put your fucking bible down and read their work they'd be more than happy to tell you about.  Unlike you fairy tale bullshitters, scholars are all too happy to explain.  You see, in most cases, they have to read more than one book to reach a conclusion.  You should try it.

(June 6, 2018 at 6:43 am)Jehanne Wrote: GC,

I am not a classical scholar,

Agreed.

Jehanne Wrote:I admit that, but I doubt that you or anyone else is so "brilliant" as to get a PhD in any subject, and by that very fact, be the cause of some major paradigm shift in academic studies in any academic discipline.

I had a young man in my youth group who has a PhD in nuclear science and engineering, puts that to rest now doesn't it. By the way he attained this PhD two years quicker than most people could, brilliant should be his middle name. When he graduated companies were scrabbling to get him, this young man had choices as to where he wanted to work straight out of the university. He was sent to Japan to study the Fukushima reactors after they failed from the earthquake. He just returned from Washington D.C. where he worked for a few years, He was asked to go there, he did not have to apply for the job. He is a inerrantist as I am. You also have no idea of the number of Biblical scholars who are inerrantists.

Jehanne Wrote:The fact that there are so few scholars who are Biblical inerrantists should tell you something, shouldn't it?

Dawn

 The fact that there are scholars who are inerrantist doesn't surprise me, the are non-believers who have biased opinions before they ever picked up a Bible and most of them have no understanding of the Hebrew and Greek languages. they are opinionated old farts that need something to do with their less than perfect lives. So the fact that there are many non-believing scholars that believe the Bible has errors is no surprise, they need to discount the Bible to be able to uphold their beliefs, those who take the Bible as a history book are backing up, it is a spiritual book for those who decide to follow Christ, it is a teaching aid for Christians. The history you think contradicts the Bible is not set in stone and has many flaws because so much is assumed and not proven. Like Egyptian history, so many Pharaohs had history completely re-written or wiped out of previous Pharaohs we will never have a clear history of the ancient Egypt civilization. Sad how pride has destroyed such history, but then they were not interested in any history but their own, so vain were they they never considered the very next Pharaoh could wipe out all their accomplishments by carving out that Pharaohs and claiming his accomplishments for their own. This is not what you see in the Bible, it has been recorded the same for thousands of years, makes you wonder doesn't it, why did these people do this when nearly all other nations tried to wipe out their accomplishments from one leader to the next.
 By the way I'm still waiting on a good argument from you why Jesus should not have taken the route He was said to have. Defend yourself.

GC

GC

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(June 7, 2018 at 1:30 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:but, I do think that it is reasonable to be able to  ask "why do they believe that", when they present their claim.

They have evidence which, if you'd put your fucking bible down and read their work they'd be more than happy to tell you about.  Unlike you fairy tale bullshitters, scholars are all too happy to explain.  You see, in most cases, they have to read more than one book to reach a conclusion.  You should try it.

That's their problem they read instead of studying, they lack in understanding the culture, the languages and the way things were presented, many Bible scholars who are in the inerrant camp study for many years in the disciplines of culture, languages and presentation before they act on any of the passages non-believers dispute. You know this Min why are you acting like such a dummy or is it you are not as smart as you let on.

GC

Quote: I've tried to say this in nicer ways in the past but you just want pay attention, 

Yes i know and it was as impotent then as it is now .

Quote:you couldn't argue your way out of a wet paper bag

And you couldn't argue your way out of an open doorway with a neon sign saying "out this way dumbass " And yet you continue to run your finger tips . 

Quote:, so just go to the corner and let others try to have a decent argument.

Funny that would be my advice to you. Actually it would be go back to your cave .But a corner will do for you .

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And yet more of GC brainless ranting 

(June 6, 2018 at 10:14 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(June 6, 2018 at 10:03 pm)Jehanne Wrote: I think that they think that, because religious belief is a meme that infects individuals and cultures; in other words, they are the product of the belief systems that they were raised in, just as you were.

In any case, neither of you have "good" reasons to claim what you do -- both the Bible and the Quran are products of the human imagination, nothing more.

I didn’t become a Christian until later in life.  But nice try..    and from this thread, and the way you keep running away from critical thinking preferring to assume motivations, I’m not interested in your opinion. And don’t think you can support your claims.

I noticed your quote from Vilenkn in your sig;

Quote:It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man.  - Alexander Vilenkin

Have you read the following paper by Professor Vilenkin's colleagues:

Inflation without a beginning: a null boundary proposal

Have you ever thought, critically, that maybe they are right and he is wrong?

Support what "claims"?  My claim is that most classical scholars do not believe that the Bible is without error:

Quote:There are major difficulties in accepting Luke's account: the census in fact took place in 6 CE, ten years after Herod's death in 4 BCE; there was no single census of the entire empire under Augustus; no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors; and the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee.[6] Some conservative scholars have argued that Quirinius may have had an earlier and historically unattested term as governor of Syria, or that he previously held other senior positions which may have led him to be involved in the affairs of Judea during Herod’s reign, or that the passage should be interpreted in some other fashion.[8][9][10] These arguments have been rejected by mainline scholarship as "exegetical acrobatics"[11][12] and most have concluded that the author of Luke's gospel made an error.[6]

Census of Quirinius

Seems completely reasonable, no?  The author of Luke's gospel made a historical error.  Ergo, the Bible is not inerrant, that is, "without error".

Hi Jehanne,

Sorry, I got waylaid from this discussion.  I just wanted to acknowledge that the disputes about the Luke Census (as compared to the previous examples) is one of the better arguments against the Bible that I am familiar with. 

It is basically an argument from silence, but it does have some merit.  It's not definitive, but not completely unjustified either.   We have found information, which can contend with those who argue, that a census would not have required them to travel, and we have found information which can validate the title given to the roman governor.  The main crux of the issue is that the census is not mentioned by others (which to my understanding it is mostly just Josephus who chronicles a number of census's).  So we do have the assumption that Josephus is correct and that Luke is wrong. And there are some who argue and give reason to possibly doubt Josephus as the one who is incorrect, as well as additional census's not recorded by him.  

Any ways, I don't have time, to do all the research and get into a proper discussion for all this.  But I did want to acknowledge that this is a decent argument as compared to the others which are bad logic, and bad history.   The argument from silence is still a difficult one to build up (especially from that long ago), but Kudos for bringing it up, and I hope that in the future you would focus more on arguments like this rather than the others.

(June 13, 2018 at 3:17 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Hi Jehanne,

Sorry, I got waylaid from this discussion.  I just wanted to acknowledge that the disputes about the Luke Census (as compared to the previous examples) is one of the better arguments against the Bible that I am familiar with. 

It is basically an argument from silence, but it does have some merit.  It's not definitive, but not completely unjustified either.   We have found information, which can contend with those who argue, that a census would not have required them to travel, and we have found information which can validate the title given to the roman governor.  The main crux of the issue is that the census is not mentioned by others (which to my understanding it is mostly just Josephus who chronicles a number of census's).  So we do have the assumption that Josephus is correct and that Luke is wrong. And there are some who argue and give reason to possibly doubt Josephus as the one who is incorrect, as well as additional census's not recorded by him.  

Any ways, I don't have time, to do all the research and get into a proper discussion for all this.  But I did want to acknowledge that this is a decent argument as compared to the others which are bad logic, and bad history.   The argument from silence is still a difficult one to build up (especially from that long ago), but Kudos for bringing it up, and I hope that in the future you would focus more on arguments like this rather than the others.

I think that the author of Luke made an historical error, and the modern consensus of scholars reflects this fact.

(June 14, 2018 at 5:07 am)Jehanne Wrote:

(June 13, 2018 at 3:17 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Hi Jehanne,

Sorry, I got waylaid from this discussion.  I just wanted to acknowledge that the disputes about the Luke Census (as compared to the previous examples) is one of the better arguments against the Bible that I am familiar with. 

It is basically an argument from silence, but it does have some merit.  It's not definitive, but not completely unjustified either.   We have found information, which can contend with those who argue, that a census would not have required them to travel, and we have found information which can validate the title given to the roman governor.  The main crux of the issue is that the census is not mentioned by others (which to my understanding it is mostly just Josephus who chronicles a number of census's).  So we do have the assumption that Josephus is correct and that Luke is wrong. And there are some who argue and give reason to possibly doubt Josephus as the one who is incorrect, as well as additional census's not recorded by him.  

Any ways, I don't have time, to do all the research and get into a proper discussion for all this.  But I did want to acknowledge that this is a decent argument as compared to the others which are bad logic, and bad history.   The argument from silence is still a difficult one to build up (especially from that long ago), but Kudos for bringing it up, and I hope that in the future you would focus more on arguments like this rather than the others.

I think that the author of Luke made an historical error, and the modern consensus of scholars reflects this fact.

No doubt. And the way you responded to the other arguments; is why I don’t feel a need to rush a study and share it here.

(June 14, 2018 at 7:10 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(June 14, 2018 at 5:07 am)Jehanne Wrote: I think that the author of Luke made an historical error, and the modern consensus of scholars reflects this fact.

No doubt. And the way you responded to the other arguments; is why I don’t feel a need to rush a study and share it here.

Please, take your time, and share it when you are ready, if ever.  By the way, I don't know why you are continuing to quote Vilenkin in your sig; that issue (if there was even one to begin with), has been laid to rest:

https://debunkingwlc.wordpress.com/