I'm rubber, your glue.
Bounces off me, and sticks to you.

Responsabilidad.
What a great word.

(September 4, 2019 at 12:48 am)Macoleco Wrote:

(September 4, 2019 at 12:37 am)The Valkyrie Wrote: Exodus didn’t happen.

There was no global flood.

The dead of Jerusalem didn’t rise when Jesus resurrected ( the Romans would have noticed).

What exactly is the Exodus?
If you believe in the flood isn’t that enough for a Christian?

If this is your knowledge of Christianity you will find yourself quite embarrassed in a face to face debate with a knowledgeable Christian. better study the Bible well and I mean study not just reading.

GC

@Macoleco I advise you to visit https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ because you can find many contradictions and absurdities there without read the bible.
I consider it as an useful tool to debate.

You can speak to him about the next fact. All Christian denomination haven't the same biblical canon. 
Table about books of the old testament in Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Table
Table about books of the new testament in Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Table_2

(September 4, 2019 at 11:28 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: And yeah, I know I’m being a bitch. I just can’t find it in me to be sorry about that these days.

Eh, I don't think you are. I get where you're coming from. However, I also get where the OP is coming from. To be fair, most, or at least a lot of, Christians don't even know what's in their own book, and plenty of Christians who do know a little bit of their Bible are massively ignorant to many of the glaring contradictions, illogical ideas and historical inaccuracies contained within.

So, a lot of Christians don't even care about having an in-depth debate; they sort of just want to hit you with a couple of "facts," use some clever wordplay, preach some gospel and walk away feeling like they "won" the exchange. It's unfortunate that people are this petty, but humans will be humans, I suppose. The only type of people who care about getting the last word in are usually very insecure folks who feel like they're never being heard. And it sucks, but a lot of Christians are this way. Though this might have little to do with their religious views and more to do with the fact that we're all infallible humans. But it does seem that their beliefs put them on the defensive. It seems like a lot of Christians feel this need to prove to other people that Christianity has it right. Strange.

That being said, in dealing with someone like who the OP is talking about, or at least from the impression I get of them, it might be helpful to just know a couple of quick comebacks about the Bible in order to shut the other person up. Not all of us want to spend our Thanksgiving debating Christianity with Uncle Steve. And I get it, if you don't want to debate, don't have the conversation, right? Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. Some people can get really pushy and won't shut the hell up until you prove to them that you do, indeed, know a thing or two. So, in some specific cases, I can understand wanting to just brush up on a couple of one-liners to hit someone with, even if it's just to end the conversation and change the subject.

As to why the OP couldn't have googled "contradictions in the Bible," I don't know. Maybe he/she wanted specific examples that people have tested?

Couldn't tell you.

I think a lot of people would be surprised to know how few Christians in the US actually read the Bible. I think something like 35% of adults claim to read scripture once a week, with Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons and Evangelical Protestants having the highest number of people reading scripture at least once a week.

Christians who read scripture at least once a week:

JW.................................88%
Mormons........................77%
Evangelical Protestants...63%

However, even all three of these denominations combined make up a very small portion of the Christian population. And the biggest groups of Christians of the denominations listed, outside of Historically Black Protestants, say they read scripture "seldom" or "never."

So, it's safe to assume that the vast majority of Christians rarely read scripture. It sort of makes one wonder, Why should atheists read the Bible?

I mean, yes, if you're into having in-depth, fact-based debates about the intricacies of the scripture, then sure, read away. Outside of that, I don't really see a compelling reason for most atheists to read the Bible. I have read quite a bit of the Bible. And let me tell you, it's boring as fuck, with plenty of passages starting out with just naming dozens of people, this person is the son of this person, who was born of this person, and lived in this city and blah blah blah. Can you imagine if a chapter in a novel started like that? You'd throw it back on the shelf without thinking twice. It's silly.

People who try to paint the Bible as this beautifully written masterpiece of are full of shit, and often themselves. No literary agent worth their weight in dog shit would bring a book written like the Bible to a publisher. It's jumbled together nonsense that's hardly worth studying.

Can you imagine if War and Peace was written like the Bible? What a joke!

I mean, yeah, if you're going to debate about the Bible, ideally you should be reading the Bible. But to just get your uncle to shut up at thanksgiving? I don't really think it's necessary. Then again, I don't know what the context of the conversation is as the OP wasn't totally clear on that.

Easiest - Bible says if you know that someone is gay (male gay ofcourse, primitive people who wrote the bible didnt knew about lesbians) - kill him. Why religious people don't kill gays?

(October 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm)GGG Wrote: Easiest - Bible says if you know that someone is gay (male gay ofcourse, primitive people who wrote the bible didnt knew about lesbians) - kill him. Why religious people don't kill gays?

Closer to home, why don't they kill their own children? (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

Boru

(October 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm)GGG Wrote: Easiest - Bible says if you know that someone is gay (male gay ofcourse, primitive people who wrote the bible didnt knew about lesbians) - kill him. Why religious people don't kill gays?

Because, according to Christians, they're not under the Old Covenant anymore.

And by the way, maybe be more specific with your wording instead of saying religious, since not all religious people follow the Bible.

(October 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm)GGG Wrote: primitive people who wrote the bible didnt knew about lesbians

The people who wrote the Bible didn't know about "lesbians" because the category didn't exist yet. They knew that there was same-sex love among women, though.

The term "lesbian" is a 20th century invention, but it's based in the ancient world. Sappho, the female poet who wrote about loving women, came from the island of Lesbos. The term (despite complaints from real people who still live on the island) became a kind of euphemism. Sappho was widely known; Plato refers to her as an already ancient classical writer. It's a matter of conjecture how much the authors of the New Testament knew of classical Greek thought. Paul, as an educated man and a Roman citizen, is likely to have known this. 

The term "homosexual," also, is a recent invention, from the 19th century. People in the past didn't think that way. The idea that people have orientations, that same-sex attraction is something to condemn, is recent. So there was no reason for the authors of the Bible to condemn women who like going to bed with women.

What the Bible condemns isn't homosexual attraction, in either men or women. This wasn't an issue. What it condemns is certain acts. And this is entirely in keeping with Roman thinking of the time. 

It was accepted as normal that a Roman man would have the right to fuck his male slaves, and do it for pleasure. Men penetrating men was not a problem. People looked down on those men who 1) allowed themselves to get fucked by men, and 2) enjoyed it. This is because respectable men were expected to be active not passive. The active partner, even if he's fucking a man, is not considered abnormal or bad. (And it was the same for the Samurai, by the way. The tough guys had their "sword bearers" who bore more than just the sword. It was OK for the tough guys because they were in the active role.) 

If the Bible doesn't condemn female homosexuals, it's not because the authors were ignorant of their existence. It's because that wasn't what they were worried about. 

It's better not to project our own modern categories onto ancient people, and then condemn them for ignorance.

At work.

(October 27, 2019 at 7:48 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(October 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm)GGG Wrote: primitive people who wrote the bible didnt knew about lesbians

The people who wrote the Bible didn't know about "lesbians" because the category didn't exist yet. They knew that there was same-sex love among women, though.

The term "lesbian" is a 20th century invention, but it's based in the ancient world. Sappho, the female poet who wrote about loving women, came from the island of Lesbos. The term (despite complaints from real people who still live on the island) became a kind of euphemism. Sappho was widely known; Plato refers to her as an already ancient classical writer. It's a matter of conjecture how much the authors of the New Testament knew of classical Greek thought. Paul, as an educated man and a Roman citizen, is likely to have known this. 

The term "homosexual," also, is a recent invention, from the 19th century. People in the past didn't think that way. The idea that people have orientations, that same-sex attraction is something to condemn, is recent. So there was no reason for the authors of the Bible to condemn women who like going to bed with women.

What the Bible condemns isn't homosexual attraction, in either men or women. This wasn't an issue. What it condemns is certain acts. And this is entirely in keeping with Roman thinking of the time. 

It was accepted as normal that a Roman man would have the right to fuck his male slaves, and do it for pleasure. Men penetrating men was not a problem. People looked down on those men who 1) allowed themselves to get fucked by men, and 2) enjoyed it. This is because respectable men were expected to be active not passive. The active partner, even if he's fucking a man, is not considered abnormal or bad. (And it was the same for the Samurai, by the way. The tough guys had their "sword bearers" who bore more than just the sword. It was OK for the tough guys because they were in the active role.) 

If the Bible doesn't condemn female homosexuals, it's not because the authors were ignorant of their existence. It's because that wasn't what they were worried about. 

It's better not to project our own modern categories onto ancient people, and then condemn them for ignorance.

I must adit the thought has oft crossed my mind as to how the Bible would be different if its progenitors were writing to an ancient world still dominated by the classic Greeks instead of the Romans. How history would have changed had the Greeks successfully federated, say, and been able to curb the expansion of the Romans.

Thence the early 'Church fathers' would have had to face off against the many Greek Phylosophers and their schools still in full swing.

How might the early Church fare in its relations with the Spartans one wonders?

Cheers.