What makes your faith true?

[Fake Messiah]

But apparent contradictions are "apparent", not real contradictions.  Keep in mind that the Biblical texts were written by different individuals and were not collected into a book until many years later, so it wasn't as if someone got them together and edited them so that everything matched up tightly.

Main reason the Bible hasn't been able to convince everyone everywhere that Jesus is the only path to heaven is that it is poorly written and structured. I could do better than the Bible. The main problem of the Bible is flowery language, metaphors, poetry and that confuse people and are therefore are misinterpreted to sometimes mean to kill people to commit genocide, to be peaceful. I mean we are talking about the book that was the first line of defense for slaveholders looking to provide moral justification for owning human beings and yet other people see it as a "most moral thing ever", because is muddled.

If it were written by sane supreme being would it not be crystal-clear sentences because she is omniscient and would know that her words would be translated into different languages over thousands of years. She would never be so careless as to pass on lengthy passages that could be easily misunderstood and misapplied. There would not be any outdated rules and advice for owning slaves, beating servants, or killing people for minor infractions.

With regard to most of the rest, I would simply remind you that an absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Sure but you don't believe in god Ganesha although there is no evidence to disprove the existence of the god Ganesha.

The way I see it the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the person making the claim and no one else. If, for example, someone says to me, "Pink flying unicorns are real and you should believe in them," it's not my responsibility to prove that PFU don't exist.
I cannot claim there are positively no gods because universe is a big place. A few gods might be hiding somewhere over in the next galaxy. I don't think gods are real. My best guess is that they are the creations of imaginative people who were coping with deep fears, hopes, and curiosity about life and the universe, but I certainly don't claim to know this for certain.

In addition, the sense in which the flood was global can be different.  If water covered all of the land where human beings were, rather than all of the earth, from the perspective of the humans, it would have been covering the whole earth.

But the Bible says it covered every mountain top because, I guess, humans and animals could just go up above the water and not get drowned. Taking stuff from the Bible that only make sense to you is picking and choosing so why not leave it altogether?

[Pat Mustard]

Which parts?

The contradictory bits or those which have been proved scientifically not to have happened?

I'm not aware of contradictory bits or those which have been disproven scientifically.  For example, I don't hold to a literal 6 day creation view.  The Bible is filled with multiple kinds of literature written from various perspectives, both gentile and Jew, which have to be taken into account.  Most of the time, when I run into apparent contradictions or asserted scientific disproofs, I'm usually looking at misapprehensions on the part of the objector or worse, outright straw men that the objector knows to be false characterizations of the Christian point of view or my point of view.  So I really would have to ask for some kind of clarification as to what you mean, specifically?

Well you've got the bits where the prophets and Yeshua tell you the way of Moshe is the way of god and you must follow all the rules, and then you've got the bits where Saul and the other Greek speakers tell you the way of Moshe is no longer the way of god, and no rules need be followed. That's a pretty big contradiction, as you cannot follow both teachings.

[Fake Messiah]

I'm not aware of contradictory bits or those which have been disproven scientifically.  For example, I don't hold to a literal 6 day creation view.  The Bible is filled with multiple kinds of literature written from various perspectives, both gentile and Jew, which have to be taken into account.  Most of the time, when I run into apparent contradictions or asserted scientific disproofs, I'm usually looking at misapprehensions on the part of the objector or worse, outright straw men that the objector knows to be false characterizations of the Christian point of view or my point of view.  So I really would have to ask for some kind of clarification as to what you mean, specifically?

Well you've got the bits where the prophets and Yeshua tell you the way of Moshe is the way of god and you must follow all the rules, and then you've got the bits where Saul and the other Greek speakers tell you the way of Moshe is no longer the way of god, and no rules need be followed. That's a pretty big contradiction, as you cannot follow both teachings.

Sure, in NT you have Jesus say "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets" but he himself was sometimes a hypocrite in this, because he didn't follow all the rules from OT and spited them, like he refused to wash his hands before eating; he stopped a mob from stoning an adulteress woman.

So what is for good christian to do since Jesus never spells out which parts of the OT should be kept and which ones should be abandoned?
What Christians usually do is if the OT says stuff you like but that is not mentioned by Jesus (i.e. that homosexuality is a sin, etc.), then you'll firmly argue that it's clearly an important part of Christian theology since it's found in the OT. If, on the other hand, it says something you don't like, then you can just go ahead and ignore it since real Christianity is about New Testament anyway. The beauty of this game is that you can make the Bible say pretty much anything you want it to say.

[vorlon13]

Which parts?

The contradictory bits or those which have been proved scientifically not to have happened?

I'm not aware of contradictory bits or those which have been disproven scientifically.  For example, I don't hold to a literal 6 day creation view.  The Bible is filled with multiple kinds of literature written from various perspectives, both gentile and Jew, which have to be taken into account.  Most of the time, when I run into apparent contradictions or asserted scientific disproofs, I'm usually looking at misapprehensions on the part of the objector or worse, outright straw men that the objector knows to be false characterizations of the Christian point of view or my point of view.  So I really would have to ask for some kind of clarification as to what you mean, specifically?

Well, maybe not contradictory, but redundant:

Jesus being crucified on Thursday and again on Friday.

I would presume they used the same nail holes the second time . . . .

[The Valkyrie]

I'm not aware of contradictory bits or those which have been disproven scientifically.  For example, I don't hold to a literal 6 day creation view.  The Bible is filled with multiple kinds of literature written from various perspectives, both gentile and Jew, which have to be taken into account.  Most of the time, when I run into apparent contradictions or asserted scientific disproofs, I'm usually looking at misapprehensions on the part of the objector or worse, outright straw men that the objector knows to be false characterizations of the Christian point of view or my point of view.  So I really would have to ask for some kind of clarification as to what you mean, specifically?

Well, maybe not contradictory, but redundant:

Jesus being crucified on Thursday and again on Friday.

I would presume they used the same nail holes the second time . . . .

BDSM...?

[vorlon13]

The Romans were thorough.

It was the only way to be sure.

[vorlon13]

[Mystic]

Obviously question for religious people.

What makes your faith true?

It is verified by reason and manifest with clear evidence.

[The Valkyrie]

Obviously question for religious people.

What makes your faith true?

It is verified by reason and manifest with clear evidence.

Reason?

Manifest?

Evidence?

A hat trick of "nope"s

[Odoital77]

But apparent contradictions are "apparent", not real contradictions.  Keep in mind that the Biblical texts were written by different individuals and were not collected into a book until many years later, so it wasn't as if someone got them together and edited them so that everything matched up tightly.

Main reason the Bible hasn't been able to convince everyone everywhere that Jesus is the only path to heaven is that it is poorly written and structured. I could do better than the Bible. The main problem of the Bible is flowery language, metaphors, poetry and that confuse people and are therefore are misinterpreted to sometimes mean to kill people to commit genocide, to be peaceful. I mean we are talking about the book that was the first line of defense for slaveholders looking to provide moral justification for owning human beings and yet other people see it as a "most moral thing ever", because is muddled.

If it were written by sane supreme being would it not be crystal-clear sentences because she is omniscient and would know that her words would be translated into different languages over thousands of years. She would never be so careless as to pass on lengthy passages that could be easily misunderstood and misapplied. There would not be any outdated rules and advice for owning slaves, beating servants, or killing people for minor infractions.

With regard to most of the rest, I would simply remind you that an absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Sure but you don't believe in god Ganesha although there is no evidence to disprove the existence of the god Ganesha.

The way I see it the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the person making the claim and no one else. If, for example, someone says to me, "Pink flying unicorns are real and you should believe in them," it's not my responsibility to prove that PFU don't exist.
I cannot claim there are positively no gods because universe is a big place. A few gods might be hiding somewhere over in the next galaxy. I don't think gods are real. My best guess is that they are the creations of imaginative people who were coping with deep fears, hopes, and curiosity about life and the universe, but I certainly don't claim to know this for certain.

In addition, the sense in which the flood was global can be different.  If water covered all of the land where human beings were, rather than all of the earth, from the perspective of the humans, it would have been covering the whole earth.

But the Bible says it covered every mountain top because, I guess, humans and animals could just go up above the water and not get drowned. Taking stuff from the Bible that only make sense to you is picking and choosing so why not leave it altogether?

Interesting.  You’d think that if that were the main reason, it would come up as a primary objection, but it actually doesn’t come up that often.  I’ll let your objection stand on its own I think.  Given that we’re talking about stories written down about a backwater preacher from 2,000 years ago that have somehow survived separately and as a group for thousands of years when virtually all other works of antiquity have either disappeared or are far less well attested to, in terms of authenticity; I think your objection is far too bold for me to even need to deal with it extensively.
 
The Bible isn’t that different from other types of literature that use similar kinds of language, metaphors, poetry, etc…  And typically when people are being violent in the name of Christianity, they are violating the long-standing tenets of the faith, not following them.  The prescriptive teachings of Jesus to Christians do not include violence, nor was Jesus life characterized by the same.  And yes, many books and views of individuals have been prostituted by others to support something that the books and people wouldn’t have supported themselves.  The fact that a tiny minority of slaveholders used the Bible in a way that contradicted its basic tenets in order to attempt to support the institution of slavery is far outweighed by the superior number of people who used the Bible and its teachings in concert with the tenets of the Christian faith to argue against slavery.  And in fact, because the anti-slavery movement was in harmony with what the Bible actually teaches, that movement saw far more success than those who had to selectively misinterpret scripture in order to give the appearance of support.  It was largely the religious Christians in the Christian west that put an end to slavery.  The west was not unique in having slavery, as the entire earth had been covered with slaves for thousands upon thousands of years.  The most unique thing about the west and slavery is that slavery met its end in the west and spread the moral shame of slavery across the rest of the world.  Even today, where you still have slavery, most of it exists in places where Christianity has had the most minimal presence.  Usually, you find animism, Islam, eastern religion, or atheism where slavery still exists today.
 
We’re not in any position to know or be able to judge exactly how a Supreme Being’s revelation “should” or “ought” to appear to those to whom it is left.  Nor do we know all of the reasons that it would have been left in the way that it was.  I suspect that it’s at least possible that if the Supreme Being had done what you suggest, there would be a whole new series of objections as to how that method of leaving a revelation to mankind didn’t somehow meet our largely ignorance based and finite expectations.  And just so I’m clear.  There actually is no prescriptive rules or advice for owning slaves, beating servants, or killing people for minor infractions.  There may have been for people of their day, but then God was dealing with people as they were, not has He would like them to be.  As our level of moral understanding and the wisdom with which we apply that understanding has increased, so has our understanding of the text.  The vast majority of humanity will have lived during times where slavery simply wasn’t a relevant factor.  Most of the people who’ve ever been alive on the face of the planet are alive today or soon will be.  Most of Earth’s history has been one where far fewer than 1 billion people covered the planet.  Today, we had another billion every 10 years or so.
 
Why, if there is evidence of the Christian God, which would be superior to Ganesha, by nature, and makes the claim to be the ONLY God, would you think there would be no evidence to disprove Ganesha?

I agree with you regarding the burden of proof.  If you say that there is no God or some other such claim, the burden of proof would lay with you.  The same is true, if I say that there is evidence for God.  The burden of proof would rest with me.
 
But you say, “I don’t think Gods are real.”  How is that different from saying that God(s) do/does not exist?
 
I suspicion that the existence of God is a properly basic apprehension of the human mind, similar to the idea that other minds exists, that the past is a reality I’m rational to believe in even though I wasn’t there, or belief in the external world.  These are all properly basic beliefs that we are rational to assume.  The difference between these beliefs and God is that human beings are in rebellion against God and they suppress the truth that they know because they do not want to acknowledge the one from whom they are rebelling.

With regard to your last comment regarding picking and choosing, I really don’t know what you mean?