Biblical circularity.

[Statler Waldorf]

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Well thanks very much for the response, I appreciate it.

I accept your reasoning that if you presuppose the bible is inerrant that anything that then finds fault with it can be discounted, because we both agree humans are fallible. There is no way to disprove this. The fault I find is in presupposing it.

I don't agree that you have to presuppose it isn't true, if you don't presuppose it is. You can have an open mind about it, be willing to be convinced. If I am open minded, and ask a simple question, how do you know it's inerrant, in an honest attempt to find the truth, is the only answer, because it says it is? If you presuppose something is true, you can make anything fit!

Sam Harris put's it this way, if there were some disaster, that destroyed most of human civilisation, and we forgot all knowledge of religion and literature and culture and technology, when we set about rebuilding our society, what would we learn first? And at what point would we decide the bible, out of all the literary and religious texts, was the truth? How could we test it to find out? What separates it from the qu'ran or the illiad or any other text?

As far as I can see, the only reason people accept it as inerrant and the word of god is because they already believe it is. Don't you think presupposing the truth of something on faith is faulty logic and irrational?

By the way you can indeed prove your senses are reliable, for instance, an eye test.

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I like this discussion

Ok here is why I feel there is no neutral ground on this matter. The Bible is very clear that you are either for it or against it (Matthew 12:30). So the Bible says there is no neutral ground. So if someone says, "I believe there is neutral ground on this matter." They are actually saying the Bible is wrong, which of course means they are not neutral. So I do not believe that Christians arrived at their positoin by being neutural, however I do not belilieve non-believers arrived at their position by being neutral. Is that fair?


Ok here is why I feel there is no neutral ground on this matter. The Bible is very clear that you are either for it or against it (Matthew 12:30). So the Bible says there is no neutral ground. So if someone says, "I believe there is neutral ground on this matter." They are actually saying the Bible is wrong, which of course means they are not neutral. So I do not believe that Christians arrived at their position by being neutral, however I do not believe that non-believers arrived at their position by being neutral either. Is that a fair assumption?
As to the presuppositions point you made. It is not bad logic to presuppose certain truths I believe; in fact I think it is necessary in order to obtain any knowledge at all. Sure you can take an eye test, but how do you know you took the test in the first place? You’d have to use your senses right? So you have to make certain assumptions beforehand before you can obtain any knowledge at all. Some of these include, laws of logic exist and we should adhere to them, our senses are generally reliable, our memories are generally reliable, and the future will resemble the past. I believe that presupposing scripture’s truth gives us a solid foundation for why these presuppositions are accurate. Your thoughts?

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I pre-suppose the Bible is the word of God, I believe non-believers pre-suppose it is not the word of God; there is no middle ground on this subject. So both sides are biased on this matter.

I disagree and believe there is a middle ground. It is entirely possible to have an open mind when approaching the bible, and I believe that you are assuming if one does this, they will come to the conclusion that it is the word of god. I never had any reason not to believe it was god's word when I was being raised Christian, but still came to the conclusion it was the word of man. It's a common misconception that atheists are automatically opposed to the bible, because it seems unfathomable to theists that one could be open minded and not be in awe of the bible. Try to keep in mind that many atheists have actively tried to be theists, but just couldn't come to the conclusion that theism was the right point of view. It is incorrect to assume that anyone that doesn't believe in the bible must be biased.

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Read my post above as to why there is no middle ground, I want to hear your thoughts on it.