(March 27, 2015 at 1:29 am)urlawyer Wrote: I read your first few posts in the linked thread. At first glance it looks like your thoughts are nearly in line with christianity but then you cut through that cloth with great accuracy. I felt like I was watching art being made, bravo
Indeed, your line of reasoning puts the first and third options on nearly equal playing fields. If I were to base my faith in christianity on it, I would have no qualms. Fortunately though, there are so many other reasons to disbelieve the bible.
Thank you for your kind words. If one is going to argue about some issue, it usually works best to take the ideas seriously and see the implications of them.
I would not put the first and third options on equal footing. But when viewing the matter in isolation (i.e., not considering other aspects of the Bible and the reasons to reject it), I can see how one might.
Certainly, the least respectable position, intellectually speaking, is the second one. Picking and choosing based on personal preference is really just using personal preference as a guide, and only bothering with the Bible when it coincides with what one already wants. It is an intellectually dishonest approach, in which one pretends that one is using the Bible as a guide, but is really just going with personal preference.
That may be "nicer" in practice (or not, depending), but it is intellectually despicable. If the Bible is just another book written by people, as opposed to one that was guided by the hand of God, one should take the third approach and just toss it and stop pretending.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
