Why does science always upstage God?

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[quote='Spongebob' pid='2067665' dateline='1633706598']
There are real contradictions in there that cannot be explained in ways other than human manipulation and other shortcomings that don't agree with a bible that is divinely inspired.

What I mean is Christian scholars are not running from, hiding, or in fear of any contradictions or in the history of the transmission of the text. We don't have to be. History is what it is, let's talk about it. Pick a contradiction and let's talk about it.

Biblical scholars are people who have spent their life exploring the historical roots of religious texts.  Sure, there are differing opinions on some matters, but I'm calling out issues that are pretty solidly consensus. 

Ok, there are believing Christians that have spent their lives exploring the historical roots of Christian texts as well. Textual Criticism isn't a purely secular pursuit. The people that I have chosen to believe, and that's what you and I do, choose who we will believe, see the same information and come to a different conclusion. Now, you may say that their religious background gives them a bias, ok fine, but that same critique should be leveled at the secular scholar. So i say consensus from who? Secular and believing scholars?

Just to start with, you should understand all of the political alterations that were made during the formation of the King James Version of the Bible.  They are fascinating and without question intentional modifications.  When I was a Christian, this was never spoken of so as a young person I was told the KJV was the most accurate translation of the ancient Greek texts.  Turns out this was completely false.  The KJV is largely just British monarchical propaganda.

You won't hear me defend the KJV Bible. It's not the best translation. While they did the best the could, it can't be because translators of the King James version didn't have near the wealth of manuscript information that we have now. And with CBGM it's only getting better. KJV onlyism is bad theology, it's indefensible really.

understand all of the political alterations that were made during the formation of the King James Version of the Bible

I will look into this, but I can admit that I am skeptical of judging motivation without documentation of the motivation. We have to have 2 or 3 independent lines of contemporary testimony to the political alteration, otherwise its speculation. Maybe you could point me to those lines of testimony?

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[quote='HappySkeptic' pid='2067679' dateline='1633709526']
I'm not saying you are crazy.  I once believed in it as well.  But, if you are a bible believer, you must believe in 100% of the bible, or else admit that some of it is just people's opinion and belief, rather than "Truth".

In my religious journey, I tried to believe the whole thing.  That lasted only a short time.  I read and studied the entire bible.  The god of the OT is not the same god as the NT - not even close.  I also realized that the story of Mankind's fall, and redemption made no sense, especially in light of archaeology, history, cosmology, and evolutionary theory.

I became a "mainstream" Christian, accepting that maybe Jesus provided some method by which we could connect better with God, but realizing the limitations of all biblical text.

Even that came crumbling down about 10 years ago, partly from debating with others in forums like this, and partly from realizing that no gods do anything, ever.  The claims of God answering prayer is a testable scientific claim.  It has never been shown to be true, despite an absolute promise that from the bible that it would occur.

The universe doesn't need a god to operate -- in fact one would simply mess things up.  Morality doesn't need to god in order to exist (in fact, god-imposed morality makes actual moral choice impossible).  I don't need to pretend to talk to a god to get through my day (though if I did, I'd choose a far nicer one that in the bible).

Fair enough. I don't come to the same conclusion.

I don't understand how you can account for the universe, laws of logic, laws of nature, math, morality, or anything else without God. It seems, from my point of view, that you just accept that these things exist without explanation, and they always did exist and always will exist and that you don't have to account for them. That isn't compelling to me. Am I wrong? Do you want to take one of them and hash it out and see if maybe your worldview is weak in some of those areas?