The Case for Atheism

[Simon Moon]

I believe in the Bible because I have found (as others have) that the Bible is not just a fairy tale that was written by men and claimed their was a God

The bible contains stories of: talking animals, dragons living in Babylon, Cockatrice, men living in fish for 3 days, dead Holy men leaving their graves and walking around Jerusalem, giants, etc.

How does that NOT sound like a fairy tale?

just so they can keep people in check.

Maybe not written for that reason, but sure has been used for that reason plenty.

Most people don't understand the Bible is not just a book to read cover-cover and simply understand it. No, the Bible is to be taken in a exegesis way. Historically, culturally, literary criticism, finding the origin of text, the intent of the author, prophetic verses either to authenticate it or not.

'Exegesis' is nothing more than a method for explaining verses, that used to be thought of as fact, as parable. The more modernity forces Christians to see that more and more passages that used to be taken as fact now sound ridiculous, to apply 'exegesis' to them to now say they are not to be taken literally, but as parable.

In all my findings I found that the Bible is the only book that is authentic; whether it's that every name and city were authenticated by archaeologist, even the places were found to be true.

The Bible gets some things correct, historically and archeologically, but also gets many wrong (I can list them if you want).

But here's the thing, even if the Bible gets everything correct historically and archeologically, that would not add a shred of evidence that the supernatural god claims are true. The Hindu Vedas mention real places, too. Do you believe that adds any credibility to the supernatural god claims in the Vedas?

The prophecy in the Bible were even true. Such The Book of Daniel prophesied the coming of Pedo-Persia, Greek, The Roman Empire, Alexander The Great and other military battles. There was a prophesy that Jerusalem was going to be rebuilt after the Babylonians destroyed it years earlier. Which was fulfilled in 445 BC a full century AFTER Daniel had prophesied it was going to happen (Daniel 9). There are other hundreds of prophesies that were fulfilled. How can that happen from supposed men writing The Bible without any divine help?

You should ask the Jews about the supposed prophecies.

Or if you want to open another thread, I will respond why they fail.

Now to answer why I believe in this specific religion than other religions is because by doing so, you have to look into the historical events and the foundation that other religion are held onto. Whether it's Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, Muslims, Hindu etc they hold no evidence like The Bible has done. In the Quran (I have nothing against Muslim, I love them and I have Muslim friends) but its foundation is based on Abraham son Ishmael throughout history the Quran has gone through revisions, after revisions, contradicting its statements from its first few copies. There's no historical places that are mentioned in the Quran to ever had existed. In point, it can't be trusted. There's also the historical events that happened in Mormonism and Jehovah that are very contradicting. Or about Hinduism, Mythology? Simple, if I hold True that the Bible is as authenticated as I discovered it to be, then verses such as "There has no God before me, not one that I know" and the like, then Hinduism, and Mythology hold no merit in my faith. I'm only a truth seeker. If I ever find or am proven wrong about The Bible, I will in fact renounce my faith. I see no logic in believing in something that holds no truth.

You should read some scholarly research on textual criticism of the Bible. You will see that it is not that different than some of the problems you claim for the other religious texts.

You actually don't know that the Bible has 1000's of copy errors, mistranslations, the originals do not exist, there were some texts that were left out, there are later additions (everything after Mark 16:8 for example), etc, etc.

Not to mention that for someone that claims to base their beliefs on logic, you sure do use a lot of logical fallacies, Speccial pleading and circular logic, for example in the paragraph I quoted above.

[JesusHChrist]

Take the holy blinders off and learn something.

Next thing, we'll have to tell her that there is no evidence for Exodus. D'oh!

That one might sting!

[AnaMejiaP]

Let’s presume for the sake of argument that The Bible was to be true; then its claim of being inspired by a divine being. I think a divine being capable of talking to people, sending fire from heaven, having animals speak and having Jonah swallowed by a fish, and other crazy things wouldn’t be too far-fetched. Can you give me the verses that talk about Dragons and Cockatrice?

Exegesis just as hermeneutics have given us with other documents; like Septuagint to help us understand the Bible and its history correctly or closely. Yes, I agree some passages in the Bible are to be taken not literally.

The Bible gets some things correct, historically and archeologically, but also gets many wrong (I can list them if you want).
Yeah, go for it.

I will definitely look into Vedas.


Quote:The prophecy in the Bible were even true. Such The Book of Daniel prophesied the coming of Pedo-Persia, Greek, The Roman Empire, Alexander The Great and other military battles. There was a prophesy that Jerusalem was going to be rebuilt after the Babylonians destroyed it years earlier. Which was fulfilled in 445 BC a full century AFTER Daniel had prophesied it was going to happen (Daniel 9). There are other hundreds of prophesies that were fulfilled. How can that happen from supposed men writing The Bible without any divine help?

I know what the Jewish traditionalist believe in the prophetic of Daniel, though in fact not all. Daniel though is not the only book in the bible that holds prophetic accounts.

You should read some scholarly research on textual criticism of the Bible. You will see that it is not that different than some of the problems you claim for the other religious texts.

You actually don't know that the Bible has 1000's of copy errors, mistranslations, the originals do not exist, there were some texts that were left out, there are later additions (everything after Mark 16:8 for example), etc, etc.

Our Bible that we hold today is copies of the Original copies (which they do exist) please state your claim where they don’t? The copies that we hold are not perfect. Like you said they do have copy errors, misspelled words, and minor changes such as a better interpretation of the Greek word. Even though there are errors from years of copies, the Bible is still very close to its originals. Especially the amount of copies we have possession accounts more than any literature copies in history, making it so reliable.

---

Take the holy blinders off and learn something.

Next thing, we'll have to tell her that there is no evidence for Exodus. D'oh!

That one might sting!

You act as if I don't know the history of my religion? Hmmm...I think I already stated that I do but funny comment.

[Minimalist]

No. I don't think you have a clue. I think you have swallowed a load of bilge put out by other believers and have steadfastly ignored what archaeology has turned up in the last 40 years. Don't feel special about it.
You have a lot of company in the "I want fairy tales to be true" department.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/704190/posts

Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs' acts are legendary stories, we did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, we did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon. Those who take an interest have known these facts for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and doesn't want to hear about it.

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, YHWH, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.

Prof. Ze'ev Herzog teaches in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University. He took part in the excavations of Hazor and Megiddo with Yigael Yadin and in the digs at Tel Arad and Tel Be'er Sheva with Yohanan Aharoni. He has conducted digs at Tel Michal and Tel Gerisa and has recently begun digging at Tel Yaffo. He is the author of books on the city gate in Palestine and its neighbors and on two excavations, and has written a book summing up the archaeology of the ancient city.

Published in Haaretz in Jerusalem in Oct., 1999.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

@AnaMejiaP, have a question for you. But I'll answer yours first, to be fair. I'm an atheist, and I don't spend much time (if any time at all) considering the god hypothesis. But I was a Christian once, and one of the reasons I deconverted was because the bible is pettier than I am. And that is just silly to me because at that time I was doing basic courses in bio, and anyone who can create so much complexity in nature (which the bible claims) wouldn't care about what you eat or who you sleep with or who you marry. Not to mention all the other laws in the OT. I mean, that's just, if god was a person, he wouldn't be my friend because he gets mad at all the little things. Anyway, after that, I found more reasons to stop believing, which I won't bore you with.

So my question for you is: how do you know when the bible is literal and when it is metaphorical? Because no one seems to be able to agree on this.

[Simon Moon]

Let’s presume for the sake of argument that The Bible was to be true; then its claim of being inspired by a divine being. I think a divine being capable of talking to people, sending fire from heaven, having animals speak and having Jonah swallowed by a fish, and other crazy things wouldn’t be too far-fetched. Can you give me the verses that talk about Dragons and Cockatrice?

Yes, if you accept that a magic deity exists, you can explain anything with magic. Circular logic much?

Isaiah 34:13 mentions dragons in Babylon

Isaiah 11:8 - "And the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den." A cockatrice is a serpent, hatched from a cock's egg, that can kill with a glance. They are rare nowadays.

Jeremiah 39:33- Jeremiah predicts that humans will never again live in Hazor (false), but will be replaced by dragons. But people still live there and dragons have never been seen.

Jeremiah 59:37 - "Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions' whelps."

Exegesis just as hermeneutics have given us with other documents; like Septuagint to help us understand the Bible and its history correctly or closely. Yes, I agree some passages in the Bible are to be taken not literally.

You have a great ability to miss the point.

Yeah, go for it.

According to Exodus 1:5 the Israelite population was 70. In only 400 years, there were at least a couple of million (600,000 adult males, not counting women and children ( Exodus 1:45-46, 25:51). A population increase of 70 to a couple of million in 400 years is an impossibility. You know that, right?

40 years in the desert for a couple of million people, animals, carts, encampments, etc would have left archeological EVIDENCE (there's that 'E' word again). There is none. Archeologists are able to find remnants of much smaller populations from longer ago than the Exodus story supposedly took place in harsher conditions, yet not a shred of evidence for the Biblical story.

According to 1 Chronicles, David had an army of 1,100,000 from Israel and another 470,000 from Judah. There was not near the population to have armies this size in an area that was pretty much just tribes.

in Joshua 1:6, Joshua says that those who try to rebuild Jericho will be accursed by God, and will have to sacrifice both their oldest and their youngest sons in its construction. But Jericho still exists today, and is often considered to be the world's oldest, continuously occupied city.

Oh yeah, there is not a shred of archeological evidence that Jews ever lived in Egypt, let alone were enslaved there.

Quote:The prophecy in the Bible were even true. Such The Book of Daniel prophesied the coming of Pedo-Persia, Greek, The Roman Empire, Alexander The Great and other military battles. There was a prophesy that Jerusalem was going to be rebuilt after the Babylonians destroyed it years earlier. Which was fulfilled in 445 BC a full century AFTER Daniel had prophesied it was going to happen (Daniel 9). There are other hundreds of prophesies that were fulfilled. How can that happen from supposed men writing The Bible without any divine help?

This has already been refuted.

I know what the Jewish traditionalist believe in the prophetic of Daniel, though in fact not all. Daniel though is not the only book in the bible that holds prophetic accounts.

i wasn't only speaking of Daniel 'prophecy'.

Our Bible that we hold today is copies of the Original copies (which they do exist) please state your claim where they don’t? The copies that we hold are not perfect. Like you said they do have copy errors, misspelled words, and minor changes such as a better interpretation of the Greek word. Even though there are errors from years of copies, the Bible is still very close to its originals. Especially the amount of copies we have possession accounts more than any literature copies in history, making it so reliable.

Wrong.

The oldest known piece of the NT is a credit card size fragment of Mark from about 125 CE. There is nothing older. The originals do not exist.

The OT wasn't written for centuries after the events supposedly occurred. It wasn't written until 1200 BCE and 900 BCE.

You act as if I don't know the history of my religion? Hmmm...I think I already stated that I do but funny comment.

It seems that you don't/

[Minimalist]

[AnaMejiaP]

Let’s presume for the sake of argument that The Bible was to be true; then its claim of being inspired by a divine being. I think a divine being capable of talking to people, sending fire from heaven, having animals speak and having Jonah swallowed by a fish, and other crazy things wouldn’t be too far-fetched. Can you give me the verses that talk about Dragons and Cockatrice?

Yes, if you accept that a magic deity exists, you can explain anything with magic. Circular logic much?

Isaiah 34:13 mentions dragons in Babylon

Isaiah 11:8 - "And the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den." A cockatrice is a serpent, hatched from a cock's egg, that can kill with a glance. They are rare nowadays.

Jeremiah 39:33- Jeremiah predicts that humans will never again live in Hazor (false), but will be replaced by dragons. But people still live there and dragons have never been seen.

Jeremiah 59:37 - "Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions' whelps."

Exegesis just as hermeneutics have given us with other documents; like Septuagint to help us understand the Bible and its history correctly or closely. Yes, I agree some passages in the Bible are to be taken not literally.

You have a great ability to miss the point.

Yeah, go for it.

According to Exodus 1:5 the Israelite population was 70. In only 400 years, there were at least a couple of million (600,000 adult males, not counting women and children ( Exodus 1:45-46, 25:51). A population increase of 70 to a couple of million in 400 years is an impossibility. You know that, right?

40 years in the desert for a couple of million people, animals, carts, encampments, etc would have left archeological EVIDENCE (there's that 'E' word again). There is none. Archeologists are able to find remnants of much smaller populations from longer ago than the Exodus story supposedly took place in harsher conditions, yet not a shred of evidence for the Biblical story.

According to 1 Chronicles, David had an army of 1,100,000 from Israel and another 470,000 from Judah. There was not near the population to have armies this size in an area that was pretty much just tribes.

in Joshua 1:6, Joshua says that those who try to rebuild Jericho will be accursed by God, and will have to sacrifice both their oldest and their youngest sons in its construction. But Jericho still exists today, and is often considered to be the world's oldest, continuously occupied city.

Oh yeah, there is not a shred of archeological evidence that Jews ever lived in Egypt, let alone were enslaved there.

Quote:The prophecy in the Bible were even true. Such The Book of Daniel prophesied the coming of Pedo-Persia, Greek, The Roman Empire, Alexander The Great and other military battles. There was a prophesy that Jerusalem was going to be rebuilt after the Babylonians destroyed it years earlier. Which was fulfilled in 445 BC a full century AFTER Daniel had prophesied it was going to happen (Daniel 9). There are other hundreds of prophesies that were fulfilled. How can that happen from supposed men writing The Bible without any divine help?

This has already been refuted.

I know what the Jewish traditionalist believe in the prophetic of Daniel, though in fact not all. Daniel though is not the only book in the bible that holds prophetic accounts.

i wasn't only speaking of Daniel 'prophecy'.

Our Bible that we hold today is copies of the Original copies (which they do exist) please state your claim where they don’t? The copies that we hold are not perfect. Like you said they do have copy errors, misspelled words, and minor changes such as a better interpretation of the Greek word. Even though there are errors from years of copies, the Bible is still very close to its originals. Especially the amount of copies we have possession accounts more than any literature copies in history, making it so reliable.

Wrong.

The oldest known piece of the NT is a credit card size fragment of Mark from about 125 CE. There is nothing older. The originals do not exist.

The OT wasn't written for centuries after the events supposedly occurred. It wasn't written until 1200 BCE and 900 BCE.

You act as if I don't know the history of my religion? Hmmm...I think I already stated that I do but funny comment.

It seems that you don't/

You have made a point. Thank you.

[Minimalist]

It wasn't written until 1200 BCE and 900 BCE.

More likely about 150-120 BC.

[AnaMejiaP]

@AnaMejiaP, have a question for you. But I'll answer yours first, to be fair. I'm an atheist, and I don't spend much time (if any time at all) considering the god hypothesis. But I was a Christian once, and one of the reasons I deconverted was because the bible is pettier than I am. And that is just silly to me because at that time I was doing basic courses in bio, and anyone who can create so much complexity in nature (which the bible claims) wouldn't care about what you eat or who you sleep with or who you marry. Not to mention all the other laws in the OT. I mean, that's just, if god was a person, he wouldn't be my friend because he gets mad at all the little things. Anyway, after that, I found more reasons to stop believing, which I won't bore you with.

So my question for you is: how do you know when the bible is literal and when it is metaphorical? Because no olne seems to be able to agree on this.

Context and cultural analysis. At times yes, it' hard to distinguish what is figuratively or literal. In most cases though when there's a lament, a vision, if there is a replacement of the usages of a person for an animal. (like a serpent, dragon, beast etc etc) it just depends when/where. Another example, in Ephesians where Paul speaks about women should be silent, he did not.mean all.women are to be silent, what he actually meant was that the Ephesians women should be silent because they were spreading a false gospel. Most people either misinterprets that verse literal and forget to look at the background of the text and its culture. I don't know if that helps or not.