The Bible. All or nothing?

[Esquilax]

But why should it follow that just because SOME of the Bible is Fubar (and I agree that it is) that the whole shooting match is equally absurd?

See, here's the thing: I doubt you'll find anyone who says the bible is completely wrong. It has some correct things in it, and it has some incorrect things in it. The occasional good moral message surfaces among the dross, as with the odd historical event.

But there's a central premise there that acts as a support pillar for the bulk of the demands the bible makes of us, and that's that there is an extant god, and this is the way he wants us to act. That premise has not been demonstrated to be true, and so as yet it deserves no belief, and without that premise being true, none of the other supposedly divine edicts are justifiably believable either. You can't have commandments from god without first having the god.

On the balance of probability right now, for this and many other reasons that have been done to death, we're safe in concluding- tentatively- that the bible is written by human hands, and is therefore as fallible as any other work. The good parts that benefit us can be extracted, and the bad parts safely ignored, as without the hand of god at work behind them, they really are just the misapprehensions of bronze age people.

I don't think the bible is an all or nothing proposition, and I can say that precisely because I'm not pinning its words to the architect of being beforehand. It's just a book; the moment you stop assuming divine authorship, the rest of it neatly slots into groups of accurate things and inaccurate things, and we have no need to bend over backwards to accommodate the inaccurate things through reinterpretation or dogma.

It's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from a book written by people, that they'd get some things right, and some things wrong.

*As I typed that I heard (I think) Esquilax's voice in my head saying "why should you assume ANY of it is accurate". That's a different thread

The voice probably also told you not to rat out my telepathy power, but I guess you weren't listening.

[max-greece]

If there is any good stuff in it the question is - aren't there other places you can get that same stuff, but without all the padding and the outright shit?

I'm thinking there are a plethora of options for getting every decent message from the Bible.

So much for God's book.

[Jacob(smooth)]

If there is any good stuff in it the question is - aren't there other places you can get that same stuff, but without all the padding and the outright shit?

I'm thinking there are a plethora of options for getting every decent message from the Bible.

So much for God's book.

Can't disagree with that.

[Mr Greene]

I suspect this is primarily a protestant problem, the Catholics are perfectly aware that they wrote/compiled/edited the bible so don't generally see it as entirely accurate in the first place. They're also more aware that a whole lot of interpretation is involved which is why they defer to priests more than start spouting off at every point of blatant cobblers.
I suspect the protestants are are more restricted in what they can fall back on though that doesn't stop them from redifining that which is cannon and that which is considered apocryphal...

[Chad32]

If there is any good stuff in it the question is - aren't there other places you can get that same stuff, but without all the padding and the outright shit?

I'm thinking there are a plethora of options for getting every decent message from the Bible.

So much for God's book.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure any culture would frown upon killing and steeling, which are the only two of the ten famous commandments of the bible that are actual law in America.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

But Jacob, you believe that god is Jesus or Jesus's dad, right? Or are you a deist? Because if you believe in the specific god as described in the bible, I find it hard to believe you have other sources to corroborate that claim.

[Aractus]

I very rarely can. But that got me to thinking. Why do we (and by we I mean Christians) assume that ALL the bible is accurate*. I mean the bible says that its all accurate, but that might be one of the bits which isn't.

Our priest would say because of the irrefutable evidence, and then go on to list everything externally corroborated. I disagree with him. There is irrefutable proof for some stuff, there's good evidence (ie beyond reasonable doubt) for others, and there's somewhat decent evidence for more stuff still (ie likely to be right on the balance of evidence) - but for at least 80% of the Bible you have to accept it on faith.