One of Jehovah's Witnesses needs your help

[robvalue]

Indeed. The assumption that everyone would become Christians if they thought Christianity was true is totally wrong.

[SteelCurtain]

Also:
http://bibviz.com/

[nihilistcat]

Hello, I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses. I have started a couple of threads already but I want help with one subject in particular...

    The bibles lack of credibility.

 I have heard many charges against the bibles lack of credibility. Such as, it is a collection of fairy tales, it is historically inaccurate, it borrowed from surrounding religious lore, etc.

Please understand that I am agnostic. I do not know what I believe but I am making an absolute stance on what I believe until I hash out some things. So please, give me links, facts, or whatever else you have to help me with this one subject. Being told, "you know that its a bunch of bullshit, right?" is not any of those things. It may be true but I want to see facts. I don't want to hear about specific JW misgivings, just the bible as a whole. Why we can know for certainty that it is absolutely not the word of a divine being. If you say something that I feel deserves a rebuttal, take it as my lifelong indoctrination or whatever else you want but I promise that I am looking at this from a skeptical viewpoint. I want to clear my mind of the doubt that lingers in my head. I would almost say that I am 70 or 80 percent atheist at the moment. So my 20 to 30 percent may argue. Thanks for your help! I look forward to hearing your thoughts

I think one of the best pieces of evidence to emerge somewhat recently, is the archaeology concerning the Exodus from Egypt. The consensus among most archaeologists is that the Exodus never happened.

In archaeology, scientists attempt to verify historical records by digging for the evidence. They dig through strata, and they're able to determine a date range within a very narrow range. An event like several million people traveling through a desert over the course of 40 years, would leave very distinct and definitive types of evidence (e.g. DNA evidence in the region of strata corresponding to the dates found in the historical record). After the better part of a century excavating the Sinai desert, no evidence of this alleged event has been found, leading the majority of archaeologists to conclude that the Exodus is not historical, but rather, mythological. 

Obviously evolutionary science debunks the Genesis narrative quite thoroughly (although the usual response is to view Genesis as figurative rather than literal). And then there's the odd fact of a god who endowed humanity with numerous different religions, provoking centuries of infighting, and leaving us with no empirical evidence, no way to discern which is right and which is wrong (besides the obscure concept of faith), and the very obvious reasons why people believe as they do (the region and culture they were born into is usually the deciding factor). Can a god delineate good from evil using such seemingly arbitrary factors like birthplace? Apparently, our gods did exactly that. 

Or the more logical explanation ... we found agency in an inhospitable environment because we're a pattern seeking species who sought an explanation for natural events in a prescientific era, when good explanations were lacking. So we supplanted truth with the very unreliable conclusions drawn from our pattern seeking intuition, because at the time, that's all we had (and it gave us comfort, it soothed our grieving, and gave us some sense of metaphysical purpose). 

[Tonus]

Depending on how long you've been religious, it can be a pretty long journey to recognizing the flaws in the Bible. Once you do, you will realize that there are a great many of them and that the biggest barrier is the way you view the Bible. One thing to be aware of is that a great deal of what we believe about our particular religion was simply told to us repeatedly by lots of people, and so we assume it to be valid without really putting it to the test. Getting over that obstacle is a big step, IMO.

A good site for a list of contradictions in the Bible is http://contradictionsinthebible.com/

It is written with a viewpoint towards understanding how those contradictions inform scholars about how the Bible was written and compiled, and what it tells us about the people who wrote/compiled it and the history of the various stories. It isn't done as an attempt to "disprove the Bible" as much as it is the research that begins once you realize that it's just a compilation of old stories and legends that were written by several groups of people and finally compiled by a different group of people into the book we have today. It does have its uses, as a way of understanding the people and cultures that it encompasses. It's just not a guide book given to us by an all-powerful creator deity.

[Alex K]

The quick and dirty version would be - from archeological evidence we know there was no Exodus, and from genetic evidence we know that there were no Adam and Eve the way the Bible describes it. That removes the foundation for all Abrahamic religions, and in particular the role of Christ becomes unnecessary.

[Aractus]

The archaeological record clearly contradicts the Patriarchs, the slavery in Egypt, the Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan.

[Clueless Morgan]

Hello, I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses. I have started a couple of threads already but I want help with one subject in particular...

    The bibles lack of credibility.

 I have heard many charges against the bibles lack of credibility. Such as, it is a collection of fairy tales, it is historically inaccurate, it borrowed from surrounding religious lore, etc.

I would recommend reading almost anything by Bart Ehrman on biblical criticism or the history of early Christianity.  His books aren't about the bible's lack of "historical" credibility in terms of the claims it makes, but they talk about the formation and the problems with the New Testament, specifically how anyone can be certain of what the NT actually "originally" said and how problems of translations and with scribal hand-copying have influenced the NT.  His books on early Christianity show how there was probably never a time when there was just one form of Christianity; there have always been variations, and Ehrman's works show how the traditions of orthodoxy arose from among the masses of Christian sects of the first, second and third centuries.  I'd particularly recommend Lost Christianities and Jesus, Interrupted

If your looking for how the bible has borrowed its myths from surrounding cultures, I'd recommend 101 Myths of the Bible which talks about how biblical stories parallel the myths of the larger, more powerful cultures that were prevalent in the ancient middle east, and how ancient Jews modified those myths to conform to their own religious doctrines.

And I second Min's recommendation of The Bible Unearthed which gives a good idea of what sorts of claims in the bible have actually been archaeologically substantiated.  (Spoiler: There aint' much.)

[Cyberman]

I would submit the many reality claims that totally ignore actual reality. For instance: there was never a time when there were only two humans, stars are not little lights attached to the sky and which can fall to the ground, plants were not around on Earth before there was a sun to sustain them, the Earth itself is not older than the rest of the Universe, etc etc. Add to these the many hallmarks of mythological storytelling, all the magic, the talking (non-human) animals, the zero-dimensional characters...

At least Harry Potter had the integrity to be labelled fantasy.

[Clueless Morgan]

At least Harry Potter had the integrity to be labelled fantasy.

How dare you call Harry Potter fantasy!!

The wizarding world is real, I tell you!  REAL!!!!

[Cyberman]

I only said it's labelled fantasy. I know it's real; how can kids fly around on broomsticks if they're not wizards?