Why the "There are so many interpretations of the Bible" claim is confused

[Thumpalumpacus]

Can't keep that damned story straight, can they?

Apparently God is all-powerful, but if I use my free will I can upset his plans.

That's probably why he wants to burn me for all eternity -- now he has to figure out another way to pick up the bread and milk from the store, and Mrs God is none too pleased that his plans have gone awry.

[Esquilax]

I say "if' for your benefit, if we as Christians are correct in what we believe then Dawkins is calling millions to an eternal punishment, a punishment far worse than wiping out mankind. Dawkins teaches people in the way of their punishment. If we're right then Dawkins is your enemy.

GC

So... wait. Does anyone else spot the enormous flaw in the argument here?

If christians are correct then Dawkins is advocating for a viewpoint that will send people to hell, making him the enemy. If christians are correct then god exists, and is far more complicit in sending people to hell than Dawkins is, and that makes him... good?

Not to mention, "a punishment far worse than wiping out mankind," GC? You mean something morally worse than a thing your ultimate moral guide literally did?

[Losty]

I say "if' for your benefit, if we as Christians are correct in what we believe then Dawkins is calling millions to an eternal punishment, a punishment far worse than wiping out mankind. Dawkins teaches people in the way of their punishment. If we're right then Dawkins is your enemy.

GC

So... wait. Does anyone else spot the enormous flaw in the argument here?

If christians are correct then Dawkins is advocating for a viewpoint that will send people to hell, making him the enemy. If christians are correct then god exists, and is far more complicit in sending people to hell than Dawkins is, and that makes him... good?

Not to mention, "a punishment far worse than wiping out mankind," GC? You mean something morally worse than a thing your ultimate moral guide literally did?

You're forgetting the most important detail. Everything god does is always right when he does it. Might makes right.

[robvalue]

Everything's always right if a voice in your head tells you to do it, too. As long as you truly believe it's god.

[Edwardo Piet]

7. Dawkins has neither committed genocide nor commanded people to commit genocide.

I say "if' for your benefit, if we as Christians are correct in what we believe then Dawkins is calling millions to an eternal punishment, a punishment far worse than wiping out mankind. Dawkins teaches people in the way of their punishment. If we're right then Dawkins is your enemy.

GC

Pascal's wager? How low! How fallacious! Even from you I expected better than a wager Godschild I thought you liked to stick to your condescending "God is love" malarky.

If there is a god it's just as likely to be a god that isn't of the biblical kind, and since there are countless imaginable gods it could just as easily be a mischievous god that sends all atheists to heaven and believers to hell.

Pascal's wager is not only pathetic and emotional blackmail it is also a load of fallacious bull. For the love of Dawkers the atheists are just as (incredibly) unlikely to go to heaven.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Pascal's wager? How low! How fallacious! Even from you I expected better than a wager Godschild I thought you liked to stick to your condescending "God is love" malarky.

If there is a god it's just as likely to be a god that isn't of the biblical kind, and since there are countless imaginable gods it could just as easily be a mischievous god that sends all atheists to heaven and believers in hell.

Pascal's wager is not only pathetic and emotional blackmail it is also a load of fallacious bull. For the love of Dawkers the atheists are just as (incredibly) unlikely to go to heaven.

This is GC ... pathetic is par for the course.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah but it's a different style of pathetic I think GC has been reading too much about buttsex, wheelchair photographs, poop, demon penises and other totally standard Poe tactics.

[Drich]

I'm not saying they should know the Linnaean system.  I'm saying that they should know the difference between avians and mammals.

Seriously?!?! Before 1735 their were no classifications of Mammals and Avians. Those words were literally coined in the English for the first time to describe the attributes Carl linneus decided made up that particular grouping or classification of animal. Do you not understand that before then 'mammals and avian' as a classification system did not exist?

So then how could anyone know that terminology? How could anyone make those distinctions? Again just because God knew does not mean He would burden the people he was speaking to at that time with those particular distinction. again look at the Parables Jesus taught. He used common knoweeledge to describe more complex things.

In that time their were much simpler classifications. Creatures that flew, creatures that crawled, creatures with legs which were subdivided into hooved creatures and split toed creatures. of those classification Moses was simply subdividing them further into 'clean and unclean.' "birds" is the English word used to describe the Hebrew word for 'winged creature.' In that classification system a bat does indeed qualify as a 'winged creature.'

Do you honestly think they were so stupid they couldn't tell?

You should ask yourself that. Meaning IF they had the terms "Avain and Mammal" would they not so classify them as such? But again No such words exist in the Hebrew or Greek, or better yet these words did not exist/come to mean what you understand them to mean till Carl formalized his 1735 work.

And even if they couldn't, wouldn't your god know? I mean, he's the one who issued those dietary restrictions. He's the one alleged to have created both classes in question.  When your god's knowledge is limited  by the knowledge of the culture that venerates him, that's a good indicator that he's an invention.

Again, if he used our terminology, who then would He be speaking to us or them? Who then would he have to demand to follow that law if infact He was speaking to us by using our terms? How then could he demand that they follow that law if He spoke in such away as to not be understood by those people at that time?

An all-knowing god could simply "inspire" the biblical author to say "don't eat these birds, and don't eat bats." Another option: he could actually show his followers something about the world they didn't know:

It's like talking to a retarded brick...
There was no word in the Hebrew that means "Birds"/Avians. Their word for 'Bird' does not speak to our taxonomlogical understanding of the word bird. Their word that we translate into bird means Winged Creature. They looked at the world differently than you do. They viewed it from a position of functionality, rather than genetic compatibility. when speaking from a position of genetic compatibility then you can group all genetically 'like' animals together. which gives you mammals, avaion, invertabrates, reptiles ect. The ancient Hebrews classified creatures by the way the moved and what they ate, and whether or not they could be eaten.

So again to call a bat a 'winged creature' and list them along side birds is not an incorrect classification.

"Hey, Mo, tell your people not to eat birds and bats."
"Birds and bats, Lord? aren't they the same?"
"Of course not, Moses. Look at a bat. Does it have a beak? How are its eyes located? Does it have feathers? What is its body shaped like? And do birds have teeth? Ears? claws on their wings?"

Does it have wings Mr. thinker? again that was the extent of their classification.

The Bible would be more useful if it taught something, anyway.

Again maybe to you and everyone since 1735, but what about the several thousand years and everyone who lived before? Especially when all it takes is a little friggen common sense to unlock this seeming mind blowing 'contradiction' to all those who come after.

[Edwardo Piet]

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[TheRocketSurgeon]

Again maybe to you and everyone since 1735, but what about the several thousand years and everyone who lived before? Especially when all it takes is a little friggen common sense to unlock this seeming mind blowing 'contradiction' to all those who come after.

I think you're missing his point, Drich, though I agree with you about the bats-vs-birds thing being a non-argument because of the later invention of the more specific terms, and the Bible's (human) authors having no knowledge of the concept, nor reason to make such a distinction, based on the way language was used back then. But that's not really his overall point.

The point is that the Bible is exactly as ignorant of the world/universe as the Bronze/Iron Age Hebrews. Yet the claim is continuously made that it is the work of something higher than human brains (specifically, inspiration or revelation from God).

He is pointing out that, if that were true, we would expect to find things contained in the Bible which no one knew, back then... amazing new discoveries about the universe, or even about the sphere on which we live.

For one instance, they tell the story of how there are three races, descended from Ham, Shem, and Japheth. (Black, Semite, and White, respectively.) Those were indeed the three races with which people in the Mideast had familiarity, at that time in history. Yet God never "reveals" to those authors that they live on a huge sphere, a concept that would have to be discovered by the Greeks, centuries later, or that on the other side of that sphere are other peoples and entire other continents that do not connect to their continent in a way that the animals in their "global flood" story could possibly cross to repopulate, post-flood. And so on... the Bible is a catalogue of the ignorance and prejudices of the ancient Hebrew warrior-priests.

Know why they had a disctinction between split-toed and hoofed animals, but not between birds and bats? Because they were not a nation of scientists, but of tribal sheepherders, and the just hadn't looked very closely at things besides the herds upon which they depended for food and clothing. On the other hand, if you're to argue that they had certain members who had God whispering The Truth™ into their ears for them to write down as Divine Revelation, then it's odd that God doesn't reveal to them anything about the actual nature of the Creation... like, for instance, that Lamarckian inheritance is utterly incorrect, as erroneously described in Genesis chapter 30 (when explaining why Jacob/Israel became such a wealthy and powerful man on the basis of keeping the spotted sheep that came from Laban's flocks, because he was "clever" enough to cut white stripes into the bark of poplar branches, and place them in the sight of the mating sheep), one of numerous instances of the "divine revelation" being a mark of the ignorance of the ancient tribal priests.

And that's fine! That's just what we expect to see. It's when people come here and try to make excuses for why God's Divine Revelation is exactly as fucking ignorant as a Bronze Age sheepherder that we start to get less-charitable in our replies to a person who in the modern age would accept such a thing in place of reality.