The Great Flood

[Edwardo Piet]

The point is Daystar, that none of us want to be educated on the Bible, because whatever you say will be rejected by the countless other believers since they have interpreted it differently. We do know about the Bible. I have in fact read the Bible (I used to be a Christian...wow!), so don't claim that we know nothing about it. What we know is different from what you know because we were taught differently, and now we read the Bible with a critical mind (every book deserves criticism).

So instead of all these pointless lessons which nobody is interested in, why don't you stick to arguing why we should believe the Bible?

Very good point.

[Daystar]

Have YOU read The God Delusion?
And also, if and when I read the whole of the bible, I doubt my own personal arguments directed to it would change your mind much. Rather than what I know of it through TGD.
At the moment I consider it a waste of time. Perhaps you would consider reading the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster a waste of time for much the same reasons?

I have not read The God Delusion.

It isn't about changing my or anyone elses mind. If that is what I seem to be implying that is my mistake. I don't want to change anyones mind. I don't know about reading the Flying Speghetti Monster ... probably not, unless there were some actual parody or meaning behind it. I have read the Quran, Bhagavad-Gita, Dhammapada, Nihongi, Pirque Aboth, Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu ... education doesn't imply lobotomy, quite the opposite.

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The point is Daystar, that none of us want to be educated on the Bible, because whatever you say will be rejected by the countless other believers since they have interpreted it differently. We do know about the Bible. I have in fact read the Bible (I used to be a Christian...wow!), so don't claim that we know nothing about it. What we know is different from what you know because we were taught differently, and now we read the Bible with a critical mind (every book deserves criticism).

So instead of all these pointless lessons which nobody is interested in, why don't you stick to arguing why we should believe the Bible?

You don't get it, do you? You really don't get it. You should believe or not believe in the Bible because you know it well enough.

I teach these pointless lessons to Xian and Atheist. It is all the same - oddly enough, they do both tend to react the same.

Okay. I'm done. I have said all I need to say about it. You know how I feel.

[Jason Jarred]

Daystar, are you of the position that you can't truly believe the validity of something (ie the bible) unless you personally evaluate and read it yourself? Could it be more efficient, and in some cases *more* reliable, to assess something based on what evidence there is to support it (other documents supporting the existence and events surrounding Jesus life, corroborating material, reliability of supporting documentation, impartiality etc) rather than to simply read the text?

To refer to the Harry Potter series as an analogy - I need not read the entire series to be able to tell you that it's a work of fiction, in fact I need not read a single sentence. How do I know this? Because there is no substantial evidence for the existence of witches and warlocks. I have a good knowledge of the content of the books from reading the blurb and various snippets, and could adequately say that I most certainly would not base my world view on this book given that there is no evidence to support it's doctrine. What is wrong with that?

I personally *am* reading the Bible, I'm near the end of Numbers and I am reading the New Testament concurrently. I plan to finish it, every paragraph, every chapter, every book.

I choose to do this because:
a) I have the time
b) I have the interest and motivation to understand *your* beliefs
c) I have the motivation to question my own beliefs and their validity.

This isn't to say that anybody else has to read the bible to arrive at the same point I will arrive at, it only means that I am reading the bible as I find it useful on this journey. Others may arrive at an equally valid and respectable opinion of the truth value without reading a single sentence, based on the reliability of the text and it's supporting evidence or lack thereof. That, I believe, is how the scientific method works. It doesn't matter what your hypothesis is (ie truth of the bible), it matters more how you arrive at the point of proving it as fact, bringing it to the point of scientific theory (with that supporting evidence, sources, testability).

To finish off, what I have read so far has not impressed me, in fact it's left me with the impression that anybody who has read the Bible and still calls themselves a christian is either an ignorant buffoon or a heartless, immoral human being.

[Edwardo Piet]

Have YOU read The God Delusion?
And also, if and when I read the whole of the bible, I doubt my own personal arguments directed to it would change your mind much. Rather than what I know of it through TGD.
At the moment I consider it a waste of time. Perhaps you would consider reading the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster a waste of time for much the same reasons?

I have not read The God Delusion.

It isn't about changing my or anyone elses mind. If that is what I seem to be implying that is my mistake. I don't want to change anyones mind. I don't know about reading the Flying Speghetti Monster ... probably not, unless there were some actual parody or meaning behind it. I have read the Quran, Bhagavad-Gita, Dhammapada, Nihongi, Pirque Aboth, Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu ... education doesn't imply lobotomy, quite the opposite.

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Your argument on the Bible is uninformed and irrelevant.

You are telling me I can't argue because I have not read it. Yet you have not read TGD and TGD has information on it. And Dawkins shows why 'the argument from scripture' isn't an argument for the truth of the God or the bible. Also I have read enough of the bible to know what its like. And seen enough nonsensical quotations from it.
If I go out and read the whole of the bible so I can argue more about the details of the scripture with you, I very much doubt it would change my mind and I very much doubt my arguments on it would change yours.
Everyone interprets scripture differently, so how can you be so sure that YOU are the one interpreting it right?
How would you like it if I'd read the Gospel of the FSM and was trying to educate you about it, and when you said that what I was talking about was nonsensical I simply said "Aah but you can't judge that because you haven't read the whole thing. Your argument is completely invalid. I have an argument on it because I have read the whole of it therefore my argument is stronger than yours."
what you ARE quoting/talking about from the bible as arguments for its truth is nonsensical.
The burden of proof is on you I don't actually need to know about the bible at all to debunk it. I actually don't need to disprove the truth of the bible at all. You have to prove it, you have to provide evidence. So until you can provide proper evidence for the truth of bible I can assume its all nonsense.
You are say that you are not trying to teach the truth of the bible, you are just trying to teach the bible for what it is. But in the quote above you say that my argument is irrelevant. It is NOT irrelevant because my argument is simply this: until you or anyone else can provide proper evidence, I can assume the bible is full of shit. If you're not trying to prove anything how can you call my argument irrelevant when it certainly is not? My argument is the burden of proof. Evidence first.
Its false until proven true, not true until proven false.

[chatpilot]

Using the bible as your source of evidence to prove the existence of God,man,the universe etc. is the most ignorant and rediculous thing anyone can do.The bible in many places is historically inaccurate,biased,and full of plagiarized myths from the many cultures the Hebrews came in contact with.Also,not to mention that the book was written by several men claiming inspiration from God.I think all holy books claim the same thing does that make them any less inspired?

[Edwardo Piet]

Using the bible as your source of evidence to prove the existence of God,man,the universe etc. is the most ignorant and rediculous thing anyone can do.The bible in many places is historically inaccurate,biased,and full of plagiarized myths from the many cultures the Hebrews came in contact with.Also,not to mention that the book was written by several men claiming inspiration from God.I think all holy books claim the same thing does that make them any less inspired?

Very good point. Especially about the fact that not only was the bible written by men, but for them to be correct in their arguments they would have to have really had personal experiences with God.
So, Daystar it comes down to the argument from personal experience, not the argument from scripture. Because to believe the scripture you have to believe that the authors were personally inspired by God. Which of course is absurd considering you haven't personally experienced the authors. You don't know of their personal experiences with 'God'.
How can you trust their personal experiences with 'God' if you haven't personally experienced them?
You weren't there. So you first have to have "faith" in the authors of scripture in order to use scripture as evidence of God.

[Daystar]

Excellent post, Jason! Very thoughtful and articulate.

I am not of the position that you can't truly believe the validity of something unless you personally read it yourself. Rather, I am of the position that it helps a great deal and if you are going to criticize it you have to be familiar with it enough to do so. More importantly to criticize it without being able to say why, other than a baseless opinion is of no import.

What I would like to see IS evidence to support a position for or against based upon evidence such as other documents supporting the existence and events surrounding Jesus and others, corroborating material, reliability of supporting documentation, impartiality etc but not excluding the Bible itself. For example, you can't assume that the Bible teaches hell when it doesn't and you can't demonstrate this without considering the Bible itself.

Harry Potter is fiction but there are witches and warlocks and magicians that can do things that you can't explain. The fact that you can't explain them or don't know that they exist doesn't make them go away and to ignore them isn't science. Is there substantial evidence for the existence of witches and warlocks? Yes. That they can do things that you can't explain. Yes. Does that imply that Harry Potter isn't fiction? No.

You say you are reading Numbers. Here is Numbers 22:22 - And the anger of God began to blaze because he was going; and Jehovah’s angel proceeded to station himself in the road to resist him. And he was riding upon his she-ass, and two attendants of his were with him.

Where it says resist the actual Hebrew says literally "in the road as a resister to him." The Hebrew word for resister is satan. The angel of Jehovah was satan to him. What does that mean?

You say it doesn't matter what ones hypothesis is but instead how you arrive at the point of proving it as fact, bringing it to the point of scientific theory with that supporting evidence, sources and testability.

Give me an example of that. What is satan? How would you approach what the Bible says about satan in that way.

What you have read so far leaves you with the impression that anybody who has read the Bible and still calls themselves a Christian is either an ignorant buffoon or heartless, immoral human being? Why is that?

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EVF, I have not read TGD and I am not criticizing it. I have no opinion on it. I don't go on message boards and talk about how it can't be true because I can't judge it either way.

I have no argument with the fact that you can assume the Bible is full of shit without knowing anything about it. My argument is that that would be nothing more than an assumption. You are the one making that assumption and so the burden of proof is on you. Not me. As of yet you have given not one shred of evidence, and how could you do so?

[Edwardo Piet]

I have no argument with the fact that you can assume the Bible is full of shit without knowing anything about it. My argument is that that would be nothing more than an assumption. You are the one making that assumption and so the burden of proof is on you. Not me. As of yet you have given not one shred of evidence, and how could you do so?

I told you, I don't need evidence. Because the burden of proof is on you. Because you have to prove the existence of God or the truth of the bible first. I don't have to disprove God/the truth of the bible. That's the burden of proof. And to simply tell me that I have to disprove the truth of the bible is a cop out. So the burden of proof is NOT on me. You're the one who has to give proof of the bible's truth if one of us does. I don't have to disprove it. Thats the burden of proof. And all evidence you have suggested so far I do not consider evidence. Just as you don't consider evidence of evolution evidence.

[Daystar]

Chatpilot, You are the one that keeps plugging the SAB, are you not? I have had the SAB in my favorite files for years - for a laugh. I posted there as David IV, Dr. Bill Egan, Evo Devo, and Greasus Chrysler.

I've been banned from there more times than I can count. The only good thing I could say about them is that a guy named Rambo posted there, though he only made small talk and posts more at Bible Babel. He is easily the most knowledgable atheist I have ever known. The only one to actually have made me work and think hard about defending the Bible.

You said that the bible in many places is historically inaccurate, biased, and full of plagiarized myths from the many cultures the Hebrews came in contact with.

Demonstrate this, because I think you are full of shit.

[Edwardo Piet]

Pardon my ignorance, I'm curious, what's the SAB? The Sabbath?