Recent content by sfs

Also, attempts at falsification are a pretty small part of science as actually practiced.

No, I'm saying that people became followers of Christ without first deciding that their source of information was infallible. I'm sorry, but your argument doesn't seem coherent here. I thought you were claiming that you had to know that the Biblical accounts were without error because otherwise...

Where that someone else often (after the very early years) hadn't known Jesus in person. ETA: and in any case, I don't think anyone had to decide that those who were testifying were infallible in order to be trusted.

Your way seems to have very little in common with the Biblical picture of how people came to follow Jesus, before or after his death. From my perspective, it doesn't work at all. The books of the Bible are (to me) clearly not entirely reliable and they're certainly not on the face of it reliable...

That's fine. Not that I agree with all of it, but I have no objection to any of it.

By believing and being saved. How do you decide what to believe? About anything? Whatever that is, do that. I see this kind of argument quite often and I've never understood it. How does it make sense to decide the Bible is 100% accurate about everything written in it in order to believe...

Here's what you wrote: 'A more pointed question, along the same vein, would be "Can a person be a Christian and believe only parts of the Scriptures." That is what is really being asked. I would say no.' Do you no longer agree with that? Or what, exactly?

Quite often, yet. Not just scientists, but academics in general, at least in the US system that I'm familiar with. They're often not welcome to stay. Postdocs are usually short-term positions (roughly three years), from which one can apply for faculty jobs, usually at a different institution...

The Apostle Peter (in the unlikely event he wrote the epistle credited to him) said nothing at all about inerrant or infallible -- that's something you invented and attributed to him. And whether theopnuestos meant 'God-breathed' at the time What you completely fail to understand is that these...

Sure. But note that Paul is talking about preaching the gospel, not according inerrant status to some written text. Which is to say, you're ignoring what the Bible actually says and substituting your own beliefs for it. From the use of the word 'inspired' in English, in any other context than...

I'm not following this thread in any detail (it has far too many posts for my limited time) but I'm pretty sure I disagree with you on this point. The fact that any organism has to be classified as belonging to exactly one species(*) is an artifact of our arbitrary naming scheme, not a...

Sure. We routinely get information about real historical men from books that aren't inerrant. 'Can we trust this guy' and 'do we have to trust the accounts of this guy to be inerrant(*)' are two very different questions, and the second does not in fact follow logically from the first. (*)...

Yes, I wrote that. Did you not understand the question? You didn't answer it. Do you think no one believed in God before the Bible was written, or that no non-Christian believes in God? Yes, I know the verse. Your invocation of it here is flawed for multiple reasons. 1) 'Inspired' in English...

Where do you get the idea that believing anything at all about the Bible is required for salvation?

When did 'prove' start to mean 'demonstrate without any possibility of error', outside of mathematics or formal logic?