Then explain to me why your beliefs are more valid than those of the ancient greeks. Why should one believe in the god of the ancient hebrews any more than the gods of any culture?
Again, this is a red herring. I make no such comparison. I know the True and Living God, not some ancient dusty second-hand info. I know He has spoken to our species in all times, and everywhere. I can not and will not comment on an individual from a time and place far removed from my own.
The bible is absolutely FULL of significant errors, contradictions, and logical fallacies! Such errors/contradictions run the gamut from directly stating the blatantly untrue (rabbits eating their own cud,
Rabbits digest everything twice. While this is gross, they eat their own feces, and on the second pass through they don't. They are able to differentiate between the 2. Ancient Hebrew translated as "cud" was likely not at all an error, but a
decision to leave out that gory detail. Yet Hebrew is difficult to the point that it could have also been a translation problem. None of that = an error, nor is it significant.
If this were 10th grade biology this might be significant, but otherwise pffft. Dude, they FLY. You have no point.
earth described as flat on multiple occasions
Where? You have no idea of the context, and your statement has no integrity. We are not dissecting biological, geographical, nor astronomical text. You are likely looking at a section of
poetry, for cryin' out loud! And yet in other sections earth is described as a sphere, but of course you choose to overlook that ...
One must take
the whole of Scripture before concluding
anything. So far it appears you cannot do that, on any topic.
differences in the order of creation
Which content you do not understand, otherwise you wouldn't cite this. There is a difference between created and made, as the text plainly reveals. Seems you merely collect info from websites w/o discretion, rather than applying yourself to the text and making up your own mind.
different accounts of finding the empty tomb
You really want show your integrity with
this?!? Come into my lair, said the spider to the fly
Start a thread about this, titled something clear. Any 10 posters on CF can address this. There is such a thing as a low quality response, and my hunch is maybe 3 out of 10 might be that. We also have some ANE researchers and Bible translators, and we might be lucky enough to get some of their insights. Pursue this!
differences in how Judas died
You really haven't thought about any of this, have you? I'll give you a break, some things really do require Divine revelation,
but not this! He hung himself, just like it says. Not being a professional hangman he did a rather sloppy job, fell either before, during or after his death, and took a nasty fall that ruptured his guts. There are cliffs all over the area, no tall trees, he wasn't a carpenter, nor particularly industrious.
Where would he hang himself but off a low branch on the side of a cliff?
differences in Jesus's geneology
Paternal vs maternal. Both are significant! (Jesus was a Jew, remember. Oh wait, you don't even know why that matters? Then studying these genealogies is definitely for you!)
engineering impossibilities
This I gotta hear. I'm sure it's old, tired, and been refuted 1000's of times before, but just so I know how far you're willing to ignore the text to make a point ...
to such a being violating his own precepts
Now HERE's a concept! You're so cute, thinking G-d will answer to YOU
Will He bribe you to keep His offense secret? Will He solemnly accept the punishment you dish out?
Apparently it is beyond your comprehension that the precepts to which you refer were for a specific people, in a specific place, for a specific time, and for a specific purpose? And they were never intended to further limit Himself?
You say you want to address what you [falsely] perceive to be a logical absurdity. Why must you overlook the bulk of my statement so you can say
Isn't an answer, it's a cop-out. The fact that you are resolved to essentially "he's gonna show us why someday" means you dont have an answer, that you have given up on thinking about it.
Here's what you overlook:
"We see every step of what the Bible shows us re: our way to approach Him, all laid out for us beautifully." Which happens to be (a very short form of) your answer, which was in the very next sentence after what you quoted! Now if you have any integrity at all, you have some homework to do before you can pretend there is any cop-out:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7478962/
Let me know when you've digested all that, so you're prepared to speak intelligently on the subject.
There are whole websites devoted to pointing out biblical errors/contradictions/absurdities.
Yes, I already pointed out you do not speak from your own intellect, but merely regurgitate what others spoon-feed. You try to pass that off as integrity?
If you have struggled with your process, it is because you are trying to put a square peg in a round hole. What you should be doing is putting the peg down and finding another one that fits, not trying and trying to jam the wrong one in!
Hypocrite! When were you born? Repeatedly you have pretended I don't know why I believe what I believe, and feigned to "counsel me" to think it through. And here you reprimand me for doing that very thing?!?
Why I outta ... [/Popeye]
It's not a strawman. Saying that such a god will just reveal himself to us someday is ignoring the question. It is the same as saying "his ways are just beyond me". So it is not a strawman.
Ok, so you don't know what a strawman is. I'll slow down the pace for you. Acting the way you depict in this last quote I snipped is not what I do, not what I have done to arrive at my convictions, and
not contained in my responses to you. Which is, you know, how and why you could be expected to
respond with more integrity than that. Comprende?
