Something in the Bible that is actually supported by evidence

[Huram Abi]

The truth is, you have no idea how Christians investigate and defend the credibility of the Scriptures. The truth is that you have not offered a single scientific or religious reason why the Bible cannot be trusted. You have not even demonstrated an understanding of what it actually says.

Pontificate about science all you like, you got a lot to learn about Christian and Jewish scholarship before you start making categorical rejections as if it were a conclusion. Stop pretending this is a scientific conclusion based on evidence, you have not the slightest interest in the evidence. What you are doing comes before an empirical test, based almost entirely on a assumption of exclusively naturalistic causes. A practice, falsely so called, science.

So what is your definition of 'science'?

Have a nice day
Mark

I see a lot of claims here, but nothing to diminish what I've actually said.

I really hope you learn that one can't make such judgments based on one encounter.

Do you really think you can assess what I do and don't know about Jewish and Christian scholorship based on what I've said here?

Or is that just a canned ad hom for a general group of people you think I belong to?

The fact is that I haven't even CLAIMED that the bible can't be trusted and you are pinning me as applying false science. Quite a pigeon-hole.

If you are going to engage me, it is important for you to know that I don't fall for red herrings, so that you don't continue making the mistake of wasting both our time.

 

[Jazer]

Why are they here?

I keep asking them that but they never give me an answer. So I just figure they are in a fight with themselves and decide to come here to deal with that.

2 Corinthians 4:4 (KJV)
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

 

[Jazer]

It seems that I have struck a nerve. Oh, and it is "you're", not "your". I learned that after I left preschool.

I took english twice in college. The first time she would not pass me.

 

[Belk]

I'm trying sooo hard to have compassion. Why are they here? They must be hearing some kind of calling to come to a Christian website. Then I start thinking maybe they are here working for someone else.

Booga.... Bogga ..... I also eat kittens.

 

[Jazer]

Booga.... Bogga ..... I also eat kittens.

R U chinese?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I don't get why an atheist would even care what the Bible contains.

Because it's an interesting topic of conversation in its own right.
Because our society is heavily Christianised, and debating the theological opposition inevitably means debating Christians, Christianity, and the Bible.
Because there are certain groups of Christians who want to shove the Bible (or, rather, their interpretation of the Bible) into state-funded classrooms under the guise of science.

There's three reasons right there. Myself, I ascribe to all of these, and a fourth: I like to understand what other people believe, and why they believe it. A knowledge of the Bible is one such off-shoot from this.

Unless you want it to be real so you can finally believe? It's too bad you were blessed with too much intelligence and not enough faith. See faith is the thing that separates humans from animals. Feeling God's presence goes beyond IQ. It's about Love. THere is a level of peace that absolutely can not be achieved without communion with a higher power. Doesn't always mean Jeudao-Christian God. COuld be meditation and seeking within instead of with out.

If you're definition of this "level of peace" is so broad, how do you know the scientific pursuit of knowledge and understanding doesn't give us as much peace and happiness as your worship of God?

Still you atheists will always be searching for truth always be searching for answers until you find what you are searching so longingly in your heart. God. Don't be afraid because you can't hear him. You can't hear him because you are not listening.

That's one hypothesis. Another is we can't hear him because he doesn't exist. Another is that he simply doesn't care.

I am proud of your high level of intelligence. Most atheists seem to be of a high IQ and it is a hard burden to bear. You can figure out most of the mysteries and equaisions of man but this one,,,,,THis one you can't figure out.

This... what? What is it we can't figure out?

It's not one for your mind, it's for your spirit. You must open your spirit. You may not believe but you do have one. You can cry. You can feel other people's suffering. This is humanity and it is only given to us and we may share our spirit selves with our creator and the sustainer of our lives, of our world, can you feel nothing for the one that made you? You cannot hear the call of the one that holds your soul in care?

That is correct. We can certainly cry and feel empathy and sympathy, but that hardly proves the existence of a soul. Emotions are complex and instinctive, and are likely evolved responses to better maintain social cohesion. That may sound cold and clinical to you, but no one said the truth has to be warm and fluffy. So, what you attribute to some ineffable spirit, I attribute to simple emotion.

Try to feel and not just think, it is what makes us human and not animals. If you cannot use your spiritual intelligence. Leave the spiritual beings alone and go to your microscopes and science projects. Please let the spiritual beings be and stop trying to bring your falsehoods in front of our creator. Respect other peoples beliefs and go be with your own kind.

Why on Earth should we? This forum is open to everyone, not just you. If you can't handle criticism and scepticism, then that says more about your beliefs than ours. If your beliefs are true, they will stand up to scrutiny. If they're not, they won't. What, then, do you have to fear from inquisitive atheists asking questions? Why do you feel the need to patronise and bully those who don't believe as you do, to force them out of an otherwise calm and civil forum of discussion and debate?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I'm trying sooo hard to have compassion. Why are they here? They must be hearing some kind of calling to come to a Christian website. Then I start thinking maybe they are here working for someone else.

You're on to us! We all get paid by a Mr. S. Atan to come here and engage in philosophical and scientific discussions - the cunning of the Devil knows no bounds! How dare he assault you with the barbaric weapons of logic and reason, discussion and debate!

 

[mark kennedy]

I see a lot of claims here, but nothing to diminish what I've actually said.

I respond to what I read, not all that selective about who it is. The Scriptures are just a collection of myths and poetry, redemptive history is the whole point of the Scriptures.

I really hope you learn that one can't make such judgments based on one encounter.

I don't encounter a vast array of arguments, they generally follow predictable patterns. Inevitably the conversation will be reduced to personal criticisms, that's where it always goes.

Do you really think you can assess what I do and don't know about Jewish and Christian scholorship based on what I've said here?

Not knowing anything about Christian and Jewish scholarship makes these debates shallow. That is aggravated by the fact that virtually all these threads are indictments against the Bible. The truth is that evolution know very little, if anything, about the Bible and how it has been preserved.

Or is that just a canned ad hom for a general group of people you think I belong to?

Notice the focus is shifting from substantive principles and particulars to me, that fallacious, it's called ad hominem.

The fact is that I haven't even CLAIMED that the bible can't be trusted and you are pinning me as applying false science. Quite a pigeon-hole.

Your objections should include a comprehensive discussion of the Bible and how it's been handled by the people you would expect it to have custody. Obviously you know nothing about the Bible, why don't you just find something to talk about that you have some kind of a background in.

If you are going to engage me, it is important for you to know that I don't fall for red herrings, so that you don't continue making the mistake of wasting both our time.

Rest assured you won't waste my time, I will lose interest quickly. This will boil down to personal satire and most of the posts will come from the resident trolls who are encouraged to simply level as many insults as the rules will allow. That's how it always goes and your really nothing new or special to these debates.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Huram Abi]

I don't encounter a vast array of arguments, they generally follow predictable patterns. Inevitably the conversation will be reduced to personal criticisms, that's where it always goes.

Notice the focus is shifting from substantive principles and particulars to me, that fallacious, it's called ad hominem.



Mark

Well, that's where you started so you shouldn't expect anything else.

As for me, I have hundreds of conversations that include plenty of disagreement, but zero personal attacks.
Every experience is a new one.

BTW, pointing out that you are using an ad hom is not an ad hom, in itself.

 

[Jazer]

Because there are certain groups of Christians who want to shove the Bible (or, rather, their interpretation of the Bible) into state-funded classrooms under the guise of science.

Use to be you could flip the record and play the other side. So if science can verify the Bible is true, then it should be acceptable to teach that truth in the state funded classroom. Would it be ok to teach that when we become a man we put away childish ways? Can science back that up and verify it?

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 

[Phred]

I'm trying sooo hard to have compassion. Why are they here? They must be hearing some kind of calling to come to a Christian website. Then I start thinking maybe they are here working for someone else.

The day I woke up and my school board was complaining that the science text book had four chapters on evolution and not one mention of creation. I found this forum back then and started discussing the concept with both Christians, atheists and everything in between.

Now, I don't need your compassion. What I seek is understanding. I seek to have you pull your head out of the Bible and look at the world around you. To realize what can be proven and what must be take on faith alone.

I fail to realize why people cannot accept that there are things that can be shown to be true and things that must be taken on faith. There is a difference no matter how many linguistic turns you use. You cannot prove that the Bible is actual history.

 

[Phred]

Use to be you could flip the record and play the other side. So if science can verify the Bible is true, then it should be acceptable to teach that truth in the state funded classroom. Would it be ok to teach that when we become a man we put away childish ways? Can science back that up and verify it?

If science could verify the Bible was true then I'd accept that God existed. It would be acceptable to teach about God because it would be a real thing.

But science cannot verify that the Bible is true. We can verify that certain bits of the Bible are real. Pontius Pilate did exist. Judea and Galilee did exist. Rome did exist. But what is said about them, what is claimed they did or what happened in them... that is unsubstantiated. That is what must be taken on faith and that cannot and should not be taught in a public school.

That would be indoctrination into the Christian faith.

 

[AV1611VET]

I fail to realize why people cannot accept that there are things that can be shown to be true and things that must be taken on faith.

Science isn't my tour guide ...

You cannot prove that the Bible is actual history.

... and this is why.

 

[AV1611VET]

If science could verify the Bible was true then I'd accept that God existed.

On faith?

If science could verify the Bible, then the Bible isn't the Bible.

 

[RickG]

If science could verify the Bible was true then I'd accept that God existed. It would be acceptable to teach about God because it would be a real thing.

But science cannot verify that the Bible is true. We can verify that certain bits of the Bible are real. Pontius Pilate did exist. Judea and Galilee did exist. Rome did exist. But what is said about them, what is claimed they did or what happened in them... that is unsubstantiated. That is what must be taken on faith and that cannot and should not be taught in a public school.

That would be indoctrination into the Christian faith.

Well, let's take Moses and the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, for example. The ancient Egyptians left a fairly robust documentation of historical events pertaining to their culture and history. Yet, nothing in that history corroborates the 10 plagues brought upon them or even the Hebrews being held in bondage in Egypt at that time.

Nevertheless, all ten plagues in the bible, including the parting of the red sea is scientifically explainable. They could have happened and the biblical description of those events could be true. "Just saying".

 

[RickG]

On faith?

If science could verify the Bible, then the Bible isn't the Bible.

Sounds like you are limiting God.

 

[Phred]

Well, let's take Moses and the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, for example. The ancient Egyptians left a fairly robust documentation of historical events pertaining to their culture and history. Yet, nothing in that history corroborates the 10 plagues brought upon them or even the Hebrews being held in bondage in Egypt at that time.

Nevertheless, all ten plagues in the bible, including the parting of the red sea is scientifically explainable. They could have happened and the biblical description of those events could be true. "Just saying".

"could have" is a long way from "did". And I have yet to see a valid explanation for the death of every first-born Egyptian and first-born Egyptian animal. Especially when painting blood on the door frame causes people inside that home to be free of the plague. I suspect this is literary license by the Jews to once again show that "their god is tougher than your god."

I don't accept that the exodus happened. Or that a deity would "harden" the heart of a Pharaoh just to inflict more pain upon him and his people. It is thought that the "Pharaoh" was meant to mean another king, not one in Egypt but one that the Jews couldn't write directly about.

 

[AV1611VET]

Yet, nothing in that history corroborates the 10 plagues brought upon them or even the Hebrews being held in bondage in Egypt at that time.

Keep looking.

 

[AV1611VET]

I suspect this is literary license by the Jews to once again show that "their god is tougher than your god."

The Ten Plagues were indeed leveled at the Egyptian deities:

Exodus 12:12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.

There are other examples in the Scriptures where God showed His superiority to man-made deities; one of the more famous being the story of Elijah vs. the Prophets of Baal, and the Philistine idol being found face-down before the Ark with its head and arms (or hands?) cut off.

 

[Phred]

The Ten Plagues were indeed leveled at the Egyptian deities:

Exodus 12:12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.

There are other examples in the Scriptures where God showed His superiority to man-made deities; one of the more famous being the story of Elijah vs. the Prophets of Baal, and the Philistine idol being found face-down before the Ark with its head and arms (or hands?) cut off.

None of them existed. But anyone reading this would think that the Lord of the Jews was the biggest, meanest, toughest god on the block.

I guess that mattered back then.