Logical fallicies in the bible

After reading countless posts on this forum, and having similar conversations with literalits in real life, the conversation concerning biblical inerancy invariably leads to attempting to prove it scientficaly. Weather by creation science, or the misapplication of real science (whats the diffrence between those two anyway ), the result of that argument is allways the same, "were you there?", "were is your degree?", "have you ever dug a dinosaur up?" etc.I suppose those could be valid, I mean, I hold no Phd's, neither does my competitor. So how can we truely argue scientificaly?So I thought it may be more productive to discuss the bible on purely logical terms. I would like folks to, using only common sense, pose arguments for or against the bible, using LOGIC alone.No science in this thread please, this is not the point. I want to look at logical issues with the biblical texts. What can we say about the bible using only our common snese?I can think of a few right off the bat . But, I am really interested in what you folks have to say.

So you're talking about internal inconsistencies and contradictions?--Percy

Those could be used as well, but Im more interested, in logical proofs or disproofs.For example, how Noah's ark defies common sense and Logic, no science, weights, messures etc. Simply speaking, how can a man cross the atlantic and pacific and gather thousands of animals with in the timespan of a year?How did species in the trees survive? Etc.Simple stuff, no science, just stuff that makes no logical sense.

Mmm... that's a potentially nasty road to go down. It's those kinds of "I don't need no book-learnin', just good ol' horse sense" arguments that tend to infuriate me when I'm arguing with creationists. You know the arguments I'm talking about... "Looky hyah... if'n evolution was the truth, how come we don't see no half-man, half-monkey sorta critters?"

Well dan,That's the catch see This one isn't about disproving evoloution. Heck, throw it out, it don't exist for these purposes. I simply want a socratic method aproach to discussing issues in the bible.certainly if we can engage someone in a point by point dialogue, the truth should come to light

Ah, yes, and let us not forget the migration of the animals back to their original habitats after the food. And isn't it strange that no animal decided not to go all the way back to, say, Australia, but to instead go somewhere else. There's no record of any Australian animal existing in the fossil record up until the flood and then being absent from it after. And there's no record of any Australian animal suddenly appearing outside Australia after the flood. In fact, there's not even any geological record of the flood, despite that Creationists claim it is responsible for most of modern geology, so one can't even study the fossil record pre and post flood.Then, of course, there are those Creationists who argue that the geological column and the fossil record contained therein formed during the flood year, raising many, many questions. To name just two, how did fine-grained sediments become deposited during the flood? And how did the fossils get sorted into being more different from modern forms with increasing depth? Or am I getting scientific now?--Percy

hmmm.. maybe a bit to much. No geologic column necissary, lack of animal dispersion makes sense.Why did all the animals make it back over the ocean to their native homelands?Why did Kangaroos, finding it hard to swim to austrailia not just end up in africa for example.That's a pretty logical observation, and it dosn't need a geologic column. Just simple sense.

More to the point, why isn't biodiversity greatest around the Mountains of Ararat? If the animals dispersed from this point every animal should present in Asia minor or at least have a representative of every common ancestor. Instead we see a large number of marsupials in Australia while almost absent everywhere else in the world, just to name one example. If marsupial migration started in Asia minor the largest concentration of marsupials should be there, not Australia.

HI Yaro,In my opinion, there are many things in the Bible that are an insult to our intelligence.Imagine you are the leader of an army, there is this ONE man who is battling away with your troops and he eventually kills 1000 of your men by only using the Jawbone of an ass.The bible treats its readers as if they are morons, any semi-conscious person would withdraw his troops after it became ovbious that ths guy was routing them. Perhaps after I lost 15 or 20 guys, I personally would have called up about 50 archers and pumped Samson full of wood.The Bible is littered with these instances.I also like the one in John Bright's 'History of Israel', when he informs us that the 2 million Hebrews that left Egypt would have formed a column 350 miles long, this would have stretched all the way across the Sinai desert and back to Egypt again.Also with this column, it would take about a fortnight to move between any two points!These are only problems if you take the text literally, and if you take them literally then you really don't know how or why the Bible was writtenBrian.

Yeah it's probably just because it was written 2 thousand plus years ago and the people then lacked the knowledge we have today.Samson is just the Hebrew Beowulf, or Odysseus, or Aeneas

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These are only problems if you take the text literally, and if you take them literally then you really don't know how or why the Bible was written

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Well, that's the rub right there, isn't it? "an insult to our intelligence" isn't really accurate, because I doubt the authors of the bible intended to insult anybody. They were probably just writing in the same sort of vein as Herodatus, i.e., let's record history, but make it... punchier!"The Athenians fought a million Persian soldiers, and WON! No, seriously, hand o' god, a million freakin' Persian soldiers!"[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 08-28-2003]

Ya but it makes sense if you remember how they killd the million persians. First of all the persians had wicker shields And as the story goes, the persians were dumb, and tried moving their entire naval fleet thrugh a narow pass, so the athenians were able to surround the boats on all side and pick them off like sitting ducks.Granted the story is improbable, and likely exagerated, but it makes a whole lot more sense (and alot more dramatic, and heroic), than nmost of the biblical war stories.... but I digress (WOW! no pun to Heroditus intended )[This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-28-2003]

Yes, I should have worded this more carefully.Asking us to take these stories literally is an insult to our intelligence.Brian

Just thought Id bump the topic.Are no creationists biting the bit?Can they not logicaly prove some of the biblical nonsense we have just mentioned?

Reformed creationist here and a continuing Bible buff.The problem many "believers" have with understanding Bible stories comes from listening to the narrator on their guided tour of Bible Land.They simply do not expect to find fiction lurking between the covers of The Holy Bible; failing the sophistication to note that "Holy Bible" is an archaic way of saying, Good Book.As a collection of ancient materials, the Bible presents a satisfying cross section of literature; from enhanced "histories," to erotic poetry, to personal letters, and at least one pornographic sermon. Only persons willing to invest effort in its study will know the beauty which has been obscured by centuries of obfuscation and gloss.Our target should not be the Good Book itself, but rather those who use it to beat others about the head. The better we know it, the better able we shall be to achieve that end. There will, of course, always be a few individuals whose brains have been shrunk in the wash. To these lost souls we may hope to deliver the coup de grace via the "sword of the word." db------------------
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