The Mythical Bible

Yes, God is supernatural. That means above nature, above science, and above proof. The Bible makes many statements which can be shown true or false. If those statements are correct, the bible is shown to be more reliable. If those statements are shown false, the bible is less reliable. You are confusing absolute proof with evidence. There is evidence for the existence of God, but there is not proof. It does not follow (non sequitor) that because there is not a proof there must be no evidence. Many hindus have strong convictions. Does that mean that they are right? It is good that you have strong convictions, but those are not evidence.We do have strong evidence for the existence of God (this is my assertion, there are other threads in which to debate this), and that is why I believe that God exists. Here are some books that have evidence for the existence of God and the validity of the Bible:The Case for Christ, Lee StrobelThe Case for Easter: Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection, Lee StrobelThe Case for Faith, Lee StrobelEvidence That Demands a Verdict I and II, Josh McDowellWhen Skeptics Ask: A Handbook of Christian Evidences, Norman Geisler & Ron BrooksCharts of Bible Prophecy, Wayne HouseThe Battle for God, Wayne HouseWhen Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook of Bible Difficulties, Norman Geisler & Thomas HoweThere are countless more, I have listed only a couple. Reading books like these have strengthened my faith a lot, and I suggest that you read some of them.Rocket says: The premise that "The Wizard of OZ" is not true is not falsifiable. The "The Wizard of OZ" makes no claims we can verify. It is written about an event that took place in a location we cannot see.The bible was written about supernatural events, yes. But it includes a huge dose of claims about how and where things took place. It is concerned with matters of history which scholars and archeaologists can examine. It makes prophetic claims which can be shown true or false.Rocket,it seems that you meant to compare the wizard of oz to The Bible, but they are completely different. One deals with a location, people, and events we cannot observe/left no trace. It is not falsifiable.The other deals with well known cities and civilizations, famous kings and rulers, and well known events. It makes claims about these things. It is falsifiable.You compared "The Wizard of Oz" to the bible, and it seems like you set up the debate in such a way as to show that "The Wizard of Oz" is not falsifiable. Then you were going to return to the comparison between the Bible and the wizard of oz and claim that the Bible is not falsifiable.If you have a good analogy you can do something like that, but the analogy you made is very flawed, so you can't draw valid conslusions from it. The preponderance of Christians whom I know do not believe that. They believe because of the evidence. Your statement is mildly offensive, but since you said "preponderance," not "all" it is forgivable.This message has been edited by JT, 05-07-2004 03:44 PM

Your encyclopedia example is very good, so I'll use it.Let us say that I look up Mars, and the encyclopedia says it is the ninth planet from the sun. There are several places in a full encyclopedia where I could find out that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. For example I could look under "space travel", "greek mythology", or "solar system" and find the position of Mars.Faced with a glaring inconsistency, I would probably assume that the majority ws right and that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun.There is another thing I could do. I could observe that the entries where Mars was described as the fourth planet from the sun are in the same font, size, and are exactly the same shade of black. I would also notice that those entries were formatted in exactly the same way, in neat, tidy rows.I would then look at the entry which said that Mars is the ninth planet. The "font" would be very different from the rest, as well as the rest of the details I already noted. I would come to the conclusion that someone had been tampering with my encyclopedia. Most people normally assume that a statement they read in the encyclopedia is true. That is because they trust the encyclopedia as a whole. However, I no longer trust wikipedia because someone told me that it is unreliable. I am sure that there are many true statements in it, but because I distrust the whole, I now distrust the statements, too.Anyway, it is necessary to trust something as a whole. How do you know that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun?Hey Ned, I'll get to your post in a bit.

Ned said: How do we evaluate the truth of statements like "The sun stood still..." or "cloud by day and fire by night" which refer to events that didn't leave evidence?Crashfrog said: This was the point of my first post. PecosGeorge said (and Rocket implied) that we could not evaluate the reliability of the Bible. I claimed that we could evaluate the reliability of the Bible. We do that by answering the type of questions you just asked.There is another thread somewhere to debate whether or not the Bible is reliable, all I was saying was that it is possible to tell if the Bible is reliable or not. Do you have first hand proof that the methods used to calculate parallax are accurate? Have you seen the parallax measured to know that the correct method was used? How about the equipment. Did you make it, so you know it works properly? Did you actually read the results and do the calculations for yourself?If the answer is no to any of those questions, you had to trust someone about the distance of Mars from the earth. And if you have not had the same level of involvement in the measuring of the distances to the other planets, you are trusting that those measurements are valid, too.This is what I meant by "it is necessary to trust something as a whole."

For the record, I do not doubt that we can accurately measure the distance between planets by using parallax, nor do I doubt that we can accurately conduct surveys using parallax. Nor am I doubting math; I just did an afternoon full of calc homework, and actually enjoyed most of it.I just wanted to set the record straight before it got all bent up.

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Benoit Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

Like what?

Ned,
If God had enough power to create the universe and the natural laws out of nothing, he has enough power to control those laws. Assuming omnipotence, god could have left earth rotating how it was and rotate the rest of the universe around the earth if he wanted to. I am not arguing that this means God did lengthen a day, but if he wanted to, he could do it a way such that the earth would not be affected. Yup, agreed. This was my point. We cannot check everything. If you wanted to, you could, assuming you had accurate enough equipment, measure the distances from earth to the other planets. But that would take a lot of time and effort. In which case you have to trust someone. How do you decide whether or not to trust that person? You evaluate the accuracy of their statements which apply to things you know about. Then you consider the un-understandable statements with the same trust with which you consider the known statements.By the way, has anybody ever told you that your avatar is really scary?Rocket says: Here is something slightly modified from one of my earlier posts:

quote:

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The premise that "The Wizard of OZ" is not true is not falsifiable. The "The Wizard of OZ" makes no claims we can verify. It is written about an event that took place in a location we cannot see.

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The bible was written about supernatural events, yes. But it includes a huge dose of claims about how and where things took place. It is concerned with matters of history which scholars and archeaologists can examine. It makes prophetic claims which can be shown true or false.

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One of these deals with a location, people, and events we cannot observe/left no trace. It is not falsifiable.

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The other deals with well known cities and civilizations, famous kings and rulers, and well known events. It makes claims about these things. Much of it is falsifiable.

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Does that make it clear why I think the analogy is bad? If not, I can go into more detail.Crashfrog says: I agree that proving one part of the bible to be true does not prove the rest of it. Also, if it is possible to prove the truth/falsehood of a statement, the statement should stand on its own merits. Agreed, but what do we do with statements whose merits we can't evaluate? But you do. If you are a scientist, you cannot prove everything for you self. At some point, you trust that others are correct. You could test some, maybe many, claims in a lifetime, but there is no way you could evaluate every scientific claim in a hundred. You are right, there is not that option with religion. It goes back to religion being unprovable. The thing is, assuming for now that there is a valid religion, how would you find out which on it is? Since religions are not provable, they would have to be evaluated subjectively. Many parts could be evaluated objectively, like the many falsifiable claims the Bible makes. But in the end it would come down to purely subjective decision. Not necessarily innacurrate, but subjective.Jar says: In terms of Mars' distance from the sun, you are right. I was using that as an analogy (Ned already pointed out that it was flawed) of textual criticism in the Bible. For the analogy, the position of Mars played the part of a non-falsifiable claim.In science, that would have been an appeal to authority, but in the field of textual criticism, it is (partially) how non-falsifiable statements are evaluated. You seperate events that "simply could not have happened" from events where "all of the evidence seems to show that they did not happen." This makes it look like you are dismissing some events out of hand because they simply could'nt have happened, not because evidence says they didn't. What events are those, and why could they simply not have happened?About events "where there is a lot of evidence...," I do not think there are any, but that is OT and there are other threads about that.Rocket says: The Kansas in the book is completely different than the real Kansas, isn't it? I haven't read the book, so I don't know.{edited out title}This message has been edited by JT, 05-08-2004 01:41 PM

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Benoit Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

It doesn't just sound like a miracle, it is a miracle. I agree with that. There is no natural phenomenon which could account for 24 hours of sunlight in the middle ease. This miracle is completly unrelated to creation, and it will not be taught in public schools.About "creation science," that is a huge, seperate debate, and I don't want to get into it here. There are, to my knowledge, only two opinions about the origin of life on the earth. Either that it was created by a diety or that it evolved. Some religions (most notably humanism) have belief in evolution as a tenet, some religions (as we all know) have creation as a tenet. I would object to creation being the only view of origins taught in our schools, just as much (o.k, nearly as much) as I am opposed to evolution being the only view taught. Teaching only evolution is a violation of religious rights, in my opinion. If that is the case, I stand corrected on that point (but the others still stand). The only exposure I have had to "Whe Wizard of Oz" has been seeing a couple tv commercials for the movie, with the surrealist landscapes and stuff. I assumed that was from the book, but it might not be.Jar says: This is an esoteric middle-eastern linguistic device known as an exordial sentence, otherwise known as an introduction (I love the thesaurus. )

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Benoit Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

Sidelined says: My point was that if all God did was stop the earth from spinning, there would have been catastrophic results. God could have easily stopped the earth from spinning, and kept things on earth from being affected. It was a miracle, which means that God superseded the natural laws, which means natural laws would not get in his way.Jar says: The first sentence is merely an introduction, to briefly summarize what comes next. It is not the introduction that should be judged, it is the content. My opinion is that the content should be taken literally, but that debate is happening in this thread.

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Benoit Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

Sidelined said: Here is an article that talks about some cultural legends which include a full day of sun. (disclaimer: this is a really bad artical overall, and it includes the phony stuff about nasa finding an extra day. I recognize this, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time researching this point, so I just went with this article. I think this article is good enough, but if it isn't, I can find some others that are)Ned says: You are correct, I had completely fogotten about panspermia. The distinction I meant was between life being created essentially as it is today, and life coming about by natural processes. I always love it when this happens. I agree that not all forms of humanism are necessarily religious, but some outright claim to be religious (like religious humanism). There are religions which claim creation as a tenet, and religions which claim evolution (or any naturalistic model of origins) as a tenet. For the government to teach the tenets of one religion without teaching the tenets of another is religious discrimination. Whether creation is worthy of being taught in schools or is a worthless myth is another debate, though, so I think we can just disagree about this one for now.Hey Cromwell, I agree with you that the first verses of Genesis are not contradictory, but I think your reasons for believing so are skewed (for lack of a better word).You said: Genesis 1:1,2 relates to the introduction to the chapter. It brifly summarizes what is coming.Pretend I say, "I went to my grandma's house this weekend. My mom drove us there, we had fun, then came home." Does this mean I went to my grandma's house twice? No, I am summarizing what I am about to say, then I am saying it. I would do that to put into context what I was about to say.I hope that clears up what I mean when I say that the first verses serve as an introduction to what comes later.Jar says: We have not had to do any fudging. Why couldn't have God created things in the order given in Genesis? I think you have it switched. The word "myth" means, according to Merriam-Webster online, The word "myth" has a lot of baggage, so I hope I won't be misunderstood. We cannot verify creation, so it qualifies as a myth.On the other side, a theory must be falsifiable, so creation is not a theory. This spefic statement is being debated on other threads, and overall, is what this entire forum is about. If it was that simple, nobody would be here debating it. Crashfrog said: According to Merriam-Webster's online (I'm not sure if me using the dictionary a lot is annoying, but I think it's necessary a lot of times) faith is: This does not say without evidence, it says without proof. Those are two completely different things. I believe that there is good evidence that the earth was created, that a guy came back to life after getting nailed to a cross, etc. These are things I would not believe without evidence.There are many statements the Bible makes which can't have any direct evidence for or against them. Because I believe the Bible accurrately reports the resurection of a man claiming to be God, and accurately reports the creation of the universe, I believe, on pure faith, that those other statements are true.Arguing about whether or not there was a burning bush is pointless, because there can be no evidence for or against it. Arguing about the resurection/creation is possible because there exists evidence that can show the likelihood of those events having happened.If a book tells a true story of a man coming back to life and an entire universe becoming existent out of nothing, I am willing to believe it on other, minor points without requiring evidences.Guys, I need to go stop thinking for awhile. It's only eight o'clock and my brain keeps going in circles (it took me ten minutes to type the last paragraph). I'll be back...

Sidelined says: I was talking about the incident in Joshua 10:11 where God stops the sun for a day in order to give the Israelites the advantage in a battle. The incident you talk about is recorded in Isaih 38, and consists of God moving the shadow of the sun back "the ten steps it has gone on the stairway of Ahaz." The "steps of Ahaz" refers to a device similar to a sundial in principal.Moving the shadow of the sun back ten steps would have taken about twenty minutes. It is unlikely that many people would have noticed a twenty minute retrograde motion of the sun, most of those who did would have convinced themselves they were seeing things, and the few remaining probably would have been ignored.Rocket says: I disagree and believe there is strong evidence for the historical accuracy of the bible, but that belongs in a different thread. Non sequitor. The conclusion "the Bible does not make claims which are falsifiable" does not follow from the premise "the bible is merely recorded oral myths."Crashfrog says: If we had no evidence for the validity of the New Testament, the fact that prophecies come true in the New Testament would be worthless. However, there is evaluatable (is that a word?) evidence which relates to the New Testament.Also, "The Lord of the Rings" does not make any claims we can evaluate, so it, too, is not a good analogy for the Bible.Jar says: He makes not nearly as many prophecies as the Bible, and the prophecies of his which came true have done so only in the vaguest sense. Besides, someone making guesses about the direction science and culture are headed in the next couple centuries is of a different order of difficulty than the prophecies the Bible makes. To back up a statement like this, you would need to count the succesful prophecies the Bible has made, then count the number of succesful prophecies Arthur Clark has made. You might have done this but I'd be suprised. If you can back that up, I'd like to hear about it. I think, though, that you need to be more careful to not make unsupportable assertions. "Shockwave Rider" was written in 1975, and it is impressive that someone realized the implications of a worldwide communications network. However, the network was already being actively planned for and imagined, and him predicting viruses is an example of good foresight, not prophesy. I think you are reffering to the forming of a hypothesis according to the scientific method. A hypothesis is a falsifiable explanation for existing data, not a prohesy.Just to clarify, in this thread I am asserting that there are many statements in the Bible which can be evaluated based on their merits. From the reliability of the evaluatable (I checked, and it isn't a word, but it does communicate the point) statements we can get a clue about the reliability of the rest of the statements in the Bible.Believing those other statements in the Bible requires faith, but it is not a blind faith.

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Benoit Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

Ned,
You're totally right; I completely wasn't thinking. Thanks for pointing that out.

Rocket,
Just to clarify, are you talking about someone making a "prophecy" after it has already come true, then claiming it was made before?

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Benoit Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

No problem.

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Benoit Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

I agree that, without any other evidence, they "could be." However, it is my opinion that there is valid dating for most parts of the Bible which put the prophecies before the event. Whether or not the prophecies occurred before or after the events is another debate...

Hey Jar,
I am not arguing (right now) about the validity of the Bible, I am arguing for the possibility of reasonably arguing for the validity of the Bible. You are helping me a lot with your arguments against it, because it shows that the Bible can be a reasonable subject for debate, which is my point. However helpful, however, your arguments are still OT.Sidelined says: I disagree. It says Isaiah cried out, and the shadow was brought back by ten steps. It does ont mention how long it took. For the sun to move ten steps in normal transit is about twenty minutes, so that is perfectly feasible. I don't make a habit of questioning God. If he wants to make the universe dance the hoky-poky, that is fine with me. (As a note, having omnipotence meanse that moving the entire universe is not more difficult than moving a feather.)