Straightforward, hard-to-answer-questions about the Bible/Christianity

Are you trying to say that there were no children in Sodom & Gomorrah?Similarly:There were no children killed in the flood?

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Dr. Sing,That is far and away the best answer I have ever had to that question despite asking that question to a number of ministers over the years.I first asked that question when I was 14 and was starting to question my faith. We happened to have a sermon about the meaning of being a Christian and Sunday school on the same day was about the history of the NT.I still see the system being subject to the fallacies of man, mainly through translation errors, both deliberate and accidental and, IMHO more importantly, the exclusion of documents that didn't agree with the agenda's of the powers at the time.

Anything quite like what atheists will agree with? No, we never will. We never even want to. Just because an atheist thinks my faith is irrational, there is no need for me to rationalize my faith in desperate attempts to man-please. If some people do not understand faith/believe it is irrational, its their problem, not faiths.Well, a hindu could say what I just said... "If some people do not understand Sati (or Suttee) or believe it is irrational, its their problem, not Sati's"......aaaaaand we have a obvious problem here.I think this is by far the biggest hurdle a theist has to face. Knowing what exactly to say in order to convince someone that his/her faith is the true one. I think I have faced enough "subjectivity in religion" questions that I have at least a little bit understood what faith looks like to a skeptic. No one really agrees on a universal standard moral code... each religion likes to have it its way. (Why, even each person likes to have it their way) In this sense, is faith subjective? Irrational? Yes. The picture I gather is plagued in and out by subjectivity..... So, as I see it, there is one way to make your way through: Allow the possibility for the existence of the supernatural. Don't totally dismiss the possibility of God's existence. Scrutinize each religion. Weigh the rationality.I still maintain what I earlier said to you Dr A, there is sure way to distinguish the true faith from a myriad of pseudos. Well, give me some time. Just because I don't remember them doesn't mean I'm lying. I'll get back to you. Why, displayed the amount of intelligence your writings contain, I have no doubt that you a smart human....and have two legs. Well, I came to be a theist because I allow for supernatural existence. I think that it is not only plausible, but also entirely verifiable (just not in a scientific sense.) Does everything have to pass the scientific method's scrutiny before one believes it to be true? What a ridiculous claim.Here, we are dealing with supernaturalism. What, on the planet, is the point in making it subject to the scientific method? There are other, and more relevant, ways to scrutinize this. But atheists somehow object...I don't get it.

Hey Jallen,Hope EvC is treating you well. Well, glad I could be of some help. Part of the reason why I have this answer is because I myself struggled with the same exact question. It is healthy to subject what you believe to stringent and minute examination. So, I commend you on taking the time to do it. Cheers. I believe our current Bible is not without human errors, yes. Note, human errors, like you said---not errors in content as in such and such is not true. But should we worry over translation errors? I think, No. That's because we have so many copies from multiple, variant sources, which are made subject to textual criticism. Textual criticism presents us with the final translation that is closest to the original manuscripts. Though nothing that we can come up with will be equivalent to the originals, this is the best we can do.Even I often get the feeling that we're missing out on some things... that their should be more that we can know and should know. I mean, why would God leave so many fill in the blanks in our lives? This said, that is just a feeling, I do not agree with my own feeling. And the reason is somewhat like this...If God labels the Bible as "His Word", and is extremely keen and strict that it needs to be revered, believed, and followed, then He must have overridden all possible obstacles in order to present us with His "infallible Word". There is nothing more important than the Bible in God's sight. It stands to reason that, He would take utmost care in its regard and present us with ALL that we need. If today, 66 books is what we have, then that is what we need. Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

OK, great, lets hear about them! What are these other ways? How are they demonstrated to be reliable?

So, the atheists agree that the scientific method is practically useless when it comes to understanding and verifying things in super-naturalism. Okay.Let's start with this:1. Both atheists and theists will agree that morality is surely a major part in human life. The ability to discern good from evil right and wrong takes precedence for more people than not. (there are more theists than atheists. I do not mean to say that atheists live immoral lives, no. Just, that isn't their main focus in life, as it appears. There are other things, like self, accuracy, science, etc that occupy a much bigger part of their lives.)2. Obviously, in our world, we do not have a universal moral code that everyone follows. Even if there are laws on paper, and more or less similar among countries, people are imperfect, to say the least, in following them.3. Yet, we all strive to be moral.4. We all know, for sure, that man cannot ever reach the moral standard he has set for himself.5. In light of this, there are two possible ways out of this problem. 1) Forget morality and live your life
2) Submit to an absolute, ultimate moral code6. The absolute, universal moral code is the moral Code of God. There is no personal preference or bias in following this code.7. Since man already knows that he is imperfect, and cannot perfectly follow God's moral code (he couldn't even his own!), there has got to be propitiation.8. That is exactly what the Christian God offers. Propitiation.Now, if people would rather choose to throw morality and its ramifications down the drain for personal reasons, what I wrote above is perfect nonsense--farce. But for the other group who are on the lookout for moral lives, there seems to be only one way--a supernatural way.The argument will be continued...

Hello there again, Dr. Sing. I trust you've been well. Thought I'd weigh in on this argument (yawn) for the benefit of those who may not have argued it in the past. I'd posit that, in general, the non-religious maintain a balance between foci (morals vs. "everything else") that is simply superior to the "balance" exhibited by the religious. For example, if non-religious folk were so preoccupied with "everything else", they'd be bombing Oklahoma gov't offices and flying planes into skyscrapers. But we don't see the non-religious propagating these atrocities, correct? Curious, that.Instead, what we do see is a segment of society concerned with searching for the truths of science, philosophy, the arts, etc (tangible subjects), instead of spending time attempting to define morality under the auspices of an intangible deity(ies).No, morality is a human invention, exhibited by the fact that different modern cultures possess different moral customs and ideals. However, to really drive this point home, one need look no further than at the fact that morals change over time. An absolute moral code is not so absolute if it can be modified at will, yes? Slavery, subjugation of women, Dr. Sing? Surely those biblical bronze-age morals are now defunct. But ... they were absolute morals at that time, yes? It's really quite a bit simpler than you make it out to be, Dr. Sing. A life led is a life led. Should you choose to live according to a universal, humanist moral standard or a supposedly god-contrived, absolute (and continually changed, apparently)standard, then all the better for yourself and your fellow humans. What matters is why you follow this standard.
Wouldn't it be better, Dr. Sing, to adhere to a set of morals plainly and simply for the betterment of society as a whole than because "... if you don't, you're gonna burn!"? To me, the religious are being good because they have to, not because they want to.Fear of the wrath of god is a powerful thing, Dr. Sing. May the farce be with you.Have a good one.

---

"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964

That's not what he said. He just challenged you to suggest an alternative.For example, if you claimed supernatural powers to raise the dead, then we could in principle take you to a morgue and see if you could do what you claimed. That would be using the scientific method, and the test would be effective --- either you really could or you really couldn't, and we'd be able to tell one way or another.Can you suggest an equally good, or superior, method of testing such a claim? We're all ears.

But "we" do not all have 66 books. Different Christian sects have different canons. Hence if your reasoning was correct we'd have to conclude that the Bible is not God's word.

This seems to be a non sequitur. How would it follow from your previous statements? But this does not follow. Being hungry does not prove that we have bread, and being conscious of our own imperfection does not prove that there is propriation, just that we'd like there to be.

I can conceive of the possibility, just as I can conceive of the existence of unicorns. What I cannot do is see a unicorn. Because there aren't any unicorns. Ironically, that's the one thing that all religious people agree on. If you can think of any other way to find out what the world is like except by examining the world to find out what it's like, then now would be a great time to say what it is.And if you want to make out that it is "ridiculous" to apply this concept to your religious beliefs, then perhaps it is time for you to offer some actual special pleading, rather than behaving as though this has already been offered.But it seems to me that the only reason you have to make your religion a special case is that it's wrong. If there was evidence for things like fiat creation, a young earth, Noah's flood, and so forth, then you wouldn't be going about saying that it was "ridiculous" to look at the evidence when it comes to questions of religion, would you? No, it would be the first thing you'd want to talk about.Just as, for example, homeopaths wouldn't need to go about badmouthing the scientific method if their magic potions actually worked.

When we speak in an absolute sense of His sovereignty, we may say that God kills all and everyone, whether he died naturally or not. The OT is written in such a sense of His absolute sovereignty.Humans were cruel and humanity was low in most parts of human history. And as a human, everyone dies once, it's a must. To die in a hospital won't guarantee that you will be less painful than in any other way.God is to save souls, not body in terms of priority. If the children died innocently, perhaps their souls are saved.God allowed the Jews to be just as cruel as their enemies, in order to survive the history for His salvation plan to be feasible. While in that part of human history, humanity is as low as illustrated by how the Egyptians killed the Jews' first born sons just because they perceived that the Jews would get over-populated.If everyone offended God's Law, he will be judged by His Law. If you don't want such a judging by Law, you are offered the Second Covenant, an offer which saves souls, not bodies.Edited by Hawkins, : No reason given.

Truth is evidence independent. Evidence is for a human brain (or rather human belief system) to recognise a truth. There's always a gap between what's inside a human's brain (belief system) and what the truth itself is. When the gap is reduced to 0, our brain hits a truth, yet we can never be sure about if it's truly a 0. That's where the Matrix advocate is coming from.Because each and every human belief system is unique, that's why what's evident to someone may not be evident enough to another.Science is a bit special. Science is about the discovery of existing natural rules. These natural rules can predict precisely for your brain (belief system) to reckon them as the truth. For example, water will decompose into oxygen and hydrogen. You can use this rule to predict that water everywhere inside this universe will decompose so. Before each and every experiment you can expect that the result is so, or to say that no experimental results can falsify your prediction, no experiments can falsify this rule.As a result, the so-called empirical evidence is actually an imaginary evidence which possesses the effect of fooling a certain mass of people's belief systems to belief in something is a truth.God is to give tailored evidence to everyone's belief system to allow it to choose to believe that whether He's a truth or not. He will not give the so-called non-existing 'empirical proof' to a mass of atheists, as people will not need the required faith this way. And without the required faith they can't be saved.Now assuming that you've met with God personally and are 100% sure about His existence, and how will you be able to show others that it is true that God exists?!?!?! You will find that there's not any efficient way for such a kind of truth to be conveyed among humans. Even when you are 100% sure about it, others will have to need faith either to accept or to reject what you said. To simply put, witnessing and testimony are already of the most efficient way for your truth to be conveyed. And coincidently this is what Christianity is, witnessing and testimonies.Moreover, your flying spaghetti may not be flying spaghetti at all if 1/3 human beings buy into your story, including the most intelligent ones such as Issac Newton. To that extend, a skeptic deserves human efforts in digging up the truth behind it.Edited by Hawkins, : No reason given.Edited by Hawkins, : No reason given.

Is science reliable, yet it is. Yet one needs to distinguish between what science is and what the scientists' faith is. The scientists POVs are not necessarily the truth.Humans based their faith on pass experience about how things work out in reality. That becomes their common senses. But no one can extend his 'pass experience' and 'common senses' into his afterlife.You applied your common senses instead of science to judge that I am just another human typing here to communicate with you. It is your faith that works instead of proof or evidence acquired that you continue your discussion here in the message board. And can't however extend completely this kind of faith/common senses into a realm of afterlife. You may need to build up your faith another way around.Edited by Hawkins, : No reason given.

(1) You're making a distinction where there is no difference.(2) Since you mention it, I don't see why we can't extrapolate from our experience to draw conclusions about the afterlife. We observe that when part of the brain ceases to work, this results in the loss of the corresponding mental function. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that when the whole of my brain stops working, as it will when I'm dead, I will have no mental functions whatsoever, i.e. that I will actually be dead. This is not a cheerful conclusion, but I don't see much of a way around it. of course one can imagine a miracle, but one could do that with respect to any question at all. Given a miracle, monkeys might fly out of my butt, but I don't expect that to happen either.