General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures (aka 'The Whine List')

no, i don't think this is a particularly great way to run a debate board.imagine, for a second, we had a thread that questioned, "creationists, why do you believe in a religion that tells you to eat puppies?" and then moderated all posts by creationists who argued that this is not what their religion says, because they were countering the conditional set in the OP? yeah, it'd be pretty silly.exposing a flawed assumption is always a valid counterargument.

as you probably know, i spend a fair portion of my time here in the two bible fora. it is my opinion that, at the very best, the distinction between the two is subtle, and at the worst, completely fictional. i think the reasoning behind the division has become lost. on some topics, it's very hard to decide. for instance, i could make an entirely exegetical argument that genesis 1 has been strongly revised from its original source, using only quotes from the relevant literature. it's a pretty strong argument that the text is inaccurate. does it go in "bible study" or "accuracy and inerrancy"? yeah, i don't know. (if there's interest, btw, i'll make a PNT later)what seems to happen is that things that question the bible's validity go into the "accuracy and inerrancy" forum, regardless of their scientific content. i don't think that's appropriate at all, if the content of the argument is exegesis, hermeneutics, or otherwise theological. why would we put theology in the science fora? it's not a science. the "accuracy and inerrancy" forum should be for arguments about what the bible says as compared to scientific evidence. "the flood never happened, here's my argument from geology" and "the flood never happened, here's my argument from ancient literature" should not be in the same forum. one is science, the other is literary criticism.for instance, the current top thread in the "accuracy and inerrancy" forum is Are any of these prophecies fulfilled by Jesus? jar's OP is entirely about comparing the quote to the context of the quote, and the claim that something in the new testament fulfills it. does that look like science? does anything in that thread look like science? it doesn't to me; i know nothing i have posted in it is scientific, and i perhaps come the closest by referencing externally validated history. so what's it doing in a science forum? simply being critical of one view of the bible does not make something inherently "science", and the standard of evidence in that thread is comparative literature, not physical evidence or repeatable experimentation.paulk's argument is really evidence of this problem. he made an entirely theological argument. he did not once appeal to sciences like geology or archaeology to say "this did not happen" or "the bible is inaccurate". he asked why the assumption was made that god was the author, and stated that there is no good biblical reason to make this assumption. he furthered his argument with a biblical example of something the OP would accept as a fiction (though, perhaps not fiction masquerading as fact) being used for teaching purposes. he then goes to point out that the things the OP has accepted as presented as factual are not, in fact, presented as factual (making the above parenthetical moot). then he gives a historical argument that supports his logic. this all seems like a perfectly valid way to address the inaccurate assumptions in the OP, and is, in fact, precisely the answer to the OP's question of how non-literalist christians justify their beliefs.basically, it's the exact opposite of off-topic. justification, maybe. but proof? don't tell me we need to put PD into limbo with buzsaw! the only "proof" he's asking for is precisely the kind of proof that would be acceptable in the faith and belief forum: something from the bible, or tradition, etc. further, it doesn't really strike me as anything more than a rhetorical device. i don't think it's a question he expected answered.Edited by arachnophilia, : borked the linkEdited by arachnophilia, : title, typo

No, I feel you, but this was set-up as a special case. And a better analogy would be:"Creationists, if your religion tells you to eat puppies, then is ketchup better than mustard?"Or whatever, so long as its a conditional If-then. If you don't think your religions tells you to eat puppies, then the question doesn't apply to you.In general you're right, but the mods specifically set this one so that it wouldn't get bogged down into that discusion.

moose wrote, in promoting the topic,

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As I see it, this question should be approached as a philosophical and/or theological discussion. I want to isolate it from scientific evidence considerations - It is NOT going into the science "The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy" forum.

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I think the topic title, "Why would God write a book of lies and why would you worship such a being?", actually sets the "what if" premise that some of the information in the Bible is factually wrong - It is in conflict with worldly evidence. Then the question is, then what is the Bible's philosophical and/or theological value?

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basically, the topic wasn't designed to debate whether the bible was in conflict with evidence (that would be a topic legitimately for the science fora) but assuming that it does, and asking what value it might have regardless of its (assumed) fact-free existence. and that's fine; i can certainly see why we would want to direct the discussion that way, instead of getting bogged down in the standard bible v. science debate.so the question was aimed at people who think the bible does not contain the 100% inerrant truth. paulk qualifies. the question was what value it would have. paulk answered, from his position. it looks quite relevant to me. moose goes on to write:

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Of course, Jar's first message is going to be:

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Jar writes:

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God didn't write the Bible, man did.

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Let's see if this prophesy comes true.

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note that he did not say this rebuttal was off-topic.Edited by arachnophilia, : at least, until paulk actually posted it, that is.

Like I said, he was countering the condition of the If-Then. And I think that's exactly what was intended to be avoided. You know, for the sake of discussion.

So you believe that there is some percentage of Christians who thinks that God wrote lies into the Bible? Because that is the claim made in the OP.

I think your assessment is largely in line with my interpretation of the topic intent, although I don't understand what you're trying to say with this part: Now per: I think that it is on-topic, but not something that should be a focus in the topic. I think better discussion can happen, other than a big "God did it, God didn't do it" thing.Perhaps I should have done more pre-promotion work with FEY before I promoted it. But then, there probably isn't such a thing as a message 1 start that the general membership couldn't screw up. Like any topic, the topic in question is going to have on/off-topic grey areas. But stuff in those grey areas really have a way of leading to stuff that is clearly in the off-topic area. AdminPD and I have been trying to keep the topic clearly in the on-topic zone.So far, this topic is rather an illustration of attempts at high intensity moderation. Not a bad thing, but such requires constant attention and a lot of work from the admins. Something that is not practical for us to sustain. What are we to do, have 3 admins each spending 8 hours a day riding that topic? That's like a real job that I should be getting real $ to do. I'm not even getting fake $.Adminnemooseus

ie: that paulk qualifies as a person who does not believe the bible to contain the 100% inerrant truth, the core assumption of the thread. his post seems, to me, a very fine argument regarding what value the text might have independent of historical accuracy, which nearest i can tell is pretty similar to the topic. perhaps, yes, but "how can worship a god who wrote a book full of lies?" might best be answered by saying "i don't believe god wrote the book." it could easily lead the topic astray, i agree, but on its own, it's a valid rebuttal. you should try reddit, at least there you get meaningless internet points.

how? the conditional statement was that the bible contains things that are not the truth. paulk never disagreed with this statement.

i'd be happy to defend this claim, if it'll make the thread interesting. you know, just for the sake of argument. well, not exactly. the OP says,

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I have seen a few Christians claim that many of what appears to be historical documents in the bible, actually did not occur at all. If the bible is book that is littered with stories that are pure fiction but that are conveyed in such a way to appear as legitimate, why would you trust anything else that it had to say? If you say some of it is true, is it only because it already agrees with you have decided for yourself to be true?

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and does not mention god at all. and the question is fairly straightforward, too: if the bible contains some fiction, why assume that it contains fact as well? it's only when you add the title, "why would god write a book..." that we come to this particular question. it doesn't really relate to the content of the OP: they are two different questions. why would god write a book of lies? why would a book containing fiction also contain fact?really, it's kind of a messy, inconsistent OP. the apparent conditional directed towards christians who believe god is a liar is implicit from the combination of these two things. and i think pointing out the flawed assumption (that christians necessarily believe god wrote the bible) is a perfectly valid avenue of rebuttal.

I think that you are actually missing a point here. The question is not whether God actually did or did not write the Bible, the question is is such a claim theologically justifiable and does the Bible support it. Now that is certainly relevant to the argument ForeverYoung wishes to make and certainly belongs in Faith and Belief. So what is the problem with discussing it in that topic ?

if you believe the bible is full of lies, would it really matter either way whether it was justifiable with the bible?

God would presumably know the truth and therefore a fiction passed off as a fact might be considered a lie. A human author need not, and might therefore be mistaken rather than lying.

I find the "God didn't write the Bible" argument to be a valid part of the topic, but I wish it not to be a major part of the topic. Perhaps I am wrong - I will look over the topic again.In all, I now wish I had pre-promotion exchanged a few messages with FEY, to refine the topic title and maybe the message 1 content. I think it would have been best to have gotten the "God wrote the Bible" out of the topic title and to have used a less extreme term that "lies". Maybe turn the topic title "Why would God write a book of lies and why would you worship such a being?" into something along the lines of "If the Bible contains bad information, what is its validity as a theological source?".Probably a non-messy topic is all but impossible, except perhaps as a "Great Debate".Adminnemooseus

Aren't you ignoring the title? After all, the reason this thread exists is because the OP asked the question in the title in a thread in which the question was off topic.