What is the biggest bible contradiction?

The authorship of the Gospel of John is universally accepted as not being John by critical scholars today, most of whom are Christian. A few of the reasons are here Gospel of John.
Some of the most significant reasons are as follows:1. The Gospel doesn’t claim to be by John. The name was tacked on by Catholics in the second century. Chapt 21 mentions the “beloved disciple”, but chap 21 is a well known later addition, not part of the original gospel.2. The description of the Palestinian world of the time is off in many places - a native would know better.3. The Jesus is completely different - if we are to go by the GoJ, then Jesus never tells a parable, never casts out a demon, openly proclaims his identity as the messiah, never institutes communion at the last supper, and on and on. If the other gospels are by and large correct about Jesus’ life, then John can’t be by an eyewitness.There are other good reasons too, like the date of writing. Another interesting one is that the synoptics talk about the transfiguration (Mk 9:2, etc.). Note that in that story, Jesus takes James, John and Peter up and glows for them. That’s in the synoptics, none of which even claim to be by James, John or Peter. In GoJ, the transfiguration doesn’t happen. Whaaaaa? Perhaps the greatest event other than the resurrection, and it’s not even mentioned by someone who was there? Really?Apologists have told me that John didn't write it down because he didn't consider it important. Really? John records the name of a Pharisee Jesus has an offhand discussion with, but doesn't consider the freakin' transfiguration significant enough to mention? Hmmm..
Take care-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Anastasia wrote:

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First let me tell you that when I say 'John is an eye-witness' it does not mean I walk around believing everything I hear. In the tradition of the church he is thought of that way, and in the case of his elaboration on the Last Supper, it seems credible enough to note.

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Um, there is no capital "Last Supper" in GoJ. There is a regular dinner, but no special "do this in memory of me" stuff with bread nor wine. Your attribution of a "Last Supper in GoJ makes me wonder if we are all on the same page - we are discussing the 4th gospel, the one with all the different storied compared to the other three (most stories found in the synoptics are not in John, and vice versa).Scholar (except of course for fundamentalists) agree that the Gospel of John is anonymous, and that there are many reasons (a few are mentioned in my last post) to doubt that GoJ is by the disciple John. More than that, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, and the claim that John wrote the fourth Gospel has no evidence beyond what 2nd century catholics thought. Can you provide any other good reason to think that John wrote the GoJ? Thanks-Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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What is the biggest bible contradiction or flaw in your opinion?
Just simply, what doesn't make sense in the bible sdf

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Well, some of the ones that come to mind for me are these:
The geneologies between Chr and Mt from adam to David disagree, even though they claim to be describing the same thing. Apologists respond as usual by making words mean things other than what they mean, (such as “father of” not meaning “father of”), but even that doesn’t work, since they have different numbers of generations, and Mt even makes it a point to count them, and counts them wrong.The Ten commandments in Ex 20 and 34 disagree. The most common apologetic response is that the 34 set isn’t really the ten commandments, even though Ex 34:28 is clear that they are exactly that.The Birth year of Jesus in Mt and in Lk irreconcilably disagree. Mt and Lk mention herod, but then Luke mentions Quirinius, who ruled long after Herod had died. A longer explanation is at http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/Quirinius.html.The place where GoJ changes the day of Jesus’ death to make a theological point (that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb) - but that’s already being discussed.Peter denying Jesus 3 times before the cock crows in mark, and 3 times after the cock crows in John. Well, was it before or after? Fundamentalists say that both must be correct, and Peter must have denied Jesus 6 times! Silly - just like Jesus clearing the temple at the start of his ministry in John and at the end in the synoptics, fundamentalists take the same tack there, saying Jesus just must have trashed the temple twice. One would think they’d get tired of that and ban his admission or something. There are so many other things just like that that I better stop or I’ll be here all day.Some of the more notable ones between the gospels are when it must be from the holy ghost. For instance, in the speech before pilate, no disciples or bystanders are there - just Jesus, Pilate, and probably some guards. Of course the disciples didn’t interview pilate or the guard later, so how did the gospel writers get the stories? Must be straight from the holy ghost’s mouth (or whatever he has). Then why are they different between the gospels?One other is the transfiguration thing I mentioned above, or the many disagreements between Kngs and Chr when they tell the same stories. For instance, they’ll have the same person die a different way in a different city, list different sizes of armies, etc.That’s probably a lot more than you want, but only a small sample of what's in the half million words of the Bible. Have a fun day-Edited by Equinox, : typoEdited by Equinox, : No reason given.

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in reply to both Anastasia and Nem:Anastasia wrote:

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There is a verse, and I can not find it now, in which John says 'these signs and many more did He do' or something similar, which makes many feel that this was the end of the book, and that it was picked up later on by someone else.

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Yes, that’s part of it. Your are thinking of the last verse in chap 20. It is Jn 20:30

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Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

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The ending of the apparent addition is similar, Jn 21:25

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25Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

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There are a few independent lines of evidence that suggest that chap 21 is a later addition. Some are:1. The earliest manuscripts don’t have it. These include the second century scraps of P 52 and P 90, and the 3rd century scraps of P5, P 9, P 22, P28 and P 75. The oldest attribution of these verses is in the 3rd century, in P 109. However, this evidence is only suggestive, since none of these scraps are complete anyway. For instance, P 52 and P 90 also don’t have chapter 1, but no one is suggesting that chapter 1 is a later addition.2. Tertullian writing around the beginning of the third century, says that it ends without chapter 21. Of course there weren’t chapter numbers then. This is what he says:

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"And wherefore does this conclusion of the gospel affirm that these things were written unless it is that you might believe, it says, that Jesus Christ is the son of God?"

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That fits the end of chapter 20 as the end of the gospel.3. The writing style doesn’t fit - it’s as if someone else wrote it. Scholars who read greek say this is easy to see. It’s lost in the English translation. I don’t read greek, so I can’t testify to this one.4. The topic covered is different - chap 21 is mostly about ecclesiastical structure and denying that Jesus will come in “this generation”, while the bulk of John is about Jesus as God.5. No church fathers quote or refer to Jn Chap 21 until the later 3rd century.6. The gospel appears to end at 20:30 as mentioned above.While I agree that none of these are irrefutable, they are suggestive, and there is nothing to suggest that chap. 21 was in the original gospel. It’s well known that the gospels were added to or otherwise changed in other places (hence the large number of differences between our early manuscripts), so that points not debatable. So on the bulk of the evidence, most scholars see Jn 21 as an addition, just like the end of the Gospel of mark.Anastasia, I’ll reply to your earlier post tomorrow. I have to go now. Have a fun day-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Hi Anastasia-

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why is there not a record of when the second part was added? Or is there?

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Sorta both. Remember how things were back before gutenburg. Books had to be hand copied, and most people couldn't read or write. So books (anb bibles) were few, rare, and each unique. A copy of "Galen's anatomy" wasn't the exactly the same as another copy.Plus, the bible wasn't put together as a canon until around the 3rd-4th century. In addition, a person quoting a book won't quote all of it, so we don't know what they had but didn't quote. Thus if one person doesn't quote J21 because it's not in their copy of GoJ, and another doesn't because he just decided to quote a different part, we can't tell which is doing which.Lastly, the copies of J floating around didn't have chapter numbers. So Tertullian isn't going to notice that someone else's copy doesnt' have chapter 21 - he'd have to sit down and compare them word for word. He might notice if someone quoted J21, but probably wouldn't notice then, since there are a lot of words in the books, and he wouldn't know that the quote wasn't in there somewhere - remember, back then there weren't chapter numbers, so a person quoting a passage just said " and the gospel says 'XXXX'", so checking up on that was nearly impossible.So if in, say, 265, some scribe, while copying John by hand (which is what everyone who wanted another copy of John had to do or pay someone to do), decided he thought of a cool story that should have been in there, he may just keep writing when he got to the end. Or more likely, he may have heard the story orally, and may think that it really was in the original, and his copy must be deficient, so he "fixes" it by adding the story. No one would notice, since, as we saw above, it really wouldn't show.Then there would be different manuscripts floating around. If someone hears of both, and is copying another copy of John, the next scribe would assume that his copy is lacking a part that should be in there, and add it to his new copy. Soon copies have that all over.We know this happens from other cases too. For instance, part of what we now call John chap 8 doesn't appear until the middle ages.Is it documented when J21 was added? It sort of is. We know it was before the end of the 3rd century, since we have multiple manuscripts from the 4th century that have it. It's hard to say how early it could be, since a few copies with it could easily escape detection. Added in the middle of the 2nd cent? Middle of the 3rd? Who knows. Many scholars actually think that there are two added parts, one earlier and one later. That's pretty up in the air though.Whenever it was added, just like J chap 8, it is perhaps the moral and message that is more important than the details of when it was added, as you mention earlier.Have a fun evening-

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Anastasia wrote:

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The contradictions mentioned have taken nothing away fron the meaning behind the story of the money changers, for example, and these spiritual lessons are what is thought of as being inspired. Not the history, not the science.

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I've enjoyed discussing these questions with you, Anastasia, and I think this quote of yours sums up a good view of the Bible. In this same post, you earlier mentioned how it was not rational to just take the Bible literally, hook, line and sinker. The above quote shows what you think is important. I agree - good ideas are important because they are good.Denying science because it contradicts a literal reading of the Bible doesn't do anyone any good. As you point out, there are useful and correct ideas in there, and we need to find them and evaluate them based on whether or not they are good, not on whether or not they are in the Bible.Have a fun day--Jon

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Brian wrote:

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What you might wish to ask you friend about is the differences between the different available biblical texts.
You may wish to ask your friend which particular version of the Bible is the accurate one because some are very different.

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Here are some examples from the Book of Exodus:

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That's significant, and another point that may be useful for the OP is that in addition to that are the huge number of differences between our ancient texts of just the New Testament as well.As you know, Brian, (but many people don't know, such as perhaps the OP)when they books of the NT were written, people later copied them by hand, then copied them by hand again from the second copy when another copy was needed, then when that 3rd generation copy was taken to another city, someone there copied it by hand, etc,. So all we have are old copies of the copies of the copies of the copies, and we don’t know how many times it was copied before our copies were made.Even our oldest copies of nearly all the books date to a hundred years or more after the books were written, and they all disagree on what the books actually say - as one can expect from hand copying (try it yourself sometime!). In fact, of the over 5,000 manuscripts of parts of the new testament we have, no two of them agree word for word, except for the tiniest fragments. There are more differences between our old copies than there are words in the entire new testament. Of course, most of the differences are spelling errors and similar mistakes, but even a spelling error means that a worm could be different. (oops, I meant word, with a "d").Many people don't realize that our old copies of the books of the Bible (which are what was used to make the Bible we have today) are often like a box of chocolates - you never know what you'll get.Take care-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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OK, based on the last few posts, it seems that Brian and Anastasia agree that there is nothing to support the idea of Paul’s Damascus road conversion being real beyond the legendary Acts account and plain speculation. Note that even Paul himself never mentions the Damascus road conversion or any kind of a light himself, but that the anonymous author of “Luke” does so decades later. In one of the authentic letters of Paul, he does say that Jesus appeared to him, but no other details are given.I mean, based on what Paul says, Paul may only have had one of those "seeing Jesus on a tortilla" incidents, and nothing more.The immediate question was evidence of the conversion legend or of Jewish persecution of Christians in the first century.For instance, Anastasia wrote:

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There was something call the Bar Kochba, a Jewish persecution of Christians, but not until 135 CE.

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But subsequent discussion shows that Brian already knew of the Bar Kochbas, that they don’t fit, and more importantly that they are irrelevant anyway since they are second century.

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Nero is said to have persecuted Christians around 53?

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And that’s a Pagan persecuting a Christian, not a Jew persecuting a Christian. More importantly, Nero did that to use an unpopular minority group as a scapegoat - not because Nero cared what they believed. Nero probably didn’t have a clue as to the difference between, say, Christians and Buddhists, nor did he probably care. What we were looking for is any evidence that 1st century Jews persecuted Christians because they found their beliefs to be blasphemous, or that Paul's Damascus road story happened.

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and I think there is enough probable cause, according to historians, for the Romans to have fueled the fire of the Jews.

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Firstly, they were afraid of the christians talk of a 'king'.

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Second, any perceived dissension and hostility between the sects, could be, and apparently was, frowned on, with both sides being punished.

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It is possible that orthodox Jews could be enlisted to control the dissident christians, more with political goals and fear of upheaval in mind.

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All of the statements above are pure speculation, and don’t fit the Pax Romana anyway. Other aspects don’t fit the known history.

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I will say that some of what I said is indeed speculation.

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Yes. We are looking for any evidence to suppose that some of it follows logically. Remember that the Damascus story is never told to us by Paul (not even in the forged letters that use his name), but is rather a later legend.Are getting too far off topic? Or have we satisfied Neutralmind’s original request long ago anyway?Have a fun day all-Edited by Equinox, : added the tortilla.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Can you tell me more about the known history which you are aware of?

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OK. You mentioned:

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any perceived dissension and hostility between the sects, could be, and apparently was, frowned on, with both sides being punished.

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It is possible that orthodox Jews could be enlisted to control the dissident christians

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The Romans certainly dealt harshly with open rebellions against Rome, and punished groups who attacked another group, but can you cite something where they punished both sides? Or where Rome felt it had to get a Jew to control the Christians? In that that case, Rome certainly would be able to handle things themselves. Those are examples of what I mean by “known history”. We know how the Romans dealt with problems.

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Equinox writes:

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More importantly, Nero did that to use an unpopular minority group as a scapegoat - not because Nero cared what they believed. Nero probably didn’t have a clue as to the difference between, say, Christians and Buddhists, nor did he probably care.

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All of the statements above are pure spedulation.

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No, they aren’t, they are based on Tacitus, an ancient source from the second century. Now, Tacitus could indeed have made this up, but either way it’s not my speculation. Tacitus writes in Annals 15:

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Nero set up [i.e., falsely accused] as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Nero’s scapegoats were the perfect choice because it temporarily relieved pressure of the various rumors going around Rome.

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Another reason to think that Nero didn’t care what the Christians believed is that he didn’t persecute them either before nor after the fire incident, and never wrote or said anything that we know of that indicates he knew or cared what the Christians or the Buddhists believed. It’s good to question and ask for evidence. In this case, the evidence is the writings of historians like Tacitus, Suetonius, etc.

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I find the contrary to be true; that historians do agree on persecution, with different possible locations for the conversion

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OK, if “historians” are discussing different possible locations for the conversion, then they must have some basis to think the conversion story happened. What source do they have other than Acts? I know of no other ancient source - not even Paul’s own writing, that mentions the road to Damascus conversion story. Can you provide some way historians (or even high school kids) could even begin to speculate on different possible locations for the conversion, beyond Acts? It's like discussing different possible locations where hercules solved the Gordian knot.Sure historians agree on persecution - especially in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and mostly by local mobs. Is that disputed by anyone?

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I am sure that some things which are now contained in the Bible, were once thought of as historical documents. Sometimes it sounds like just because a document is in the Bible it is relegated to the realm of the unbelievable, while a contemporary document is considered history.

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I’m sure of that too. In fact, during the dark ages and for much of western history, the Bible was considered the primary source of historical information. It’s not that being in the Bible disqualifies something as a historical source today, but that the books that we call the Bible are subject to the same analysis as any other ancient source. And vice versa: all other historical sources are subject to the same analysis and criticism that the books in the Bible are subject to.Any ancient source is to be examined for bias, compared with other information and with the laws of science, and examined critically.What may seem to some like a bias against the bible is actually just normal critical evaluation. At least one book in the Bible outright states that it’s written specifically to get you to believe, and there are tons of examples of scientific and historical errors and clear bias. That’s not to say that other sources don’t have some bias - they usually do, but the level of propaganda, miracle stories used to evangelize, historical absurdities, and other problems are rarely as high in the works of a professed historian (such as tacitus, josephus, etc) as compared to the Bible.So when they are all subject to the same requirements, the Bible often fares poorly. This poor performance is then seen by some as bias against the bible, when it is not. I’m sorry if it seems that way, it’s nothing personal.

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All speculation aside though, there is some evidence of 'persecution' regardless of the Pax Romana.

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Could be. Sounds like we largely agree, depending on relatively minor details (though I'm still not sure what non-biblical evidence of 1st century Jewish based persecution you are referring to). It seems plausible that Jews and Christians didn't get along early on (since the Jews by and large rejected the claims of the Christians). I guess calling it a "persecution" depends on which side of the conflict you are on. It may be easier to see paul's alleged persecution as something Paul did on his own, like when a lone Christian goes killing abortion doctors or bombing gay bars.That's not to confuse this mid-first century discussion with the big, real, second and third century persecutions of Christians by local (and non-jewish, gentile) mobs.And of course this has been complicated by the addition of the whole road to Damascus story. We agree that there could have been small, local conflicts between Jews and Christians in the first century. About the road to damascus story, that could well be a later legend that Paul himself would have been surprised to hear.The two questions should be kept separate.Have a fun day-Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.Edited by Equinox, : typo

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Nittrain wrote:

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Alexander the Great, actually.

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Yes, sorry about that, and thanks for the correction.Let me try again:"It's like discussing the different possible locations where Hercules killed the Hydra."Edited by Equinox, : typo

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Anastasia wrote:

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I did not realize there was a Trinity debate going over here too.

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The logical inconsistency of the trinity is a problem that has been present for over 1,800 years. All of the early Christianities (Sabellians, Thomasines, Roman, Gnostics, Marcionites, Ebionites, and literally dozens more) were centered around Jesus - so he had to be at least special or divine. But they needed to tie to the old testament to gain respectability. But the OT said over and over and over that there was only 1 God to be worshipped. Plus you had that darn holy spirit flying around. What to do, what to do????The Roman church solved it by developing the trinity idea between the years of 150 and 300 CE. That’s why the trinity isn’t mentioned in the Bible, which is made up of books all written by around 150. That’s also why the Gospels contain so many things that contradict the trinity (like the baptism and Jesus/Father conversations mentioned), and why the trinity is poorly supported by the Bible. The only verse in the entire Bible that explicitly gives the doctrine of the trinity (1John5:7) is well known to be a forgery.Christians for centuries have tried to read the idea of the trinity into out of context verses in the Bible. On closer examination they all vaporize in a puff of fluffy thought. For example:Genesis Chapter 1 : God says “let US create man . .”“US” is plural - so that must mean the trinity!! Or, it could mean 2, or 5, or 8 or 1032 or . .. Hardly evidence of the trinity.Isaiah chapter 6:
And one said in a loud voice to another, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of armies: all the earth is full of his glory.“Holy” is used three times! It must mean the trinity is true! Oh, but our oldest copy of Isaiah only says “holy, holy” (2 holies), and even with holy holy holy, that hardly means the trinity. If I say you are a cool, cool guy, I’m not saying you are two people in one person who is really two people but is really one essence of one person in two forms of one person who isn't just in two modes or forms but is really two distinct people in one personhead (with equal parts that aren't parts, nor peices parts), which isn't contradictory, or it is, but it is beyond your ability to understand, so stop asking pesky questions.But there are vague references to Jesus in the OT, like in Judges, when moses holds up his arms, he looks like a cross - which has to be referring to Jesus!You’ve got to be kidding - just holding up one’s arms doesn’t make it a reference to Jesus, and certainly doesn’t prove the trinity. The old testament doesn’t talk about Jesus - that’s why nearly all ancient Jews rejected Christianity. They knew their scripture. Christianity had to grow among the non-jews, which it did.In the of a million words that make up the Bible, you’d think that if the writers of the Bible thought the trinity existed, then some phrase like “God is composed of three beings, the father, son, and holy ghost - these three are one god.” wouldn’t be too much trouble to write. That was only 17 words, and what could be more important than God’s nature?But no. instead we get entire stories copied word for word twice that go on for pages, or pages and pages of geneologies of people who are never again mentioned, or stories about ancient beauty pageants. I guess all those were more important than actually saying the trinity exists.This class explains the development of the trinity well. I highly recommend it, and it isn’t expensive ($35 for cassette - that’s like less than dinner & a movie for two). It is by a world expert on early Christianity, and isn’t preachy.
The Great CoursesThe lack of biblical support for the trinity that we are discussing are why newer Christian churches are rejecting the traditional trinity. That includes the Pentecostals, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.This started even back in the 1600s with Unitarians. UU’s (who are no longer doctrinally Christian) grew out of the Unitarian Christians, who were called "Unitarian" as a derogatory term by the traditional Christians (who are “Trinitarians”).Have a fun day-Edited by Equinox, : added comma

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Clark
Also, the JW's Bible has even more contradictions and problems than the orthodox Christian Bible.

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I'm particularly interested in this statement. Should we make a new thread or discuss it here briefly?
Would be very nice to know about these problems and contradictions in JW's Bible. Please, if you have the time.

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I have a little input here.I looked into this question after my sister became a J.W., and I have a JW translation and have read some of it. Mainly from commentaries by bible scholars, it looks like the translation is pretty much similar to most bibles (like the NIV), except for two points:1. Whenever God is referred to, the write Jehovah, regardless of what word was actually used (like elohim, the lord, whatever).2. They blatantly changed John 1:1. It used to read "and the word was God", and they changed it to "and the word was a god". They changed this because the passage is explicitly talking about Jesus, and they don't believe Jesus was God. They believe Jesus was an incarnation of the archangel Michael (not Gabriel or whoever else). Obviously, like is often the case, the beliefs are more important than what the text said before they changed it. It must have been a previous mistake, after all. That's the same reasoning that could have been why so many early christians changed our Bible in the early centuries of Christianity.Other than those two changes, there apparently aren't other differences nor more contradictions than other translations of the Bible. In reading it I noticed that it still had the verses that we know are later additions, like the ending of the gospels of Mk and Jn, the "first stone" story in Jn 8, etc. I even asked my sister about that, but I only got the boilerplate line of "the bible is perfect because God has been protecting it".Oh well.Have a fun day-P. S. I've always wanted to get a bunch of JW's together to make little magic cloth bags with me at a howard johnson's hotel, while eating those chocolate hostess snacks. Then I'd be making MoJo, eating HoHos at the HoJo with the JoHoHos! Edited by Equinox, : Oh no, HoHo HoJo typo, D'Oh!

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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If He was not telling the truth, then He is a deceiver. He made it simple for us to figure out. He reduced the equation to black and white. ...He is either a liar, or He is God in the flesh.

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It's hard to know where to start with that statement. First of all, if someone is wrong, that doesn't mean that they wanted to lie. Einstein denied quantum mechanics, but he wasn't lying, he was just plain wrong. Newton was wrong (or at least not completely right) about gravity, yet he clearly wasn't some quantum mechanics master who witheld QM because he wanted to deceive us with this diabolical newtonian system. My mom told me as a child that we were planning on making a underground fallout shelter because the USSR was going to nuke us within the decade. She didn't lie, she was just plain wrong. Both my mom and Einstein are ethical, and intelligent people - anyone can be wrong.And that's not even getting into the very controversial question of whether Jesus himself actually ever claimed to be God, or if that's just a later Christian fabrication."Reducing things to black and white" is the easiest way to get to an answer that is quick, simple, and wrong.

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He spoke in terms that anyone honest could understand.

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That is a topic for whole new thread. Between the question of whether we have a clue about what he may have actually said, and the nasty things recorded from him in gospels, to so much more, I certainly don't have time to even scratch the surface of that statement.

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There is only Christ, and one antichrist.

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Scottness, do you regularly claim things that are contradicted by the Bible? Or do you pick and choose which parts of the Bible to believe, cafeteria style? 2John 1:7 says that there were already many antichrists, even 1,800 years ago. From the King James Version:

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For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

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See ya-Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.Edited by Equinox, : minor add.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

Anastasia wrote:

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Can't you at least stick to your own non-believer viewpoint to make your arguments?

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Now, now, Anastasia. I have respect for you, and please let me know if I've been too blunt with you in the past. I never meant to masquerade as an inerrantist. I often do point out when a literalist is contradicting the Bible that they claim to respect. When I do so, I often don't bother to write "I'm not a literalist, I was raised Catholic, and went through a period of searching before coming to my current healthy spirituality, which does not include a dogmatic belief that any text is inerrant. I am mentioning an inerrantist position because I'm discussing things with an inerrantist who is appears to be ignoring (or more likely "creatively interpreting") their "inerrant" text in this discussion. I am doing so only so as to speak his language not to imply that I'm an inerrantist, nor to "jump around" or portray my views as anything but what they are."I think you can see why I don't write that every time an inerrantist comes along - because I'd get arthritis, and because it's pretty clear to anyone who's read my posts that I'm not an inerrantist, and that I'm openly stepping into their worldview so we can communicate with each other. I'm sorry if that came across as dishonest - I don't, and never have, hidden that approach or meant to sneak anything.Do you think it is unreasonable for me to follow the assumptions of an inerrantist during discussion with them? Is it any different from a protestant supporter of, say, women's rights saying to a Catholic "look, doesn't the veneration of Mary show that women should have rights?".I'm also a bit saddened to see that a normal conversational practice was turned into an occaision to claim that all "non-believers" (whatever that is) are dishonest.

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your own non-believer viewpoint

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That too, is a sticking point. I believe in a lot of things. I believe that we humans can make a better world for all. I believe that love is important. I believe that difference in belief are to be embraced as long as the beliefs aren't harmful. I believe that this world, including caring for my children and wife is more important than a hypothetical, selfish afterlife. I believe that worldviews should be based on reason and not on threats of torture. I believe we are part of a glorious universe, of which we've only glimpsed a small fraction.Is a Muslim a "non-believer"? What about a Hindu, a Buddhist, or someone who was raised shinto but is now questioning what they've been taught? To call someone a non-believer, first please state what they aren't believing in. For me, I won't believe anything without good evidence, but I fully respect different beliefs of others, as qualified above.Again, I'm sorry if I came across as intending to deceive. From that same post, as you pointed out, it's clear that I'm not an inerrantist. Take care-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)