The Bible was NOT man made, it was Godly made

Jim Hawkins clearly states that HE wrote Treasure Island (with a couple of chapters filled in by Dr. Livesey). Yet we know Jim was just a fictional character.If I wrote, "This post was written by George W. Bush", would you believe it?

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We can confirm something to be fact if it agrees with other facts. If other writers outside the Bible wrote about Jesus, that would tend to confirm that He existed.What we can't do is use the Bible to confirm the Bible.And we can confirm something to be fact if different people from different cultural and religious backgrounds study the same materials and draw the same conclusions. If a Hindu and an atheist studied all the available documents and concluded that Jesus existed, that would tend to confirm that it was true.What we can't do is accept the assurances of people who have already decided that every word in the Bible is true.

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What about them? I didn't say that Jesus didn't exist or that there is no outside confirmation. I was just saying that that's the kind of confirmation we need to determine whether or not the Bible is true. The next step would be to determine whether or not those 200 sources are reliable. If source #15 got his information from source #134, we can't really count them as two separate sources, can we? If source #49 got his information from his wife's hairdresser's brother-in-law, how relaible is that? If source #26 and source #121 mention "a guy named Jesus" but don't say anything significant about him, we can't count that, can we? If source #198 mentions a teacher in Judea but doesn't name him, we can't count that, can we?That's where we have to start an investigation into whether or not one small part of the Bible is true. Every part of the Bible requires the same kind of investigation.Most people who claim that the Bible is inerrant haven't looked into it at all. Studying apologetics is the worst way to determine what parts of the Bible are accurate.

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So what? I've seen a couple of big floods myself. (You should see how impressive a couple of inches of water is out here on the flat prairies. ) If I write about a flood, how does that confirm the Bible?No matter who wrote about a flood, we'd have to compare thier description word by word with the Bible flood account. If there was any disagreement, we'd have to figure out which account was more accurate.Really, by bringing in other flood accounts, you're just making it harder for yourself. How do you know they were eyewitness accounts? You can't trust them just because they say so.Anyway, eyewitness accounts are the worst possible evidence. Anybody working in law enforcement will tell you that. I agree. You shouldn't assume any of it is true. I already told you, apologetics are pretty much worthless when it comes to "analysis" or "proof". Because they have a conclusion picked out before they start looking for "proof". The very word "apologist" connotes making excuses for their beliefs even when the evidence contradicts them.People who start with an open mind and follow the evidence wherever it leads are more likely to come up with the truth.

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No, there really isn't. Three inches of water that stretches all the way to the horizon looks exactly the same as three miles of water that stretches to the horizon. The problem is that you're only looking at the "agreeable facts". If you want to honestly compare two stories, you have to look at the differences, not the similarities. That's exactly what you're doing. Unless the Bible's flood account can be confirmed by outside sources, it is as much out of thin air as any fictional story. Unless it corresponds exactly with every other flood myth, you have to explian each and every difference and show why the Bible account is more accurate than the others. That's a big job - one that's never been done. That's why I say you'd be better off never mentioning that there are other flood stories. We trust scientists because their experiments can be repeated. If you think a scientist made a mistake, you can do the experiment and show where he went wrong. How can you trust a book that was written thousands of years ago in the same way? Precisely by not taking the word of one person who claims to be an eyewitness. In court, his testimony has to tally with everybody else's and with the physical evidence.Your so-called "eyewitnesses" to Biblical events, you can't even prove they exist. You might as well call the Easter bunny to the witness stand. If it was only my word against yours, the court would be right to let you off.Look at it from the opposite direction: suppose I falsely accused you of murdering my family. Would it be "justice" for the court to blindly take me at my word and hang you? I appreciate that, by the way. You've been very polite so far. If I had a dollar for every "Christian" who abused me for asking this kind of question, I could buy you. Sure, it's possible for that to happen. And it's possible for a Christian to really study the Bible and find that it's neither inerrant nor accurate. But they don't have to become atheists. If they look at the Bible honestly, it can strengthen their faith.

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The flood story claims that "the whole earth" was covered. What eyewitness could possibly have seen all of that? Whoever wrote the story was obviously embellishing - he was making assumptions. So, in fact, all the flood stories have only one similarity - a flood. There is no reason to assume they're talking about the same flood. Again, a flood doesn't confirm the flood. You might as well say that fairies are real because so many cultures have folktales about them. Faith is useless for determining how accurate a story is. Other people have just as much faith in the other stories. Sure you can. Ever hear of geology, paleontology? Ever watch CSI: Crime Scene Investigation? Every observation that scientists make is about something that happened in the past. I don't think it was written by Jefferson, actually. Look it up.But there are tests that can be done. Is the paper old enough? Is the composition of the ink authentic? Was the document written by one person?And the Constitution does have a provenance. There were eyewitnesses to its writing and ratification. It's day-to-day existence is well accounted-for.You have none of that for the Bible. You don't even have an original manuscript. You might want to drop the conspiracy theory real fast. If there was a conspiracy involved in the production of the Bible, it's far more likely that it was a conspiracy to make it look "true". We have a chain of evidence for all those events. We do have authentic eyewitnesses and eyewitnesses who testify that the eyewitnesses were real. It is in no way comparable to the "eyewitnesses" to the Bible. That's what I'm saying. If one "eyewitness" is the only "evidence" you have, he should not be believed. His accusations should be rejected and the accused should be set free. The witness might still be right, but if there's no way of showing that he's right, you can't put somebody in jail.You can't even show that your Bible "eyewitnesses" really existed - so you shouldn't take them at their word. Nobody is talking about proving the Bible "false".We already know for a fact that the flood is false. We know for a fact that much of Genesis is false. Probably most of the "history" in the Bible is either outright fiction or at least embellished.But don't confuse fictitious with false. Fiction can carry important truths.Understanding the difference between fact and fiction will strengthen your faith. You can have real faith in what you know is true.If you insist that the Bible is historically accurate, even though the evidence says otherwise, you're just squeezing your eyes shut and stuffing you fingers in your ears and saying, "I do, I do, I do believe in spooks!" That makes for very weak "faith".

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Not really. The judge's duty is to determine whether or not there is any truth in either statement. If there are substantial differences between the statements and if there is no outside evidence to support either statement, then the judge's duty is to disregard both statements. That isn't necessarily the "correct" conclusion. It's a made-up reconciliation that doesn't really confirm the statement that "Joe is a thin guy". Thin "legs" do not confirm thin guy.That's an illustration of how bad apologetics can be. Agreed. Your comments on the death penalty are completely out to lunch, but that belongs in another topic. (This one, for example.) Nope.

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Well, it isn't up to me to look it up. It's up to you to make your own case.In any event, we're not talking about statutes here, we're talking about witnesses. How does statutory construction have any relevance? The conclusion is barely plausible - but only if you assume the two accounts have to agree.

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The Bart Simpson defense: "I could do that but I don't wanna."God could communicate His message to us effectively but for some ineffable reason, He doesn't wanna? That's almost as lame as the You Gotta Believe to Believe defense.Either the Bible makes sense in a human-understandable way or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it's either because God is incapable of expressing Himself or because He didn't write it.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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That's not a fair comparison. You're talking about understanding reality itself. I'm talking about communicating an understanding of reality. If God understands quantum mechanics, can He communicate that understanding to us? I'm only talking about one small aspect of God's behaviour: His attempt to communicate with us via the Bible. In that context, yes, He does have to behave in a certain way which I expect and understand. That's exactly what I'm doing, investigating how communication DOES work. Is the receiver working? Is the channel clear? Is the sender transmitting a comprehensible signal?The responsibility for communication begins with the sender.If the message isn't getting through, it's reasonable to examine the sender and the medium, not just blame the receiver.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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The parts that are clear are the parts that we could have figured out without a message - e.g. love thy neighbour. The parts that are not clear - e.g. who gets to heaven - are the parts that are in contention. If the Bible was "Godly made", we should expect those parts to be a whole lot clearer. If it was manmade, we would expect different versions from different men - which is exactly what we see.My point in Message 146 to you was that the God-moves-in-mysterious-ways excuse makes no sense if God is trying to communicate with us.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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The topic is about the specific form that the communication (supposedly) does take - the Bible. The multitude of different interpretations suggests that the major points are not comprehensible. How can that imply anything but an incompetent God or a human origin? How could a competent God fail to communicate?

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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No. The Creator of the universe would be capable of transmitting on all frequencies, so that no filter could remove everything. There would be no possibility for anybody to miss the message.All you're doing is changing "the message is incomprehensible" to "the transmitter is weak".

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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If the message was crystal clear, spoken face to face to each individual human by God Himself, they would still have the free will to obey or disobey. We're talking about communication of the message here, not what is done with the message after it is received. Do you really not see how ridiculous that sounds? You're using the message to determine whether or not the message is accurate: If the message says A, then A.That's like getting an email from somebody who claims to be your banker, telling you not to trust anybody else who claims to be your banker.That's no way to determine who the message came from.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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It's the same thing. If the book makes claims about its authorship, you have to determine whether or not those claims are accurate. Where are you getting information about authorship if not from the book itself? If you look at external sources, there's certainly no indication of divine authorship. Of course I disagree. That whole trying-to-deny-God thing is fundie bullshit.Give people some credit for objectivity.If billions of people receive the message and less than one billion agree on its content, how can you claim that the majority is filtering out the "real" message?

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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