Guest Son of Belial Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 I'm coming up with a list of contradictions of my own. The reason is because a lot of these lists have contradictions that I, even as a non-Christian, can explain away. I want to build a list that cannot be rebutted... these can. For example: All neatly ripped from:Skeptics Annotated Bible Contradiction: One God: "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me" Many Gods: "And God said, let us make man in our image" He was talking to the angels. Inconsistency: One Son of God: "God sent his only begotten son into the world" Many Sons of God: "The sons of God came in unto the daughters of men" - Sexy This is a poor one. "only begotten" means "only born." That is, the only one born to a human being. The "sons of god" came to earth in angelic form. They may have taken flesh, but they were not "begotten," that is, they were not born of a woman. Logical Fallacy: God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day This is a good one, but a Christian can force an explanation like that God seperated light and dark in his mind before he created the sun. Faux Pas: God likes Abel's dead animals better than Cain's fruits and vegetables. Why? Well, no reason is given, but it probably has something to do with the amount of pain, blood, and gore involved Unfortunately this isn't a contradiction, it's just God being a dick. And it was always explained to me that Cain didn't offer the best of his fruits and vegetables, but Abel offered the best of his flock. The Bible never says so, though. The story is simply a parable of the nomadic sheepherders being "killed" symbolically by the farming community who replaced them. Although Christians would never admit this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 wait...where are the zombies? Actually you had that too!!! :0 In the NT, when Jesus dies, it was a big earthquake and the sky turned dark, and old dead people woke up and walked the streets of Jerusalem and told them about the Kingdom of Heaven. [edit] Matthew 27 52. And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53. And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. So these dudes, were the Zombies for God Congregation, let's start one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 I would like your opinions of Scripture. Christian scripture is like raw sewage. Every now and then you can find something more or less valuable in it, but mostly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 This is my favorite contradiction Titus 1 12. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 13. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith Like cut and paste from philosophy class. - A Cretians said; all Cretians are liars. And this is from the Bible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 Whatsamatter, Mac? Couldn't resolve the problem last night? Can I save you a lot of trouble, my friend? You will never resolve this problem. Jesus had to have the line of decent of male progenetors from King David in order to be the Messiah. That's whyMatthew started with David. He also needed the blood line of Solomon. But being born of a virgin, he is automatically disqualified. And don't try making miraculous birth count as something meaningful. If you try to make virgin birth count in any way as a sign of the Messiah, then you are assuming that God broke his word in the Old Testament. So either way, you're screwed. Very screwed. Do hurry back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogmatically_challenged Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 This is my favorite contradiction Titus 1 12. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 13. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith Like cut and paste from philosophy class. - A Cretians said; all Cretians are liars. And this is from the Bible. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If I ever fell in the mood to get lynched, I'll make a T shirt with this contradiction in bold front and back. hehe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antihero Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 I'm coming up with a list of contradictions of my own. The reason is because a lot of these lists have contradictions that I, even as a non-Christian, can explain away. I want to build a list that cannot be rebutted... these can. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep. That's what you get when you grab the first ones you see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted June 3, 2005 Share Posted June 3, 2005 This is my favorite contradiction Titus 1 12. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 13. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith Like cut and paste from philosophy class. - A Cretians said; all Cretians are liars. And this is from the Bible. Isn't that the one that Captain Kirk used to make the robots' heads smoke? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 This is my favorite contradiction Titus 1 12. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 13. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith Like cut and paste from philosophy class. - A Cretians said; all Cretians are liars. And this is from the Bible. Again, this reminds me of... The following statement is absolutely true. The previous statement is absolutely false. I'll have to remember that. Jason Gastrich is allegedly going to do a 2-hour Jason versus InfidelGuy.com show like Hovind did last year. I soooo want to call in and make him my bitch. I'm bringing that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Again, this reminds me of... The following statement is absolutely true. The previous statement is absolutely false. I'll have to remember that. Jason Gastrich is allegedly going to do a 2-hour Jason versus InfidelGuy.com show like Hovind did last year. I soooo want to call in and make him my bitch. I'm bringing that one. Considering that either the Cretians lie (according to rule), and thus wrong about the statement. Or the Creaties is telling the truth and the statement is wrong. In both cases the statement is wrong. And the favorit part is, the cream on the top with sugar: "This witness is true." Wooohooo! The statement above is obviously false whichever way you try to explain it, and the Bible say is TRUE. I love those verses, sorry, I just do... ---- Oh, what i didn't tell is that actually this expression "the cretians are liars..." etc is from one of the greek philosophers. I don't remember which one. Does anyone remember from philosphy class? The only thing I remember is that expression is used in an older philosphy study to show ... drumroll ... contradictions! yeah! And the author of this part in the bible DOES NOT KNOW THAT! There was never anyone saying such a statement, it was the same thing MrNeil is doing on the top here. It was an example of contradiction, not to make a statement of who's lying. So the author of Titus, ...is ... a ... friggin ... MORON!!! (That was the nicest word I could come up with at the moment) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antihero Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 I never did like that seeming paradox. The problems that I think lie with "A Cretin said: 'All Cretins are liars'", is that a person may tell the truth some times, while still lie, and be described as a liar, and hence the cretin could be telling the truth. Or, you could look at it that the Cretin is lying when he says 'All Cretins are liars', because "not all cretins are liars" is true, even though 'All Cretins are not liars' is clearly not true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 For some reason I see resurrected people as resurrected people, not zombies. no chickens were killed in the making of the resurrected saints...to me it's more like a bunch of "buffy" resurrections...she wasn't a zombie. Oh, ok, my bad. no zombies today... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 are you sure they weren't talking about people from the island of "crete" the term "christian" hadn't yet been coined at the time the bible was put together. And the later "cretin" certainly hadn't come along. Or were you being sarcastic. Or maybe you were saying that cretians are all liars...but the next verse said the cretian who spoke spoke truth. i'm confused. (nevermind, i'm a tard...i get it now.) Ok, good you got it It's from the bible, look it up. And I do think (actually sure) it's referring to people from Crete, and not "Cretins", even though it's funny to do that switch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 It's amazing that the author to the Titus Letter (I don't remember if it's Paul or not), didn't have philosophical schooling, but still took a phrase from philosophy class to try to convey something! And still missed the point! And messed up! It's just like all the stupid stuff I'm saying, and MrSpooky know I'm soooo wrong! [edit] But I do it with such a class and style, and I'm very humble about it too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Here is a document about the original “Cretans are all liars”, and it explains that Paul was sooooo wrong. (St. Idiot) The originator is Epimenides, and he used the statement to show mathematical paradox. Tada! And St. Paul in standard neo-con style, misinterpret the message and give a preaching to the people how Cretans are “Such Liars!” http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/CretanLiars.htm ...Epimenides the Cretan 6th century BC This statement, because it was uttered by a Cretan, is true if and only if it is false. The Cretan Paradox, is the earliest known (attempt at formulating a) mathematical paradox. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; Bible, Titus 1, verse 12-14 Interestingly, St. Paul makes reference to this paradox, in a way that shows he knew of it but did not understand it: He says of Cretans that "they are all liars, as one of their own has said." But the context (Titus 1:12-14) suggests that he took it seriously as a denunciation of Cretans. ... To think I used to be so stupid to believe this book... ...well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Why bother, I'm sure you can find one within a 1 or 2 mile radius from your house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Here's another, along the same lines: (Jesus talking) John 5 31"If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true. 32There is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the witness which He witnesses of Me is true. 33You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. What's the difference between witnessing to your own truthfulness, or pointing to a handpicked third party and then witnessing of their truthfulness about yourself. LOL! This is a very interesting part of religion overall, but especially Christianity. I realized a couple of weeks ago that con artists use a common technique (which I can’t remember what it’s called), where it goes like this: You have a target T, innocent person to con You, yourself is the actor that going to con T, but you need T’s trust You get another person, a reference R, that will make contact with T and build some basic trust, and then recommend you as the expert in the field. T will increase his trust to you, because a third party R, made the recommendation. It's a "transfered trust", where the value of the trust increases with the number of people between, the number of "hops". I see this with the Bible as a whole. Someone else said that so and so was the son of God. “Well, he said it, he can’t have been lying, why would you say that about someone else?” And this you can see in the verses above too. Let someone else recommend me, then the trust to me increases dramatically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 wait...where are the zombies? Jesus and Lazarus...they died yet they walk among us !!! only rational explanation is that they were zombies. I don`t buy that they came back to life. After being dead for three days there had to be rotting flesh and rigor mortis. I dunno if they ate brains tho... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotter Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 This is read from a Christian apologetic and I quote [sic] “…the Bible was written by men under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The authors were allowed to record the understanding in their own words. Thats why we see minor differences in the Four Gospels. However the theme God wanted to convey has continuity throughout the Bible including the four Gospels & all of the NT. God gives us choices & says seek & you shall find. If you choose to seek inconsistency, you shall find it. If you seek understanding from God, you will find it & see the continuity of His word. God will not force you to believe. God allows us free will to make our choices. But if you truly seek understanding, God will guide you through the Holy Spirit…” At least this Christian acknowledged the discrepancies and worked out an answer / defense for it. Mac, you backed yourself into a blind corner in laying down the conclusive tone. --- In addition, any comments to the apologetic quote, Han Solo and folks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 This is read from a Christian apologetic and I quote [sic] “…the Bible was written by men under the influence of the Holy Spirit...." I'll say they were under the influence of spirits. Just not the kind that are immaterial manifestations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 This is read from a Christian apologetic and I quote [sic] “…the Bible was written by men under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The authors were allowed to record the understanding in their own words. Thats why we see minor differences in the Four Gospels. However the theme God wanted to convey has continuity throughout the Bible including the four Gospels & all of the NT. God gives us choices & says seek & you shall find. If you choose to seek inconsistency, you shall find it. If you seek understanding from God, you will find it & see the continuity of His word. God will not force you to believe. God allows us free will to make our choices. But if you truly seek understanding, God will guide you through the Holy Spirit…” Believe like a child It’s a good argument. God (if he exists) decided to give us a book that was not exact or literally consistent, but just for the purpose to convey a message of his good intentions. And only if you seek the good intentions you can find them. Even though this is true, would God choose not to speak to us further and expand the view over time? Would he decide that one time was enough, and was all he needed to explain himself? If he knew the document would be scrutinized and evaluated over time, shouldn’t he have made sure that we knew that and could account for the discrepancies at a later date? I guess you could say the words of Jesus: “you have to believe like a child” comes to mind. The understanding of Gods message can only be understood if we don’t apply logic or reasoning to it. Basically the ideas had to be taken a priori . This can take two turns; either we shouldn’t really discuss religion in philosophical terms and not try to explain why or how, like the Bible says in Timothy 1:4: “Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.”, or we disobey Gods will and start dissecting the Bible and its faith. A person that subscribe to the apologetics is trying to defend the Bible and God with arguments and reasoning, and hence take the second path. So in a sense if the Bible is to be taken for a spiritual enigma it should never be attempted to be explained with rational reasoning. You can’t be an apologetic and at the same time say “take the Word for what it is, and don’t analyze it”, if the intent was that we were not supposed to. Level of contradiction The second thought I have is: how much of inconsistencies can be accepted in the Word of God. Maybe his intent was to give us a book to guide us on a spiritual journey, regardless of the amount of discrepancies you would find in there. Then isn’t it also possible that God has spoke through other books to reveal himself? If God only spoke through one single book, we need to deduct if the book is the right one, and that it holds enough of the “holy message” he wanted to give us. And how can we do that? We can somewhat do it by analyzing it and finding the message and see if the message does make sense. The problem with the Bible is that, not only is there inconsistencies with the factual information, but also with the “holy message” that it contains. We have another thread discussing if Jesus’ atonement was enough to pay for our sins, and base it on the Bible’s own requirements to do so. If the message is “Jesus saved us”, and the Bible contradicts that message in contents, then it’s not just a small discrepancy we’re talking about, but the actual meaning, or intent with the Bible. My position is that the level of contradiction in spiritual matters is too high to make the Bible constitute the Word of God. Free will as a higher order of good When it comes to the free will, it was up to God to give us a free will, and he meant it to be good. In that lies a contradiction, because he want us to have a free will, but yet he doesn’t want us to use it, unless we only take one single path he has laid out. He wants us to give it up. God had a choice to make us as robots to always act good, or he would give us a free will. His decision was to give us free will, because it had a higher value in the greater good. But then if the free will is the greater good, why would he choose to condemn it if the free will didn’t make his choice? That only leads me to think that he gave us free will and then he regret it and now want it back. Why give us free will, if we don’t have the right to chose? Bible as a spiritual book I do believe we are a creature that has a great need of “spiritual” experiences. But they don’t necessarily have to come from one single source. The Bible can give us great pleasure and good advice, but has to be read in the sense of mythology and story-telling. The choice to believe in God as a conscientious being or not is unimportant to the fact the “spiritual” experience can be done through other books or religions. For me philosophy gives me that feeling, and God (if he exists) created that too, and it gives me meaning and pleasure, and give me a better understanding of myself, and closeness to life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotter Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Good one, Han Solo. Well laid and eloquent. I actually copy and paste your answers for archive. About freewill, even as a theist [i probably should change my profile from Theist to Seeker….], there is something not yet resolved in my theology. Thank you for the information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Good one, Han Solo. Well laid and eloquent. I actually copy and paste your answers for archive. About freewill, even as a theist [i probably should change my profile from Theist to Seeker….], there is something not yet resolved in my theology. Thank you for the information. Oh, thanx! You made my Day! And Free Will is an enigma just like the question of God. Just like agnosticism declares that knowledge of the existence of God is currently unattainable, I believe that is the matter with Free Will vs. Determinism too. We can’t really say which way it is, but it shouldn’t stop us from contemplating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
- AUB - Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Determinism was negated by the uncertainty principle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Determinism was negated by the uncertainty principle. That is true, which would suggest that our Free Will is under influence of quantum mechanics. I agree that the uncertainty principle does remove determinism, as it is currently defined. Maybe it was a bad choice of words. Let’s say Free Will against Automata. Are we a product of subroutines in a complex machine or do we have a free will. Presently, right now, with our current knowledge, we know this uncertainty principle and how quarks and particles have all these strange behaviors and attributes. Can we be certain that the uncertainty principle doesn't have a layer of explanations beyond our current knowledge, and eventually we can explain some of the mysterious events that for instance twin-particles have, or are the uncertainty principle a requirement for the existence of cosmos? If we one day discover the mechanics for the fabrics of space, beyond particles and energy, can we be absolute sure that there aren’t any “meta-physical” laws that it would adhere to? I’m not talking about God or an intelligent super-being or such, but just the fact that we right now don’t understand it all in current space-time, can we dismiss that there could be more to learn of that beyond? Uncertainty Principle basically says: “We’re not certain if the cat will be alive or not”, but maybe one day we will be able to know. Don’t take this as criticism AUB, I think you added a good point. So I’m not trying to refute you, just add to the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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