DoubleDee Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 I have heard several responses from Christians when confronted that the bible is not inerrant. These are not the typical fundy responses that believe in a perfect bible. 1. God doesn’t want us to worship the bible but him only. If the bible were completely without error people would worship it instead of god and that would be idolatry. 2. These errors in the bible only prove that the church hasn’t doctored it. If the church had doctored the bible they would have fixed the problems and therefore we wouldn’t have the errors. 3. Men wrote the bible through the inspiration of the holy spirit, which gave them the perfect word of god. Uninspired men copied from the inspired and therefore we have these minor errors. I don’t recall my exact responses to these but it was a shock when I first heard them. They are totally incongruent with an omniscient and omnipotent god, which of course they do believe in. I welcome your comments and arguments to the Italicized responses or add your own that you’ve heard from Christians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogmatically_challenged Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 I have heard several responses from Christians when confronted that the bible is not inerrant. These are not the typical fundy responses that believe in a perfect bible. Yea. I heard the same things before from some xers. 1. God doesn’t want us to worship the bible but him only. If the bible were completely without error people would worship it instead of god and that would be idolatry. Bull. According to scripture jesus is THE WERD. So the message would be very important. It must be flawlessly coherent so we may understand. And if bible god don't want us worshiping a book then he should never have used a book in the first place. God is allegedly everywhere so can reach every person that ever lived....no book needed. 2. These errors in the bible only prove that the church hasn’t doctored it. If the church had doctored the bible they would have fixed the problems and therefore we wouldn’t have the errors. The bible could be doctored as well as having errors if humans wrote it and since humans wrote it it could have been doctored or made up. Humans do that. The proof is in the fact that there are other religions. I bet you would have scribes and higher ups with different opinions on whether or not to doctor the bible and how far to go in doctoring it.. And if one scribe was taught one way he might have mistakenly "fixed" a "problem" in a passage while some scribes would leave a passage as is without "fixing" it. 3. Men wrote the bible through the inspiration of the holy spirit, which gave them the perfect word of god. Uninspired men copied from the inspired and therefore we have these minor errors. Then what was the point in god inspiring some people to write the books if only to have the books bungled by nonbelievers? If god wants us to know the truth then the nonbelief of these men are moot if the werd is so important. I don’t recall my exact responses to these but it was a shock when I first heard them. They are totally incongruent with an omniscient and omnipotent god, which of course they do believe in. I welcome your comments and arguments to the Italicized responses or add your own that you’ve heard from Christians. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Indeed. If bible god IS love and has the super duper powers as given us in scripture then god would make sure that we have a choice in being saved. The book would be flawlessly coherent so that we can have the right understanding of any part of the books. But wait! If bible god IS LOVE and can do anything and is EVERYWERE then a book is not needed in any way. And what better way to make sure we understand than a mind to mind communication were words are not a stubling block. bible god could literaly download in our minds everything he would want us to know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anathema Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Hey all. I have been following an online debate between Jason Gastrich and Doug Krueger. It's topic is "Is faith in God reasonable? " and it can be found here: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=118609 Gastrich is getting his ass kicked big time. In addition, he repeatedly is scolded by the moderator for one reason or another. Here are those scoldings posted by the moderator: Jason Gastrich, In your recent statement, I have found that you copied some comments nearly in verbatim from another source and without any attribution. I have removed your comments in bold and replaced it with the actual quote from the original website. As you may be aware, plagiarism is a serious offence and would normally constitute a forfeit of the debate. But since only a few sentences were involved, I will merely provide a warning. A second infraction, however, will constitute a forfeit. Thank you for your consideration, - NS, FD Moderator -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightshade Moderator--FD&D, FDP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote: Originally Posted by Jason Gastrich It should be known that I requested an extension from IIDB and Doug even wrote them on my behalf and requested a one week extension for me and it was denied. My great-grandmother died last week and I’m moving my residence, my ministry, and my business from San Diego to Los Angeles, tomorrow (July 30). Nonetheless, Nightshade and the moderators at IIDB decided against giving me an extension. Real classy. Jason, This isn't a forum to discuss the merits of our moderation decisions. If you have a complaint, then please take it to the Problems & Complaints forum. Also, I have noticed that the tone of your responses to Doug is worsening. Please make an effort to maintain a civil discussion in your final statement. Thank you for your consideration, - NS, FD Moderator Man.....you guys have got to check out this debate. Gastrich is laughable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms. K Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 This is a discussion my husband and I have had so many times. I do not believe the Bible is the literal word of God. He does. I tell him there's too many inconsistencies, and he tries telling me that the Bible is inerrant. Finally, I pointed out many inconsistencies, and he rationalized that by saying that it's because the Bible was divinely inspired but written by mere men. At that point, I looked at him and said, "Then, the Bible is not the literal word of God. Even by your own argument, the Bible is not the literal word of God. After all, I could use Shakespeare as a holy text, and claim that Shakespeare was divinely inspired. I could write my own holy text, complete with inconsistencies, and claim I was divinely inspired. The Bible is no more inerrant than I am. It's not the literal word of God, or there would be no inconsistencies, if God is an omniscient, omnipowerful being." He has stopped debating that particular topic with me. He had to acknowledge that I was right. Of course I think part of that is his Virgo mutability kicking in, too.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Even when I was a Christian, I hadn't believed that the Bible was the literal word of god since I was a kid and didn't know any better. Most Christians I know realize that it's mythological in nature; they just choose to believe in the Christian god because everyone else around them does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 Don't forget that standard modus operandi (it's actually more a M. O. than a reply) when confronted with contradictions: "But verse X and verse Y and verses H-N say otherwise, so that's clearly the truth!!!!111!!!!!" Not that this at best provides a hint at what the bible writer(s) really thought, while still leaving the contradiction in place... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLACKGRAVITY Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 aatleast you guys get response's... when i ask my inlaws these same questions... i just get the cold shoulder and silent treatment,the true xtain way i guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogmatically_challenged Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 aatleast you guys get response's... when i ask my inlaws these same questions... i just get the cold shoulder and silent treatment,the true xtain way i guess. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> In reality we already won. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Son of Belial Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Defending my faith in the Kemetic religion: 1. God doesn’t want us to worship the bible but him only. If the bible were completely without error people would worship it instead of god and that would be idolatry. Hey, that's why my religion doesn't have a holy book! See, we're the correct faith! 2. These errors in the bible only prove that the church hasn’t doctored it. If the church had doctored the bible they would have fixed the problems and therefore we wouldn’t have the errors. This explains why our Egyptian texts have contradictions. They have flaws and contradictions because they're correct. 3. Men wrote the bible through the inspiration of the holy spirit, which gave them the perfect word of god. Uninspired men copied from the inspired and therefore we have these minor errors. That explains some of the errors in our texts too. I managed to prove, I think, that my religion is right, so KNEEL BEFORE RA! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynical Realist Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Hey all. I have been following an online debate between Jason Gastrich and Doug Krueger. It's topic is "Is faith in God reasonable? " and it can be found here: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=118609 Gastrich is getting his ass kicked big time. In addition, he repeatedly is scolded by the moderator for one reason or another. Here are those scoldings posted by the moderator: Jason Gastrich, <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I just read the debate and it's amazing that christians must go to a school on debate because they ALL do the exact same things. Attack, not answer questions that they can't, give answers that could be technically right but are laughable. Basically debating with Christians is a waste of time because they turn into complete pricks when the heat is on. I'll point out that it's the exact same situation when you debate with a right wing conservative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trashy Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 I grew up Southern Baptist during their first big fight on Biblical Inerrancy. One of the men leading the charge to 'clean house' of liberals was Dr. Criswell's right-hand man at First Baptist Dallas, Paige Patterson. So you can imagine my surprise when Paige told a small bible study group at my bible college (this was 1979 or 1980) that the last chapter of Mark had been shown to be a later addition and was not really part of the Bible. He said this in response to a question regarding handling snakes, scorpions and poison. As a big Inerrantist myself this caught me off guard. If part of Mark wasn't supposed to be there, and wasn't inerrant, what ELSE wasn't supposed to be there? Strange thing is that in the last year as I've been doing a lot of research on Biblical texts I have found that it is a general consensus that the last part of Mark was added on much later than the rest. But this is a consensus of NON-Inerrantist scholars, most of whom would question even the historicity of Jesus himself. And since I've never been one to go half-way, you shouldn't be surprised to find that I've gone from Inerrantist to flat-out atheist. It's that black and white to me. So that's my response. "You know Paige Patterson? Former President of the Southern Baptist Convention? He thinks the Bible is errant and would throw out the last chapter of Mark. If that's the position of a prominent INerrantist, how is that different from an errantist saying basically the same thing?" something like that any way........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogmatically_challenged Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Southern Baptists argue with eachother bout almost everything. Or at least the ones I grew up with did. 3300 xer denominations and still growing. The only scholars trustworthy are unreligious nonchristian scholars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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