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we've had this discussion before but you have still to point out anything in the bible that can be proven to be untrue.
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Here's one:
God is all-good. Therefore, we should all worship and follow Him.
Response:
This claim is not an argument for creationism or against evolution. Evolution is entirely compatible with a good God.
God's omnibenevolence usually goes along with claims that He is all-knowing and all-powerful. But the three qualities are not compatible with the observation that there is suffering in the world.
The same God that people consider all-good is credited with creating hell and banishing there all souls who do not accept Him. Allowing anyone to suffer ultimate torment for all eternity--particularly when it is within your power to prevent it--is arguably the greatest form of evil possible. The only point to causing pain and suffering with no chance of redemption is petty cruelty.
Forcing someone to suffer for not returning your love is cruel, spiteful and petty. Society considers such behavior evil enough to enact laws to prevent it.
Causing one person to suffer for eternity (even for a truly heinous crime) is bad enough. Causing billions of people to suffer for eternity (especially when most are guilty of nothing more than never having been taught the "true" religion) can only be considered vastly more sick, depraved and evil.
The Bible itself says God created evil ("I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."--Isa. 45:7). Genesis 2 says the tree of knowledge of good and evil existed in Eden before Adam and Eve interacted with it, implying that evil existed from the beginning. And God pronounced it good.
Here's two:
The Bible, being God's revealed word, is without error or fault in everything it teaches, including what it says about creation, historical events, and its own origin. Scientific study of the earth cannot be used to overturn scriptural accounts of creation and the flood.
Response:
Inerrancy cannot be trusted. Errors can only be corrected if they are first recognized and admitted. Inerrancy makes that impossible. Therefore, errors in an inerrant interpretation of the Bible can never be fixed.
Inerrancy is a contempt that breeds hate. Inerrantists take it as divinely certain that other people's religious views are inferior to their own. One reaps what one sows, so when inerrantists show their contempt, contempt for their own religious views is returned. History is bloodied by the consequences. Jews, Muslems, heathens, and other Christians have been subjugated, tortured, and slaughtered in the name of the "true" god. Jacob Bronowski (1973, 374), speaking of Auschwitz, wrote,
Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by dogma. It was done by arrogance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
The contempt also shows up as intolerance -- against women's roles, in attitudes about sex, and through a variety of other different views. Even those who do not commit atrocities, when they display such intolerance, are guilty of fomenting the atmosphere that makes the atrocities possible.
Inerrancy rejects much study of the Bible (not infrequently to the point of persecuting the studier). One who accepts inerrancy generally
ignores textual criticism. Most inerrantists accept the King James version as authoritative, but analysis of the earliest biblical manuscripts shows that the King James version includes numerous errors. For example, the story of Jesus chiding those who would stone an adulteress (John 8:1-11) does not appear until about 300 years after the Gospel of John was written.
ignores source criticism. Many stories in the Bible are repeated, but with different emphasis, different details, and different language. These differences show that the Bible was written by different people at different times for different purposes, and their accounts were redacted by people with still different motives (Friedman 1987).
ignores the reality of syncretism, the process by which rituals, concepts, etc. from one religion are adapted by another. Many biblical stories show Sumerian and Canaanite influence, for example.
ignores the values of the writers of the Bible, who likely did not distinguish literalism or consider it important. The Bible was not written to record accurate histories, but to convey and persuade spiritual ideas. Those ideas may not even be the same to all people.
It is ironic that people who purport to hold the Bible in such high esteem reject serious, objective study of it.
Jesus himself said that religious laws are not absolute. In Matthew 5:38, he rejects the "eye for an eye" law (Exod. 21:23-25, Lev. 24:19-20, Deut. 19:21). Jesus rejected all dietary law (Mark 7:19; cf. Lev. 11). He rejected the commandment about working on the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). If Jesus considered that even the laws of Moses were not inerrant, why should we consider any part of the Bible inerrant?
Ultimately, there is no authority for inerrancy except oneself:
God cannot be the authority because God has not said anything on the subject directly. The whole point of inerrancy is to attribute God's authority to an indirect vehicle.
The Bible cannot be an authority to its own authoritativeness; that would be circular reasoning.
The church cannot be an authority for inerrancy because there is no one church. There are over 10,000 different Christian denominations, all with different ideas about the Bible. In fact, there are at least three significantly different Bibles (the Catholic, Protestant, and Ethiopian Orthodox versions).
For the same reason, historical tradition cannot be the authority for inerrancy. Views about the Bible have changed over history.
Claiming inerrancy in the Bible is pointless unless one also claims inerrancy in one's interpretation of it. Some people believe that the earth is flat and is covered by a solid dome because the Bible says so and the Bible is inerrant (Schadewald, 1987). Most people, including most biblical inerrantists, would say they are wrong. Claiming inerrancy for a particular view of creation or the flood is no different in principle. Claiming that the Flood account is a true literal account is an error if it was written as an allegory; claiming that it is a true allegory is an error if it was a literal account. To claim that a particular interpretation of any part of the Bible is inerrant is to claim that you yourself are inerrant.
There are several aspects of the Bible that show it is not inerrant. These include factual errors:
Leviticus 11:6 states that rabbits chew their cud.
Leviticus 11:20-23 speaks of four-legged insects, including grasshoppers.
1 Chronicles 16:30 and Psalm 93:1 state that the earth is immobile; yet it not only revolves and orbits the sun but is also influenced by the gravitational pull of other bodies.
and contradictions:
In Genesis 1, Adam is created after other animals; In Genesis 2, he appears before animals.
Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23 differ over Jesus's lineage.
Mark 14:72 differs from Matthew 26:74-75, Luke 22:60-61, and John 18:27 about how many times the cock crowed.
2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1 differ over who incited David to take a census.
1 Samuel 17:23,50 and 2 Samuel 21:19 disagree about who killed Goliath.
1 Samuel 31:4-5 and 2 Samuel 1:5-10 differ over Saul's death.
The four Gospels differ about many details of Christ's death and resurrection (Barker 1990). For example, Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38, and John 19:19 have different inscriptions on the cross.
Matthew 27:5-8 differs with Acts 1:18-19 about Judas's death.
Genesis 9:3 and Leviticus 11:4 differ about what is proper to eat.
Romans 3:20-28 and James 2:24 differ over faith versus deeds.
Exodus 20:5, Numbers 14:18, and Deuteronomy 5:9 disagree with Ezekiel 18:4,19-20 and John 9:3 about sins being inherited.
Inerrantists are familiar with these and find rationalizations for these and other errors and contradictions, but they are unconvincing. The rationalizations merely make the point that what the Bible seems to say is not what it means, which defeats the whole concept of scriptural inerrancy.
Here's three:
The Bible contains many prophecies that have accurately been fulfilled, proving it is a divine source.
Response:
There are several mundane ways in which a prediction of the future can be fulfilled:
Retrodiction. The "prophecy" can be written or modified after the events fulfilling it have already occurred.
Vagueness. The prophecy can be worded in such a way that people can interpret any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradomus's prophecies are all of this type. Vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the prophecies.
Inevitability. The prophecy can predict something that is almost sure to happen, such as the collapse of a city. Since nothing lasts forever, the city is sure to fall someday. If it has not, it can be said that according to prophecy, it will.
Denial. One can claim that the fulfilling events occurred even if they have not. Or, more commonly, one can forget that the prophecy was ever made.
Self-fulfillment. A person can act deliberately to satisfy a known prophecy.
There are no prophecies in the Bible that cannot easily fit into one or more of those categories.
In biblical times, prophecies were not simply predictions. They were warnings of what could or would happen if things did not change. They were meant to influence people's behavior. If the people heeded the prophecy, the events would not come to pass; Jonah 3 gives an example. A fulfilled prophecy was a failed prophecy, because it meant people did not heed the warning.
The Bible also contains failed prophecies, in the sense that things God said would happen did not (Skeptic's Annotated Bible n.d.). For example:
Joshua said that God would, without fail, drive out the Jebusites and Canaanites, among others (Josh. 3:9-10). But those tribes were not driven out (Josh. 15:63, 17:12-13).
Ezekiel said Egypt would be made an uninhabited wasteland for forty years (29:10-14), and Nebuchadrezzar would plunder it (29:19-20). Neither happened.
Other religions claim many fulfilled prophecies, too (Prophecy Fulfilled n.d.).
Divinity is not shown by miracles. The Bible itself says true prophecies may come elsewhere than from God (Deut. 13:1-3), as may other miracles (Exod. 7:22, Matt. 4:8). Some people say that to focus on proofs is to miss the whole point of faith (John 20:29).
That enough?
Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
to paraphrase, all of creation points towards the Creator so when you meet Him on your day of judgement, you will have no excuse for denying Him.[/quote]
1. Prove God exists
2. Prove that this God is compatible only with YOUR religion.
I'll be waiting.