"You Can't Win" - The Bible trivia game

scottmax
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"You Can't Win" - The Bible trivia game

Hey guys,

I'm trying out a new game with my theist friends. It's called, "You Can't Win". Here is how the first game went with a buddy of mine. I'll call him "John". This is the actual email exchange.


Scott: Hey John, I have two questions:
  1. What did Judas do with his money?
  2. How did he die?

John: He threw it back if memory serves me right and he hung himself. What’s the point?

Scott: Not according to Acts:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%201:15-20;&version=9;31;49;15;73;

He bought a field with it and he fell in that field, his guts burst out and he died.

Scott: So are we all clear about what happened to Judas? Do you agree that he did not throw the money away and hang himself according to Acts?

John: Yes. The Acts account is I am sure accurate.

Scott: I’m sorry, but that is not how it happened according to Matthew:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2027:1-10;&version=9;31;49;15;73;

As you can see, Judas’ threw the money in the temple and hanged himself. Then the priests of the temple used the money to buy the field.

So now, without incredibly tortured logic, is there any way both stories can be true?


It has been 5 days now with no response.

The great thing about this game is that you can have two people play against each other. After you prove the first person wrong, you can let the second person answer. They can use the very verses you just quoted. Then you tell the second person they are wrong by quoting verses that prove the first person's case.

Fun.


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LOL... and with a couple

LOL... and with a couple hundred more contradictions, this game can be played for awhile..

 


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next you can get into the

next you can get into the geneology of jeebus, and then in the end go..."Oh, but it doesn't really matter b/c all the lineages are traced through joseph and joseph wasn't his actuall father so it doesn't matter."

No Gods, Know Peace.


scottmax
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My next questions will

My next questions will probably be about the resurrection:

  1. What time did Mary Magdalene go to the empty tomb?
  2. Who accompanied Mary?
  3. Was the stone rolled back?
  4. Who did she find and where?
  5. Were there any guards?
  6. Who did she tell?
  7. Where did the disciples see Jesus?

Lots of fun here.

I'd actually like to make a video with 3 contestants. Contestants one and two take turns trying to answer. Each time they "lose", their chairs move back until they finally fall into Hell.

Then the MC asks the 3rd contestant why he never tried to answer a question. Player 3 says, "Hey, with this game, the only safe move is not to play!"


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I got these contradiction

I got these contradictions from one of Rook's blogs. You can use it for your game.

Here are some MAJOR problems with Galatians and Acts:

1. Galatians states that Paul didn't talk to anybody about his conversion for THREE YEARS during his time in Damascus and outlining regions. (Galatians 1:17). Yet in Acts, Ananias and the other disciples of Jesus were AT Damascus, healed Paul's sight, and baptized him. A few days later, he was PREACHING about the Lord. (Acts 9:17-20)

2. In Galatians Paul didn't SEE a Disciple/Apostle for THREE YEARS – until he saw Peter and James (That's the ONLY TWO) in Jerusalem after those three years. (Gal. 1:18-19) In Acts, however, Paul spent a few days with many disciples in Jerusalem and Damascus (The Bible states "ALL the Apostles" – Acts 9:19)


3. Paul fled at once (RSV) to Arabia and THEN to Damascus in Galatians (Gal. 1:17), where in Acts, Paul had been on his way TO Damascus (Acts 9:3) then started to preach there at long accord (Acts 9:19-26) until the Jews there threatened to kill him and then he fled to Jerusalem after many days (Acts 9:25-26).


4. In Paul's out words, none but Peter who stayed with him, and James were in Jerusalem. Yet in Acts, ALL the Apostles were there – and were not just there but were afraid of him. This was not the case in Galatians.


5. Paul says after 15 days he left for the regions of Syria and Cilicia (Gal. 1:21) where in Acts, by somebody else's accord, upon the attempts to kill him by the Greeks, Paul was smuggled out to Caesarea – and from there Tarsus.


6. After 14 YEARS in the regions of Syria and Cilicia, Paul returned to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus. (Gal. 2:1) but in Acts, Barnabas leaves from Antioch to Tarsus to find Paul, brought him back to Antioch for a whole YEAR. (Acts 11:25-16)


7. In Galatians, Paul took TITUS to Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1), where in Acts, Paul took Mark, whose surname was John. (Acts 12:25)

 


scottmax
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Galatians vs. Acts sound

Galatians vs. Acts sound like a great next target. Acts is really a gift to non-Christians, isn't it? So many things don't line up with the rest of the NT.

I am currently reading all 7 of Paul's letters in historical order, then I plan to read Acts. Reading Paul in order is really revealing, especially after reading Earl Doherty and after reading Carrier's chapter "The Spiritual Body of Christ" from "The Empty Tomb".


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There was an online test

There was an online test like this.

 

The responces were less then intelegent. 


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i really want to hear a

i really want to hear a christian respond to this, because this literally disproves christianity. if the bible is the word of god, this contradiction proved more than one of these things:

1. God is supposed to be perfect, and he was sinful and lied in one or both of these passages.

2. God is supposed to be all knowing, and he didn't know what happened in one or both of these passages.

3. The bible was written by man who can make mistakes in their writing like this, and was not written under the infulence of a god.

at least one must be true, and any of these three disproves the god of the bible.


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I want a theist to respond

I want a theist to respond to the contradictions I posted, too.


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I remember seeing an online

I remember seeing an online quiz like this: it had about six to ten questions, and no matter which one you picked, when you hit Submit, it would say your answers were wrong and share the Bible verse that showed you it was wrong. Of course, when you went back to change your answer to the other option, and hit Submit, the same thing would happen.

Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.


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scottmax, Congratulations,

scottmax,

Congratulations, you have managed to come up with a game that proves its very point, that you will find exactly what you look for.. .

Unfortunately as far as a "game" is concerned it fails.. Your first question alone is flawed, I will give an answer, you won't believe it, it won't matter.. but here I go anyway, where did Judas die? In a place called the Potters Field/The field of Blood the same place mentioned in both Acts and Matthew, the 30 pieces of silver buy the land in both cases, one goes in to more detail than the other, same outcome... if you purchase a piece of property today in most cases you use an escrow company, did you actually give the owner the money? No, did you still buy the property? Yes.. neither story tells exactly how Judas purchased the property, but is clear the 30 pieces of silver buys the property, and it is where Judas dies. 

You can mention discrepancies all day long, theists can say their side, and you can dispute what they say, doesn't mean you win, or they win, still doesn't prove/disprove Gods existence.  

You still can't really prove evolution in the same way I can't prove Gods existence except through my knowledge of Him. There is actually more proof than you can ACTUALLY provide to prove evolution. Without written proof going back any more than (give or take) 4000 years ago, and no, hieroglyphics don't count because you can't ACTUALLY prove their dating, American Indians were providing similar cave/animal skin writings only 400 years ago... 

You will say carbon dating..I say is it ACTUALLY 100% accurate? You don't know, we don't have any records going back that far, it is based upon carbon content, what if carbon content has varied over the last few thousand years even, could it throw it out as accurate? Possibly.. ANY theory put out that has anything dated outside a period of actual documentation is only that a theory, and CANNOT be proved, one can ONLY GUESS as to what actually happened, NOBODY was there to record it, so we are only guessing. You can call things made up by other people as fact, but can anything made up be actual fact? I read an article a while back, (not sure when/were so I paraphrase a lot) a person had come up with a new theory on how universes or something may have come into existence, he himself even said he was waiting for others to blow it out of the water because he wasn’t sure, but then everybody believed it.. What? Are you kidding? He makes something up, and everybody believes it, and now I guess it’s fact?? This is how theories are born.. and you think believing a book written by a lot of authors with a central theme, who wrote down what they saw  is not believable?

 

Another thing, how you ever gone to a movie, or football or baseball game with somebody and afterwards you run into somebody and they ask what happened, and the other person says what he saw, and you think, interesting, I forgot that, or I wouldn’t say it that way. What about jokes being told, somebody tells a joke, and screws it all up, so you help them out, and either retell the joke, or help them finish it? These  were things that happened only recently, is it not possible that authors of the Bible, even those writing on the same subject, writing at different places, and different times, even having seen the same thing (but obviously from not the same vantage point) may have a different version of the same story? Even possible come up with different numbers? Maybe even different people at the same event? Does this actually make either representation wrong? No.. They are just that person’s view.

 

I would actually tend to more believe a person’s account of something that was actually at an event, than something somebody has made up to fit their story.

Don’t forget Evolution was actually worked backwards, they had an answer, then formulated the information to fit the answer, and the information they fitted to the answer is not actually something that can be actually proved.


LovE-RicH
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JeremiahSmith wrote: I

JeremiahSmith wrote:
I remember seeing an online quiz like this: it had about six to ten questions, and no matter which one you picked, when you hit Submit, it would say your answers were wrong and share the Bible verse that showed you it was wrong. Of course, when you went back to change your answer to the other option, and hit Submit, the same thing would happen.

 Where, where??Smiling Got a link? I'd be very greatful if you coud find it.Smiling Thanks!


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LovE-RicH wrote: Where,

LovE-RicH wrote:
Where, where??Smiling Got a link? I'd be very greatful if you coud find it.Smiling Thanks!

I can't remember, sadly. I mentioned it here in the hopes that someone else would know. 

Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.


scottmax
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jabwocky wrote: Your first


jabwocky wrote:
Your first question alone is flawed, I will give an answer, you won't believe it, it won't matter.. but here I go anyway, where did Judas die? In a place called the Potters Field/The field of Blood the same place mentioned in both Acts and Matthew, the 30 pieces of silver buy the land in both cases, one goes in to more detail than the other, same outcome... if you purchase a piece of property today in most cases you use an escrow company, did you actually give the owner the money? No, did you still buy the property? Yes.. neither story tells exactly how Judas purchased the property, but is clear the 30 pieces of silver buys the property, and it is where Judas dies.

This is tortured logic at best. Let's look at Acts 1:19:


"Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out."


Judas clearly bought the field. If you throw your money into a church and the church purchases a field, no one can say that you bought the field. Also, the Acts story is very clear. He bought the field, then falling headlong, his bowels burst oepn and he died. That's it. Note that he fell after he bought the field. Now let's look at Matthew 27:3-7:


Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.


He threw the money in the temple and hung himself. Then the priests bought the field. No mention of bowels. Different ownership of the field. Are we to assume that Judas went and hung himself in the potter's field and that the priests then decided to take the money and buy that field just because? Why did Matthew leave out over half of the story? Why did Acts leave out the other half of the story? Why is the only overlap between the stories the Potter's Field from Jeremiah in the OT?

I'm sorry, but this is a contradiction, plain and simple.


jabwocky wrote:
You still can't really prove evolution in the same way I can't prove Gods existence except through my knowledge of Him.

Well, that would only be true if you refuse to look at the evidence for evolution. We have more evidence for evolution than we do for the theory of gravity. You can make no statements about the evidence for evolution unless you have taken the time to learn what that evidence is. So what books about evolution have you read?


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Scottmax, If the theory of

Scottmax,

If the theory of evolution is only a little over 100 years old, anything written on it cannot exceed that date being written, so basically EVERYTHING written about evolution is post fact, they came up with a theory, and then filled in the information. Does this make the information flawed? No, they found what they wanted to fit the theory, isn't that a little like saying, I have 5, 2+3 must be the answer?

Also there are huge gaps in all the skeletal remains, to say I have examples A, B, C, D, and E, and also M, N, O, P then F-L must be there, what if they weren't? Huge assumptions do not make a theory fact, one does not need to read books to know that, I know I am not as well read, or educated as most of you seem to be, but I am intelligent enough to be able to see flawed information when it is presented, and even when I was in High School, the holes in the theory of evolution were obvious to me. The jumps were to too large, yes science uses certain assumptions based upon known things, to get from A to C but the leap from F-L is way too far.. you can make that leap if you want, I can't see it.

I also notice you seem to take the easiest parts of my arguments to dissect, I still am waiting for an answer to the one that I have heard nobody on this site address yet, (or have not found yet in my reading of posts):

Explain the eye, it is a piece of our body that does not evolve, it would never work except as it is, there are too many parts that have to work together in unison, exactly as they are, or no sight. Even if it is slightly off, any one of the main parts, no sight.

The theory of evolution is flawed, you can argue all day long that it isn't but that doesn't make it so.


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Aside from this whole

Aside from this whole analogy being flawed anmd having nothing to do with the subject - there is evidence that the eye evolved - just take a look at the evolution of specific sea creatures - mainly those which live a mile or below sea level who cannot see the way we do - however move up further where light penetrates and slowly you see the formation of an eye, although in it's very infant stages - move up further and the eye is more defined, now it can take in light, process the information after it reverts the image.  A few more hundred feet up and to the top of sea level you have a fully distinct eye which is very similar to that of humans - why is that?  It's because when a species can't even see the penetration of light, there is no need for an eye to be there to collect the data - when you start seeing light, you need something to process the information if only to see the food you're going to eat. 

 Aside from this evidence ( we did come from the sea, after all) there are plenty of evidences in which we see the development of the eye over fossils.  More importantly, you need to read a biology book because you are severely clueless.  if our eyes are the design of God, why do we have a blindspot?  And why do we recieve images inverted to begin with?  Such is not the design of perfection but rather the force of nature of millions of years.

Now don't be a twit and hijack this thread anymore. 

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scottmax
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jabwocky wrote: If the

jabwocky wrote:

If the theory of evolution is only a little over 100 years old,

Jabwocky, I can no more take your "proofs" against evolution seriously than I can take you seriously talking about quantum physics if you have not read about it. Read actual books that explain the overwhelming evidence for evolution, then report back so we can have an informed conversation. But please post your newly informed evolution debate to a more appropriate forum.

Now if you would like to talk address the inconsistencies in the Bible...


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Now you know how they play

Now you know how they play the game.

They get beaten on one topic and then try to misdirect you to another topic that they hope you'll concede. If they get that concession, they crow that they "won" the entire debate.  

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
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jabwocky
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OK, back to the topic on

OK, back to the topic on hand..

I already gave an answer that I have not heard your answer to, so I will reiterate, different people telling different stories from different points of views (or from what they have heard or been told) easily covers any discrepancies in the Bible, you scoff, but if at the same time, everything was exactly the same, you would scream collusion, the all together and made it up. The very fact that they aren't the same makes them true, written by human beings based upon what they saw or heard. As I said before you can't get two people to come up with the same story having seen the same thing just prior to asking them what happened.

There was an experiment once where they took a line of people (you can try this, it works) and gave the first person in line a story, and had them pass it on down the line, by the time it got to the end, it barely was distinguishable as the original story.

This alone could explain any differences in the Bible, especially since most of your inaccuracies are so small.


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i thought the bible was the

i thought the bible was the word of god....

 

....so the word of god is wrong?

 and i honestly don't see how hanging yourself, and falling headlong in a field and your body bursting is a death that can be interperted to be the same thing from different point of views


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jabwocky wrote: I already

jabwocky wrote:

I already gave an answer that I have not heard your answer to, so I will reiterate, different people telling different stories from different points of views

Did Mary come to the empty tomb when it was dark or after it was light? It can only be one or the other. Which is it?

If you are arguing that the Bible is not inerrant and that, being written by men, conflicting accounts do exist, then we agree. My parents are Catholic and they have no problem with the idea that not every story in the Bible is 100% reliable. So is that your position or do you believe that the Bible is the perfect, inerrant word of God?


totus_tuus
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Acts 1:18 doesn't say that

Acts 1:18 doesn't say that Judas was alive when he fell headlong and burst. Let's quit verse picking, read the whole story and construct an accurate picture of what happened.

Judas throws the money back to the Pharisees, who buy the field. The Pharisees never took the money back into the Temple treasury (Matt 27:6), so it was still Judas' money, hence Judas' field (kinda the escrow thing). Judas knows the field, goes there and hangs himself (coincidence? I think not). He dies. His body is impure in the eyes of Jews for two reasons. First, he's a hanged (not hung LOL) man. Eww yuck! say the Jews. Second, he's a suicide, double ewww! double yuck! No Jew is going to touch that body and be defiled. His corpse basks in the warm Palestinian sun for a bit, getting all ripe and bloated. The branch breaks, the rope snaps, his body falls headlong and voila bursting, gooey, gushing guts all over the place.

Where's the disconnect? Read the whole book.

"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II


scottmax
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totus_tuus wrote: Where's

totus_tuus wrote:
Where's the disconnect? Read the whole book.

You mean read both books. These are two accounts in two different books by two different authors.

totus_tuus wrote:
Acts 1:18 doesn't say that Judas was alive when he fell headlong and burst. Let's quit verse picking, read the whole story and construct an accurate picture of what happened.

Acts says Judas bought the field, then fell headlong and his bowels burst. That is it. The order is 1. buy field, 2. fall headlong.

Matthew says that Judas threw the money away and hanged himself. The priests then took the money and bought a field. That's it. No bowels, no mention of Judas being in the field. The order is: 1. hanging, 2. priests buy field.

The only overlap is that the money ultimately resulted in the purchase of the field and that Judas ended up dead. You can provide no logical basis for combining these two very different accounts. Why would each author tell only half of the story and conveniently neglect to mention all of the details that the other author thought important?

totus_tuus wrote:
Judas throws the money back to the Pharisees, who buy the field. The Pharisees never took the money back into the Temple treasury (Matt 27:6), so it was still Judas' money, hence Judas' field (kinda the escrow thing).

False analogy. When I put money in escrow, it is my intention to purchase the property. Judas had no intention since he was dead.

If you throw money into your church and they buy a field with it, did you buy the field? Of course not.

totus_tuus wrote:
Judas knows the field, goes there and hangs himself (coincidence? I think not).

Judas hung himself before the priests bought the field. How did he know what field they would buy? Why does Matthew not mention that the priests bought the field in which Judas had already hanged himself?

Please be honest with yourself. If you saw two accounts like this about Ali in two different books of the Koran, would you see them as being one story?


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theres also the different

theres also the different stories for the orgin of the name "field of blood" in the verses.

also, why would acts be explaining judas's hanging by just telling you he fell? the verses describe no rope or hanging, it just says he fell.

as scottmax said, there is no mention of judas going to a field anywhere in those verses in matthew.

maybe its just me, but i kind of find it hard to hang yourself in the middle of a field.


scottmax
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Rev0lver wrote: theres

Rev0lver wrote:

theres also the different stories for the orgin of the name "field of blood" in the verses.

Right. And there is a good reason that both stories refer to the amount of money and the "potter'. This is a reference to Zechariah 11:12-13:

And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.

This seems to make for another error since Matthew attributed the verse to Jeremiah, not Zechariah.


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This is actually a big part

This is actually a big part of how I got off into the evolution posts earlier, you use the same type of arguments to prove your points and say they are fact, but if we use the same type of conclusions we are wrong, the BIG difference being, our defense of the Bible is trying to explain why two different authors who saw, or were told something came up with 2 different viewpoints while evolution is something that came about with NO witnesses, NOBODY writing anything, and EVERYTHING that you say happened, happened before anybody was around to document, so there is no written proof, only like I said before, you had a theory and went out and found the information to get the answer..

And you say that we are off on our assessment of what happened? At least people were around and saw what happened and wrote it down in the Bible, it is just that you disbelieve that that many people could get together and write a book pertaining to the existence of God, and what He said, and His people did, and then what He did for us, through the gift He gave us, and continues giving to this day..

 A small note on what the Rev was saying, if you own a house and have kids, you make rules pertaining to what they can do and say in your house, (well most people do, I can't say for you) if you kids, or somebody visiting your breaks your rules, do you reward them? Do you even continue to treat them the same? What if they swear in your face and call you all sorts of names, and spit on you? This is probably a poor parallel, but similar to somebody that doesn't believe in God, or is sinning, or blaspheming Him, it probably gets to the point He even ignores them, or turns off their switch, (this is why you see whole peoples destroyed in the Old Testament, it even says so usually when He tells somebody to go and wipe out another nation why He wants it done, the reason, what they did wrong, in fact, I can't think of a place in the whole Bible that something is done that the reason behind it is not explained. People refer to the Bible as the "Handbook of Life" and that is why, pretty much any situation that you can come across in life is there, its all spelled out, good and bad and what happens if you do something. Does it cover everything? No, because a lot of 'things' that we have today were not around 2000 +/- years ago, but as far as situations are concerned they are there...

So in conclusion, to take a book filled with all the information and wisdom that is included in the Bible and toss it all away because it doesn't all come together as perfect as you think it possible should, or could is not really a logical conclusion after all is it? Especially if those things are actually explainable.


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the reason why we deny the

the reason why we deny the bible is because the only accounts of anything related to a mythical jesus figure is in the bible. there is nothing outside of it that backs the bible up.

of course we don't have eyewitnesses for evolution, if we did then it wouldn't have happened.

the difference between creationism and evolution is that we actually dwelve down into things like facts that you theists tend to ignore.

the reason why we did not like the evolution arguments here is because this is a forum discussing the bible. if you want to argue evolution go to atheist vs. theist or something like that.

the fact that there are contradictions in the bible shows that man is not entirely sure what happened. if the bible is the word of god it should be inerrant. and as i said, the bible is backed up by ZERO outside sources and there is no historical evidence of anything in it taking place. that is why u phail.


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jabwocky wrote: our

jabwocky wrote:

our defense of the Bible is trying to explain why two different authors who saw

I made my point as best I could. You insist on taking two completely different accounts by two completely different authors and declaring that each told exactly half of the story. I cannot prove that this absurd idea is false so let's move on.

What time did Mary go to the empty tomb? Was it still dark or already light?


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Rev0lver wrote: the reason

Rev0lver wrote:

the reason why we deny the bible is because the only accounts of anything related to a mythical Jesus figure is in the bible. there is nothing outside of it that backs the bible up.

of course we don't have eyewitnesses for evolution, if we did then it wouldn't have happened.

the difference between creationism and evolution is that we actually dwelve down into things like facts that you theists tend to ignore.

the reason why we did not like the evolution arguments here is because this is a forum discussing the bible. if you want to argue evolution go to atheist vs. theist or something like that.

the fact that there are contradictions in the bible shows that man is not entirely sure what happened. if the bible is the word of god it should be inerrant. and as i said, the bible is backed up by ZERO outside sources and there is no historical evidence of anything in it taking place. that is why u phail.

From Wikipedia:

Although the Library of Alexandria is referred to in numerous contemporary sources, there is not a great deal of material directly describing the Library itself. By the modern era the Library had come to symbolize the entirety of knowledge in the ancient world. Important to this symbolism are claims about the size of the Library; the comprehensiveness of its collection, especially regarding books that no longer exist; and the circumstances of its destruction. Various authors explicitly blame certain individuals or groups for having destroyed the Library, and this has given rise to complex accusations of bias. It is quite possible that the Library suffered numerous complete or partial destructions in its long history.

The library of Alexandria had a lot of documents/writings that were destroyed, some may very well have pertained to historical accounts of not only Jesus, but other things that happened around that time. There are many books referred to in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, even referring to other cultures/civilizations at the time that are longer with us, they were destroyed at some time in history, that does not mean they never existed, as I said before you can always get/fabricate the answer you want, does it make it true? Not always... there are a lot of written documents out there that have less basis than the Bible that people attribute to being true and no have no backup documentation, do I make the leap to them not being valid? No, but you have an agenda, and will always find the argument true to your side, only because you have already made your bed, and climbed into it, you have burned your bridge, your only future for your soul (if there is one) is eternal damnation, you have made that choice ( I guess I am assuming you have taken the blasphemy challenge, whatever it is) so to admit to being wrong is a pretty big step for anybody on this site. I guess would fight pretty hard to invalidate the Bible if I was in the same boat.


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jabwocky wrote: Rev0lver

jabwocky wrote:
Rev0lver wrote:

the reason why we deny the bible is because the only accounts of anything related to a mythical Jesus figure is in the bible. there is nothing outside of it that backs the bible up.

From Wikipedia:

Although the Library of Alexandria is referred to in numerous contemporary sources, there is not a great deal of material directly describing the Library itself.

Eww, I wouldn't bring up the great library. The leading theories are that a great deal of the collection was destroyed by the Christians in 391 and the remainder was destroyed by the Muslims in 642:

Final Destruction of Alexandria's Famous Library

We know very little about many of the ancient religions and heretical Christian beliefs because Christians seem to have made a point of destroying this knowledge.

jabwocky wrote:
No, but you have an agenda, and will always find the argument true to your side, only because you have already made your bed, and climbed into it, you have burned your bridge, your only future for your soul (if there is one) is eternal damnation,

Yeah, we are pretty stupid that way. This fallacy is known as the Appeal to Fear. The more absurd the claim, the more ghastly the punishment for disbelief must be.

FormerFaithHead just recommended this video on the topic of Hell. Very appropriate:

The Ethics of Hell


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Judas hung himself before

Judas hung himself before the priests bought the field. How did he know what field they would buy?

scottmax wrote:
You mean read both books. These are two accounts in two different books by two different authors.

One Gospel.  One book, different authors.  But, no matter.

scottmax wrote:
Why would each author tell only half of the story and conveniently neglect to mention all of the details that the other author thought important?

They were writing for different audiences.  Matthew, writing early on for a Jewish audience, wants to underscore the "unclean" manner of Judas' death.  Both hanging and suicide were considered defiling under the Mosaic Law.  Judas commited suicide by hanging, you couldn't get much more defiled than that. 

Luke, writing later and for Gentiles, based his Gospel on Matthew's and knew that the hanging story had already been told, but that Matthew had not related (because he was not aware of) what had happened to Judas' body. Luke, who had travelled widely with Paul, and who had probably met and interviewed John in Ephesus related the rest of the story in Acts to underscore the fate (spiritually) of those who turn away from Christ once having had knowledge of the good news.

scottmax wrote:
Why does Matthew not mention that the priests bought the field in which Judas had already hanged himself?

Because Matthew knew only that a field had been purchased somehow with the money and didn't know the details. Luke, having used multiple sources, and after talking to John, the only Apostle who had the guts to be out and about during that dark week couple of days following the Crucifixion had the whole skinny on the story.

scottmax wrote:
Judas hung himself before the priests bought the field. How did he know what field they would buy?

He didn't.  I didn't mean to say that he did, but it's my fault.  I can see how my wording led you to believe that's what I meant.  Sorry.

scottmax wrote:
 If you throw money into your church and they buy a field with it, did you buy the field? Of course not.

Indeed not.  But I do provide the occassion for the purchase.  The money couldn't be put back into the treasury because it was tainted by blood.  They had to do something with it and Judas had been the actor who caused the money to be pulled out of the treasury.  the filed wouldn't have been purchased had Judas not brought the money back.

"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II


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Since we are using YouTube

Since we are using YouTube as a reference, watch this one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho9iA2pJ9SM&mode=related&search= beforewarned, its scary....


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jabwocky wrote: Since we

jabwocky wrote:
Since we are using YouTube as a reference, watch this one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho9iA2pJ9SM&mode=related&search= beforewarned, its scary....

Oh boy, that dumb video? Do you consider hallucination to be evidence?

Are you familiar with night terrors? This is well established psychology and it happens all over the world. Amazingly, the terrors usually conform to the beliefs of the local region. In the past 50 years an amazing number of these terrors have been aliens instead of demons. Do you consider night terrors to be evidence of demons?

What next? Benny Hinn? 


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Ew ... This does sound like

Ew ... This does sound like fun. Play this game with me. I wanna be the John person from your OP.


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Maybe that was extreme

Maybe that was extreme Sticking out tongue

Ok, but there are a number of near death experiences that are documented that show possible life after death, http://www.near-death.com/ they COULD be true, you can scoff them off, and call them whatever you want, but that does not mean they are not true, I would be more willing to accept a story from somebody that is alive today that can be questioned than accepting a theory that is not truly provable...

So either there is life after death or not, (and a lot of experiences not Bible related to back that up) which backs the possibility of ID, God, Jesus, the Bible being true, for if your only reason for them not to be true is your belief in evolution, then if there is an afterlife, then evolution fails ??


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jabwocky wrote: Maybe that

jabwocky wrote:

Maybe that was extreme Sticking out tongue

Yes, but you were perfectly willing to use that fearmongering video to further your cause, weren't you? Do you see anyone here recommending videos that say that if you don't believe in science that you will burn for a 1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 x infinity years?

jabwocky wrote:
Ok, but there are a number of near death experiences that are documented that show possible life after death, http://www.near-death.com/ they COULD be true

Sure. There are plenty of naturalistic explanations and absolutely no scientific data in favor of it being true, but it could still be true. Vishnu could be diddling women in Heaven. The Easter Bunny could be really upset about not being taken seriously. Lot's of things COULD be true.

jabwocky wrote:

I would be more willing to accept a story from somebody that is alive today that can be questioned than accepting a theory that is not truly provable...

Ah, so you believe the stories of the 1000s of alien abductees then?

Is the "theory" that you are referring to the "theory of gravity"? I assume so since we have less evidence for that theory than the very well confirmed theory of evolution. Learn first, criticize based on that knowledge.

jabwocky wrote:
So either there is life after death or not, (and a lot of experiences not Bible related to back that up) which backs the possibility of ID, God, Jesus, the Bible being true

ID is a fraud which you can discover pretty quickly with very little study. Yes, evidence for God and Jesus also exists in the Koran and the Book of Mormon. It might be safest to be an Islamic Mormon.

jabwocky wrote:
for if your only reason for them not to be true is your belief in evolution, then if there is an afterlife, then evolution fails ??

Plenty of Christians believe in evolution. The largest Christian sect, the Catholic Church, agrees with evolution. The reality or unreality of God does not affect evolution in any way. God's existence no more causes evolution to fail than it causes the earth to be flat or the sun to rotate around the earth.


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Ghost of Amityville

Ghost of Amityville wrote:
Ew ... This does sound like fun. Play this game with me. I wanna be the John person from your OP.

Hey Ghost. Let's go with a simple one. Was it still dark or already light when Mary arrived at the empty tomb? You've got a 50/50 chance of getting this one right (unless the game is rigged Eye-wink


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scottmax wrote: Ghost of

scottmax wrote:

Ghost of Amityville wrote:
Ew ... This does sound like fun. Play this game with me. I wanna be the John person from your OP.

Hey Ghost. Let's go with a simple one. Was it still dark or already light when Mary arrived at the empty tomb? You've got a 50/50 chance of getting this one right (unless the game is rigged Eye-wink

 

Oh boy. K, here's my answer. Exactly when Mary (and possibly some companions?) arrived at the tomb depends solely on which tradition telling the story of the Resurrection one is reading. Often, the compilers of the four Gospels used chronology as a literay device to make some kind of theological point. In the end, having Mary visit the tomb right before or right after sunrise doesn't seem like that big of a difference in the story. A more significant discrepency in chronology would be why the Gospel of John places Jesus's cleasing of the Temple at the very beginning of his ministry when the other three clearly place that event at the end of his ministry.   

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scottmax wrote: I'd

scottmax wrote:

I'd actually like to make a video with 3 contestants. Contestants one and two take turns trying to answer. Each time they "lose", their chairs move back until they finally fall into Hell.

Then the MC asks the 3rd contestant why he never tried to answer a question. Player 3 says, "Hey, with this game, the only safe move is not to play!"

"WarGames" is a poorly made movie from the early '80s. Why would you paraphrase a source that is an obvious contradiction, you silly monkey?

 

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Ghost of Amityville

Ghost of Amityville wrote:
scottmax wrote:

Ghost of Amityville wrote:
Ew ... This does sound like fun. Play this game with me. I wanna be the John person from your OP.

Hey Ghost. Let's go with a simple one. Was it still dark or already light when Mary arrived at the empty tomb? You've got a 50/50 chance of getting this one right (unless the game is rigged Eye-wink

 

Oh boy. K, here's my answer. Exactly when Mary (and possibly some companions?) arrived at the tomb depends solely on which tradition telling the story of the Resurrection one is reading. Often, the compilers of the four Gospels used chronology as a literay device to make some kind of theological point. In the end, having Mary visit the tomb right before or right after sunrise doesn't seem like that big of a difference in the story. A more significant discrepency in chronology would be why the Gospel of John places Jesus's cleasing of the Temple at the very beginning of his ministry when the other three clearly place that event at the end of his ministry.

Man, you aren't playing right. This game only works if you assume that the Bible is completely self-consistent.

You have a good point about the temple. Although I guess it might be possible to posit that the Gospel authors never claimed that their stories were chronological. I chose this issue because only one answer can be the correct answer if you assume every story actually happened as recorded.


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I'm fairly certain in saying

I'm fairly certain in saying that the authors of the Gospels never really intended for each of their verisons of the same story to match up in every literal detail. The Bible really isn't taken in such simple terms that one can lead a religious believer into some kind of snare by pointing out apparent inconsistancies. If I remember correctly, I believe it was the Sadducees who, according to the Gospel records, tried to entrapped Jesus in contradictions with elaborate thought out questions that didn't have real answers. Don't be a Sadducee, man. It's obnoxious and mean to attempt to make someone appear afool like that, for whatever reason.

I take pride in being a newb. I'm not all experienced and boring like the normies.


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What? you mean they didn't

What? you mean they didn't get together at the same place and write them at the same time so they all matched perfectly? How inconsiderate, now they (RSS) can say they must not be true because they aren't the same, and wait, if they did get together and they were the same, they wouldn't have cried out collusion would they?? I mean if you read any book on evolution they all say the exact same thing, and point to the same places for reference points, and call out all the exact theories and dates to back up their theory, so if something else comes about that isn't nearly as concise as the way evolution is laid out so perfectly, I guess it must not be correct.

I remember reading some other history books written by different people at different times, they told stories of the same event close, but they were a little different, I can now conclude that any history books written that are not the exact same as any other history book written is invalid, and invalidates the original book, wait, history has now been invalidated, and wait, we have no history, neither was anything on this planet.

Why this is brilliant, how easy to fix the whole problem, nothing ever happened, we just exist, and I'm not sure you really do, because we have never actually met, somebody else could be writing this.. and just saying it is you..

Just trying to show you what the atheist argument looks like to me.


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Ghost of Amityville

Ghost of Amityville wrote:
I'm fairly certain in saying that the authors of the Gospels never really intended for each of their verisons of the same story to match up in every literal detail. The Bible really isn't taken in such simple terms that one can lead a religious believer into some kind of snare by pointing out apparent inconsistancies. If I remember correctly, I believe it was the Sadducees who, according to the Gospel records, tried to entrapped Jesus in contradictions with elaborate thought out questions that didn't have real answers. Don't be a Sadducee, man. It's obnoxious and mean to attempt to make someone appear afool like that, for whatever reason.

This "game" is aimed at one group of people. The ones who claim that the Bible is the perfect inerrant word of God. Inerrant means "without error". That is used as one of the proofs of its divine origin and of its perfect morality.

So the purpose is to show that this is a collection of books written by men. It contains different opinions and different details of events. If the Gospels cannot even agree about whether it was dark or light, or whether the stone was already missing or if an angel removed it in front of the women, then it is not an eyewitness account. It is not perfect and may contain ideas that we should not follow.


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You assume that literal

You assume that literal inconsistency equals being in error? That's not true at all. Just because something is inconsistant in the literal sense doesn't mean that it is fallible in the spiritual sense.

No matter who your game is meant to prove wrong, it's still jerkish and Sadducee-like. 

I take pride in being a newb. I'm not all experienced and boring like the normies.


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Ghost of Amityville

Ghost of Amityville wrote:

You assume that literal inconsistency equals being in error? That's not true at all. Just because something is inconsistant in the literal sense doesn't mean that it is fallible in the spiritual sense.

If the 4 accounts of the empty tomb story cannot agree on:

  1. whether it was already light or still dark
  2. who went to the tomb
  3. if there was one man or angel or two men or angels
  4. if the stone was already removed or if it was still in place and the women saw it removed
  5. if the man/men/angel/angels were outside the tomb or inside
  6. what the man/men/angel/angels said

then you haven't got much of an eyewitness account, do you?

These are not minor details. The empty tomb myth is foundational in Christianity.

But you can call me names if you like.


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I'm not calling you names.

I'm not calling you names. I'm telling the truth, rationally speaking. Conspiring to invent questions that you bait people into answering a specific way and somehow humiliate is something a jerk would do, no matter what idea they're trying to push. I can't think of any truth that would include that kind of behavior.

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Ghost of Amityville

Ghost of Amityville wrote:
I'm fairly certain in saying that the authors of the Gospels never really intended for each of their verisons of the same story to match up in every literal detail. The Bible really isn't taken in such simple terms that one can lead a religious believer into some kind of snare by pointing out apparent inconsistancies. If I remember correctly, I believe it was the Sadducees who, according to the Gospel records, tried to entrapped Jesus in contradictions with elaborate thought out questions that didn't have real answers. Don't be a Sadducee, man. It's obnoxious and mean to attempt to make someone appear afool like that, for whatever reason.

If they were written in modern times, I would say that three of the Gospel writeres copied from a few sources and tried to tweak them just enough to avoid plagiarism charges.

Then again, I'm of the opinion that the Gospels were written so that Paul's Christ concept could have a back story that humans could hook onto. 

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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The four Gospels were the

The four Gospels were the ancient catechisms of four anicent Christian churches. While Matthew and Luke-Acts did copy from Mark and an unknown list of sayings of Jesus, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would inspire plagiarism charges. Plagiarism? For catechisms? Nah ...

So, more important information about Jesus than the written works about him (whether they be the Gospels or Paul's writings) is the actual verbal and living teaching that early Chrisitans leaders taught to and shared amongst people. That's one reason why pointing out inconsistencies among the New Testament today appears to be folly. The written teaching in the NT is just a small fraction of what the early Christians had to say. 

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Hey Scottmax, we have had

Hey Scottmax, we have had some pretty good conversations.  I wrote responding to you on the "RSS wins on Nightline" (something like that) about exactly how we got the Bible.  I think it certainly answers some issues that the Catholic Church did not have ultimate power over the creation of the Bible.

Secondly, concerning some differences in scripture.  It was not too long ago, as a youth minister, we had a worship service on Wednesday night.  I put one student on one side of the auditorium and had him write down everything that he saw as important that happened during the worship time.  I had another student do the same thing from the other side of the auditorium.  I did not tell them about one another and I did not tell the other students what they were doing.  At the end of the worship, I compared their notes.  There was very little that they had in common.  They saw things from different perspectives and they had two different personalities.  My question to you is - Which one of them was false?  Which one of them was incorrect in what they saw?  I can't remember everything they wrote but one of them listed all the band members and the other did not even name one of them.  One of them wrote about the bright lights (looking at the stage) - while the other one talked about the dimly lit room (The lights were out in the congregation space and it was night so no lights through the windows).

Let's put things into perspective - these two students wrote within the same time frame (20 minutes or so).  The Bible was written over a time span of 1500 years.  How is it that some many things are so common?  It is absolutely incredible.  I agree with another post - if they were word for word - one would claim they all copied from a single source.  You are exactly right - we cannot win because it seems that an atheist will call foul no matter what.

Give me your thoughts man.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.


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REVLyle wrote: Secondly,

REVLyle wrote:

Secondly, concerning some differences in scripture. It was not too long ago, as a youth minister, we had a worship service on Wednesday night. I put one student on one side of the auditorium and had him write down everything that he saw as important that happened during the worship time.

Hi REVLyle.

Yes, they came up with different lists. But did they recount events with opposite conclusions such as one saying the band played and another saying the band didn't play? Even if they did, this is what I would expect from eyewitnesses. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable.

And you are not claiming that their two stories were divinely inspired. The Bible, on the other hand, we are often told is the "inerrant" inspired word of God. Now my Catholic parents don't believe that. The Catholic Church has publicly acknowledged that there may be minor errors or discrepencies in the Bible. If you agree, then these comments are not aimed at you. People who take this view tend to be far less dogmatic. My father does not believe that homosexuality is a sin, for instance.

My real beef is with the inerrant camp. They say that the Bible has no errors and no contradictions at all. We can demonstrate that this is false. If we can move these folks to a more moderate position of acknowledging that the Bible is not perfectly inerrant, that is a win for reasonability.

 


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A couple of questions: 1. 

A couple of questions:

1.  If an eyewitness account is notoriously unreliable, what accounts were reliable for that time period?  Would we then say that all history books are unreliable?  Why is an eye witness account the one thing that is desired in a court system to seal the deal when it comes to guilt or innocence - even today?

2.  Would you define what you mean by inerrant?  I simply want to make sure we are on the same wave length when it comes to this term.  Are you talking theological or are you defining it as every single comma.  We know by finding the dead sea scrolls that there were punctuation problems and minor errors within the Bible but there were no errors in regard to major issues or in regard to theology.

3.  What about the camp that believes in the inerrancy of the original text?  One could immediately say - "Well see, then your Bible is wrong and you make that comment knowing that we cannot test it against anything."  But I would immediately counter with the fact that even when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the "experts" were amazed at how ACCURATE the Bible was.  That is what WOWED them.  Not the missed punctuation and the few spelling errors.  When you look at the persecution that Christians have gone through and the fact that the Bible still made it to where it is today  - and according to what we have - with very few errors - it is pretty incredible.

4.  I am sure you know where I stand when it comes to homosexuality, so I will not try to hide it.  BUT, let me ask - why does you father believe that to lie, steal, committing adultery is a sin (I realize I am making some assumptions) and this one sin, isn't.  Where does he draw the crooked line to include some and exclude others.  I realize that we must look at genre of writing, culture, and translation to interpret what the Bible states - but I guess I struggle to see where the Bible is unclear on this issue. 

Lastly, I want to point out that there were more differences than similarities when it came to these eyewitnesses at church.  How does an atheist resolve the incredible continuity and amount of repeated information in the Bible.  I think you are too intelligent to simply give the "conspiracy theory" because that is just nuts.

Again, just asking?  I really want to hear your point of view.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.