The Bible as Truth
Offline I have long wanted to write an essay on the problems created by evangelicals insisting the bible is the un-impeachable truth. I would like to explore my ideas but I don't feel like having a combative conversation with some of the more passionate members around here. But there are others here that are very good in spotting weaknesses in logic and reasoning. So I would ask anybody that wants to help me out here, feel free. But do do so, you may have to suspend your own disbelief. The target audience is theists who are unwilling to even consider the non-existence of god.
The goal of the essay is to show that insisting on the in-errancy of the bible actually hinders spiritual development. A strong atheist will say "Well DUH! And what the hell is 'spiritual', anyway'. That approach is useless in talking to evangelical theists. In order to effectively communicate with them, it is necessary to be able to discuss ideas within the framework of their own language and view of reality. But if I can convince a few Christians that it is in fact un-Christian to artificially mold reality to a written text, then I feel something has been accomplished. So for the essay to be effective, it needs to assume things that are anathema to atheists. So I invite your comments, but I am not interested in debunking Christianity. I am interested in opening up some minds and then maybe they can start making their own conclusions.
For me to have an effective essay for an evangelical audience, I have to assume the following:
God exists and is omniscient, omnipotent, etc (yeah, broken concept. I know).
Jesus indeed exists and died, rose from the dead and saves us from our sins and hell.
God communicates with and is actively involved the affairs of men.
I currently have two main themes that I want to use. First is that limitations inherent in human languages make it impossible for god to communicate his perfect will. It would follow from this that even if the bible was the BEST communication from god to man, it is still flawed because it is a transalation of a deity's thoughts into a human language. The second main theme is that given that humanity's relationship and understanding of god has evolved and presumably become deeper and more profound, then the original writers of the bible were actually less in tune with god than today's believers. Hence, even as god was speaking to them they were less capable of clearly understanding and translating the words of god.
So does anybody want to play?
- Login to post comments
Not me since I say it is totally false!
Which is my point. You will never pry away minds from a falsehood by just saying something is false. You have to plant seeds and hope they grow into something useful. A strong atheist's argument doesn't even gain entry to the garden.
My Artwork
You'd think it being such an important part of christianity, god would make bible updates available every 50 years or so.
I know that doesn't help you wave, but that's the first thing that I thought of after reading your post.
I would predict a rebuttal to this would follow somewhere along the lines of the fact that human language is sufficient to convey truth. That the bible is inerrant does not require that it is all encompassing only that what is stated within it is true. The things of a god that can not be conveyed through human language are not important for humans. It is only what we are capable of understanding, what pertains to our condition, that the god has addressed through the medium of human language and these things are can be addressed through our language, our descriptions of our condition, inerrantly.
If the bible was written by god through man, which I believe is what the biblical inerrantist believes, then whether or not man understood it completely then, or now, is irrelevant. The bible could still be inerrant. This opens the door to asking what good it is to man if they can never trust that they have a reliable understanding of it but then a theist could fall back to true believers receiving revelation, or simply the unaasailable pedestal of faith, as a means by which to determine the correct understanding.
Is this the kind of thing you wanted? Since I've never been a believer it is difficult for me to place myself in their thought patterns,
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
LOL. Does this mean we don't get an update until Micorsoft and Open Office agree on a standard format?
My Artwork
Yes. Those are both very good points. I'l definately give them some thought.
My Artwork
I know i certainly do try to understand and think about what theists say but it often leads to a cop out on their part and a lot of theists do seem to pre-suppose things about God when they cannot answer a question.
Also, to accept God, many people say you have to ask for Gods help and open your mind to the idea of God in order to believe. The problem is that if i do this but do not find God then it is assumed that my mind wasn't open enough. This notion of opening your mind goes in hand with psychological suggestability where circumstances mean that your mind is in such a state of openness that it will essentially believe whatever you tell it. Knowing this means although i do keep my mind open, i know all too much about psychology for my mind to enter a state where i can believe.
Wave, please do yourself the favor for your own sanity and take the only logical step there is.
IF "God" is a broken concept on the "omni" atributes as you admit to, then why would "dying for our sins" be any more credible than "omnibenevolent" or "omniscient".
If you set up a god in your mind to do whatever your mind wants it to do then of course it could father a child to "die for your sins". Just as polytheists thought that their "all powerfull" god could be appeased by throwing a girl into a volcano.
You have already given up on the biggest excuse to believe in a god "omni" concepts. Which makes the god limited. So why call it god?
How about the most logical reason. You like the idea of a super hero. At some point someone sold you a super hero concept. You like that idea so you perpetuate it and do anything to justify beleiving in this super hero. But as YOU admited by your own words the "omni" concept is broken, which wipes out any claim of super natural.
If a "all powefull" being existed it could "forgive us from our sins" but it would also be able to "POOF" turn me into Heidi Clume or turn me into a frog.
You seem to bee almost there in giving up bad ideas and seem to back away from hocus pocus. But you have not completely given up which wouldf "dying for sins" is required then why not believe in a disimbodied being with multiple arms being required to bless a wedding, or Allah be required to determine the sex of the baby?
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
You assume way too much. My goal is to pry people away from blind belief in the bible. In order to do this I don't believe a full frontal assault on their beliefs is fruitful. A any attempt on my part to have an effective dialog will have to be non-confrontational. So I am willing to present my arguments within the contexts of their beliefs. That doesn't mean I accept those beliefs. It's pretty simple really. They don't speak "atheist" or "logic" or "Deist" so I am forced to speak "Christian"
My Artwork
I can't add any new critisms but you got me pondering how I would approach the challenge you have set for yourself.
I would ask them why the clergy is needed. They are generally not converting the unbelievers. They preach to people who are in their church and therefore already believe.
If everything we need to know about God is in the bible then why do we have a clergy at all? If people can read the bible and get the absolute truth why do they then get it second hand through a preacher?
The clergy would have been needed when very few people were literate but nowdays most of those in chuch are more than capable of reading the bible for themselves.
Is it because the preists have training in how to interpret the bible? If that were the case then the bible is not perfect because it doesn't even tell you how God intended for his word to be interpreted.
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
The idea of christianity is the god is all powerfull and all knowing. He is the alpha and the omega, the begining and the end.
However a common argument from christians is that gods wrath in the old testament was a different time and those rules and laws are no longer applied. (killing gays, opposers ect.) However this ideology doesn't hold up because "god" would have known what the future held and would have put the correct statement in the first time.
Furthermore we scrutinize the muslims for acting irrationally in acts of terrorism. However these people actually have the balls to follower their faith the way it says to in the Koran, which is more than I can say for the so called conservative christians...
Still thinking about your feedback, y'alll. One thing it has done is remind me what a slippery fish this is. The allowance of omniscience and omnipotence into the discussion gives so many ways out that it is near impossible to nail down any consistent line of reasoning. Truthfully, this essay will probably have some logical fallacies in it. Appeal to emotion, appeal to consequences, etc are all common in the language of evenagelicals. I suspect that without pushing a few of those buttons I am limiting myself.
So what is deliberate use of fallacies called? Meta-fallacies?
My Artwork
Bad reasoning? Maybe you have to use bad reasoning to attack bad reasoning
"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought
Well wavefreak, your concept is admirable, however I think the execution is going to be harder. The problem i see it is, how do you prove the bible is not literal to people that have been indoctrine that it is. This is part of their beliefs, their core set of beliefs in regards to religion and god. My question to you I guess wavefreak would be what would it take to change your belief in god that you have now? Maybe you would have to look at it in that angel and then attack the problem from that angle. I could be wrong, but changing someone's belief is very hard unless that person is looking to change their beliefs or are faultering on their beliefs already.
Otherwise your going to be fighing a losing battle. From personal experience i no longer try to change peoples view, i just give them the facts, and let them figure it out. However those that believe in god have such a way to rationalizing the most illogical and irrational beliefs that it's hard to have them see the truth in front of their eyes. (I am just generalizing here not saying that you do this since i don't personally know you) Just as evolution and our study of the human body and mind has shown many parts of the bible to be false (virgin birth, adam and eve, the entire genesis part of human creation, the resurrection etc etc etc) religous folk just change their views to fit their religious views and say well this is what god really meant even if it contradicts what it says in the bible. Young creationalists are famous for this.
Wave, I don't envy you this task. Your signature says it all, I think.
The primary problem with a lot of Christian debaters is that they're pretty damn good at spotting the flaws in other people's arguments. Your essay will, as you point out, be necessarily flawed because you're trying to create logic from illogic. This would be fine, except that the theists will find the flaws in it, roast you over the fire, and then completely ignore the implications for their own arguments. That what they do.
Having said all that, I agree with you in principle. Baby steps are usually the best way to go with dyed in the wool (blood in the shroud?) Christians, and I suspect that more converts have been won using this approach then the "All guns firing... GOD IS A LIE!" approach.
Here's another idea, just off the top of my head. Maybe it's good, maybe it sucks. Like I said, I just thought of it...
God wants us to have faith which requires less than certainty. If there is certainty, there is no faith. Therefore, the Bible CANNOT be 100% accurate, or there would be no room for faith.
I dunno. Maybe it's worth considering.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
By the way, I'd just like you to know that I'm still chuckling aloud at the idea of a heretic theist coming to an atheist website to get help thinking like a theist for the purpose of undermining the faith of the faithful.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Attacking the idea that the Bible is God's inerrant word:
1. It should surpass even the fundy's powers of denial to fail to observe that the Bible has been interpreted many different ways by many different people. Couldn't an omnipotent God have made his perfect communication such that all people would understand it the same way?
2. The KJV Bible was compiled by committee back in the Middle Ages. Votes were held to determine what went in and what stayed out. If the members of the committee were guided by God, why were votes necessary? Couldn't they just act by consensus?
3. There are huge lists of Biblical absurdities, internal contradictions and errors. Plus it has been proven that there are several tranlation errors from the original Hebrew. Is God right even when he's wrong?
4. What is more important, the Bible, or the understanding of God's will that he places in our hearts? If we place the Bible before our conscience, before our prayerful reflection, are we not committing idolatry?
5. Why didn't God reveal more useful information to us through the Bible? Couldn't hundreds of years of famine have been averted if he'd simply told people about crop rotation in there? Does God want us to suffer?
6. Why is it that no one, even fundies like you, actually follows all the instructions in the Bible, despite Jesus' specific command to do so? Couldn't God have made a manual that people could follow without creating problems for themselves?
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Wow. When you put it that way ...
My Artwork