"Nothing like a compromise to make sure no-one is satisfied"

If I made greeting cards I'd make one with a beautiful cloud-scape on the front with the words:

"When God closes a door, He opens a window...

<open the card>

..for you to jump out of."

No woman ever killed her husband while he was washing the dishes.

Always store beer in a dark place.

In our times, fair enough... but it must be remembered that atheists / doubters have been doing exactly that since the "enlightenment" and long before... (the likes of Nietzsche and Kant) becuase if you can pretend / try and prove that God doesn't exist, then you don't have to believe / can try and ignore Him, his Bible, & his judgement.

Despite that, the Bible is in "better shape than when assault of the enlightenment began" (I'm paraphrasing Time magazine here... not exactly the most generous of Bible critics).


Now it can't be denied that Jesus *did* exist, whether or not you belive he was who he said he was: there are Roman records of an execution of a "Jesus" at around 33AD, and Jewish records (by the Jewish historian Josephus) have him down as a black-sorceror.

Another thread, another time... but then I challenge anyone to eanerstly try and disprove the historical accuracy of the Bible.

That's certainly true. Back to Guide to life suggestions:

"Living in regret of the past, or fear of the future, are two ways of not living at all."

"Sit on a sensitive letter for three days before sending it."

"There is no need to boast about good deeds. They have a way of getting found out even if you hide them."

"Talent is good, but faithfulness is better."

"A phone call to say, "I'm thinking of you," yields benefits all out of proportion to the time investment."

It isn't up to us to disprove it. You are making the assertion that your collection of prehistoric myths and the later use made of them for propoganda purposes that you call the bible is the "word of the creator"(whome you allege to exist) and historically accurate. Well seing as how nothing stated in the bible matches what we can empirically show to be the case, then it is up to you to prove it, not us to disprove it, as very succintly put by this chap -

Given the argument above I think this one is apropos -

The difference between madness and religion is only the number of participants.

I'm not about to let myself be dragged into a religeous discussion at this time, but as soon as anyone starts saying 'everything' and 'nothing' my fingers start to itch. This type of statement usually hides a lack of (completer) knowledge about the subject referred to. If you don't leave room for doubt (no matter how certain you are of anything) you are quite clearly manifesting a lack of knowledge about the subject. You might want to try: I have never read anything, I don't know of anything, As far as I know, According to many (quote your sources) this or that is not true...
And to get back to this thread in not altogether a very roundabout way... those who know everything don't know anything

A valid point. Personally I don't claim to know everything, but ultimately somebody has to be right, and either God does exist, or he doesn't. If he truly did or didn't, we would find the evidence would point to hta one way or the other.



That's not what I said...
Many are happy not to believe in God. I respect anyone if they try and backup what they belive in, whether on politics or otherwise, though I might well disagree with them.

I have stated my positive assurance in the knowledge of the truth of the Bible. You are at liberty to disagree with this, whether or not you might be wrong. However, if you disagree with something, it's up to *you* to say *why* you disagree. It's like someone coming along and saying they disagree with you, on any such and such a topic. After asking them why, they just say "because". Because why? you say. "Because".

As in the example above, if we don't give reasons for what we think, then they're not informed opinions at all. If you think something is right, then there must be a valid reason for why you think it is right. Some evidence, etc. But if there is no evidence for it, then its just pie in the sky. E.g. should a child say that they believe in the tooth-fairy. Unless they can justify why they believe in the tooth-fairy, it is an irrational blind faith, and a silly one.


Words like "myths" are not evidence that of your point of view. They *do* show that you do not like the idea of God, but what difference does that make what's actually true? It's just like the famous existentialist philosopher of the 60's (I forget his name) who said he could not believe in God because he didn't like the idea of God "watching him" all the time. Now think about it. Does whether we like the idea of God in any way at all affect whether he exists? If say, one didn't like George Bush, would that in any way affect whether GWB existed? Of course not.


Now here are some examples of why I say the Bible is not merely a collection of myths, as much as you or I might like it to be. The Bible *can* be trusted on its history, and is not a collection of myths. Jesus died for my sins, and the bible is trustworthy:

HM Orlinski, expert archaeologist in his book "Ancient Israel"

Time magazine


EDIT: will finish these quotes later. Got to go

Quite my point. I do believe he exists and I personally see many lines of evidence, but stating he exists 'because he does' or 'you can't be reasonable intelligfent and educated being if you still believe in all that outdated and disproven stuff' isn't evidence, and once again an absolute statement. To me he does exist because...

Ultimately science is also a belief (You can add that to your list of 'life suggestions') and many scientists have disproven what they or others once believed to be true. You can act (should act) on the premisis of what you believe true, but always keep proving it true, if only to yourself.

"when i say and speak to you ... it is because you are on 'i know why' lesser pollen grains ..."

.

I think we need an official discuss the bible thread The assumption you are making here is that because some of the bible is accurate then all of it must be accurate. There is no denying that some parts of the bible are based on real events, for instance soddom and gamora(not sure about the spelling) clearly describes a volcanic eruption which coincides with one recorded achaeologically at the time. For me all this goes to show is that the orignal basis for religeon came from people not being able to explain events eg volcanic eruptions or floods(noahs ark) or even creation itself. Before science the best people could come up with was "god did it"(although this is a simplified version of the events that led to peoples beliefs).

All it then takes for millenia of wrong ideas(IMO) to form, is for someone to write these ideas about how they believe these event happened down in a book as fact. People(like you)then believe them because they are right about the general events, and even use this as evidence for their accuracy.

If you want an accurate recording of events then surely you wouldnt look to a book written in a time when most people were very uneducated about how things occured. Its also worth bearing in mind that these storys(becuase few people were able to write) would have been passed by word of mouth. In this situation it doesnt take long for events to be massivly blown out of proportion by exaggeration for dramtic effect. If you want accurate sequences of events then why not use ones from modern times where what actually happened is undistorted. Surly god hasnt just given up performing miracles.

The reason why you don't use modern events is because as soon as a miracle is claimed science steps in and most of the time explains the events.

It can be said that god acts events by using the processes explained in science as a tool. The problem with this is none of science demands that there is a supreme being using or controlling it. This makes god redundant. It could be that there is a god that makes science happen but without the need for it there is no reason at all to assume that it exists(with relation to this argument)

Surely it is unreasonable to use the bible as a source of evidence given these constaints upon it. You point to the areas where it is accurate but there are also areas where it is obviously wrong.
I hope iv risen to yekrahs challenge to quesion the historical accuracy of the bible
I could go on but iv got homework to do

And the sinple fact that science could explain it means that the explanation offered is the right one?
And what if (and I'm not saying he did) God actually used a natural fenomenon and made it happen at a specific time and location to suit his purposes?
Actually there are quite a number of seemingly simple observations in the Bible that are not only scientifically correct, but are way ahead of the general knowlege of the time they were written in.
References to the hare 'chewing the cud' (which was long laughed at as fanciful and only proven to be true millenia after it was written) or the fact that the earth 'hangs on nothing' come to mind.
Also jewish rites for cleanliness required ritual washing after touching a deceased, but it wasn't until well int the 18th century that medical doctors became concerned with this type of hygene because of scientifical findings about infections etc.
At the least these kind if things should make one think before declaring the whole bible to be a book of myths.
Timing is of the essence...
Besides, where did these scientifical principles come from? The fact that your computer can perform a task without you being present doesn't prove you don't exist.
I still haven't seen any evidence of the Bible being obviously wrong. You limit yourself to stating that since a different explanation is possible it must therefore be the right one. I beg to differ.

You'll never leave your footprints in the sands of time by sitting on your butt....and who wants to leave buttprints on the sands of time?
-unknown

So logically if you can't prove something is wrong that proves its right then yes? So you are not a christian but a multiperson pantheistic solipsist then?

Because by your argument anything anyone beleives must by definition be true because you can't prove that its wrong.

The fact is you also can't show any evidence thats its right, so I'm afraid it remains opinion. That is, a historical account of what someones opinion was that lived a very long time ago, i.e a mythology.