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tkster
Skeptic Friend
USA
193 Posts |
 Posted - 04/05/2005 : 14:05:07
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The following topic is a challenge to any Christian on this board. I tried this at Live Wire and only three Christians took me up on it, all of which failed or had to use "their own faith" as their opinion. So I am trying this elsewhere to see if any Christian will take me up on this.
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I have listed various times some major problems in the Bible which you can find at the following links:
1. Contradictions and Errors in the Bible (Rook Hawkins).
2. Prophecies in the Bible that have failed (Rook Hawkins).
3. Contradictions, Errors, and Fallacies of Jesus, Paul, and Peter (Rook Hawkins).
4. Hammurabi's Bible Study (Hammurabi).
5. The Bible Is An Atheist's Best Friend (medjai)
6. A Few Blatant Scientific Errors in the Bible (tk).
7. The World Ended in 70 AD (Ryan).
However, since we have this new crop of people saying that the Bible is God's Word - which is all good - I read a good quote from Thomas Paine (an American Forefather) on the Bible and I thought I would share it with the people of this forum. I honestly don't think I could say it better myself:
But by what authority do you call the Bible the Word of God? for this is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the Koran the Word of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time the person called Jesus Christ is said to have lived, voted the books that now compose what is called the New Testament to be the Word of God. This was done by yeas and nays, as we now vote a law.
The Pharisees of the second temple, after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. I am as capable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so, because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self-interest in the vote they gave.
You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you cannot prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by his thoughts; and the same is the case with the word revelation. There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more prove revelation than you can prove what another man dreams of, neither can he prove it himself.
It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No.
Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?
For my own part, I believe that all are impostors who pretend to hold verbal communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world has been imposed upon; but if you think otherwise you have the same right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer for it in the same manner. But all this does not settle the point, whether the Bible be the Word of God, or not. It is therefore necessary to go a step further. The case then is:
You form your opinion of God from the account given of Him in the Bible; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wisdom and goodness of God manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all works of creation. The result in these two cases will be, that you, by taking the Bible for your standard, will have a bad opinion of God; and I, by taking God for my standard, shall have a bad opinion of the Bible.
Source: Thomas Paine's response to a person's question on his book The Age of Reason.
So the question becomes after reading this statement, how is the Bible more valid than any other book. We see contradictions, errors, lies, fallacies, and we also see that it is one interpretation that they tweak to make the Bible true. So after all of these, how do you know the Bible is true?
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This was originally posted here.
take care,
tk
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2005 : 15:15:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
So the question becomes after reading this statement, how is the Bible more valid than any other book.
That has been a question for a very long time, even before Paine.
It's also a question that will cause most "true believers" to experience some significant cognitave dissonance, so don't expect a rational answer to it from any of them.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2005 : 19:17:45 [Permalink]
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Indeed. This is one of the things underlying the quote in Ricky's signature:"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -Stephen F. Roberts |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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