The Bible Contradictions Quiz Show video (linked below) is by far my most watched, most commented-on, and most repetitive for me as far as those comments go. One after another, believers in an inerrant bible jump onto the comments page claiming that I have thoroughly misinterpreted the text or taken every example out of a context in which it would naturally make perfect sense in harmony with all other bible verses, and that they can explain away every single ‘so-called-contradiction’ I included in the script.
I find that a point-blank question is usually enough for them to leave immediately – such as “Has any living human ever seen God?” They quickly come to see that any possible answer taking into account
Genesis 32:30 “…For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved”,
Exodus 33:11 “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”, or
Exodus 24:9-11 “Then Moses [etc] went up… and they saw the God of Israel.”
is going to be flatly refuted by me bringing up
John 1:18 “No one has seen God at any time.” or
1 Timothy 6:16 “[God],…whom no man has seen nor can see”,
and they either disappear pretty quick, or attempt to explain that every bible scholar who has every worked on any translation from the original language into Latin or English has ben wrong, whereas they are right, and most of all: that taking the words on the page to mean what they actually say is an utterly misguided way to interpret scripture, and will certainly lead to a skewed understanding of what the author is intending to communicate. After all, this is GOD we’re talking about, so there is a supernatural explanation for everything, and in calling the passages “contradictory”, I have failed to search hard enough for what the hidden meaning/explanation/mystery could be.
I’d like to focus here on an explanation that none of my many critics on this video ever want to confront.
They’re often happy to claim that they’re the first living humans since the original authors to have gotten the exegesis right; they’re happy to invent, whole-cloth, narrative or theological “glue”, with absolutely no biblical support, to blend the two or more conflicting biblical accounts, (more often than not changing the meaning of both in doing so); they’re more than happy to declare that words need not be considered to carry the meanings associated with them in every single other instance of their use. Or, of course, they plead their singular understanding of the “Context!!!” out of which I have taken the verses- until I tell them to take all the context they need to explain whether or not the tomb was; a) open, or; b) not open, when the women arrived
Matt 28:2 “…For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door…” ;
John 20:1 “…Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.”
and Luke 24:2, and Mark 16:3-4
Or perhaps to argue that there being a magical context in which the tomb was both open and not yet open when they (she?) arrived is THE MOST LIKELY explanation of the two accounts. After all, again, it’s the bible, so the least likely and most illogical answer to a problem is a viable option when looking for the most likely and logical explanation.
The mental and linguistic backflips that I’ve seen going on, in the research I carried out for the video itself, and since posting it more than two years ago, is truly amazing. Biblical inerrantists go to extraordinary lengths, and place their faith in the most mind-bogglingly elastic, over-stretched, flaky ‘explanations’… without daring to confront the most astonishingly simple explanation that ties everything together. What explanation is that?
I’m talking about the idea that one or more writers (or copyists) made a mistake.
Someone wrote it down wrong.
Someone got their facts wrong.
Someone heard wrong.
This explanation for there being two (even ‘seemingly’) discrepant accounts is utterly satisfying. It accounts for EVERYTHING. It leaves no mysteries behind, nothing unexplained, nothing left to investigate. Yet they just won’t go there. It’s the one explanation that is entirely off-limits. It just happens also to be the very best one.
The investment in the belief that the bible is inerrant is enormous. They’ve bet the house on it, and they apparently recognize that to give it up would mean no less than the end of their faith.
Take for example a few of the contradictions dealt with in the video. 2 Sam 8:4 says that David took 700 horsemen out with him. 1 Chron 18:4 says 7,000. What’s more likely – that both are entirely true, that there is a context in which both numbers are correct, some hidden back story that is not given anywhere in the text but is discernible through communication with an invisible spirit whispering facts into your heart – or that some copyist either dropped or added a zero somewhere along the line? What on Earth is so bad about THAT explanation that it needs to be competely taken off the table?! It is PERFECT!!
When we have over 5,000 manuscripts of the Greek new testament at hand, no two of which are identical, and terminologies for the kinds of errors that we can see in them all, is it really so hard to believe that errors and alterations may also have made their way into the ancient manuscripts of the old testament as they passed along?
2 Sam 23:8 says David’s captains killed 800 men in one encounter, the author of 1 Chron 11:11 puts it at 300. Someone wrote a digit wrong. Perhaps the digit wasn’t clear on the copy they were reading. Or wait!- maybe 300 DOES equal 800 in some context. Yeah, I wonder. I invite any believer to explain to me why a contortionist explanation featuring some magical behind-the-scnese mathematics or invisible narrative ‘glue’ is better than “Someone made a mistake”.
Judas hanged himself (Matt 27:5).
Wait, no, he died by falling over in a field bursting open in the middle (Acts 1:11).
So… rather than inventing the narrative that he must obviously (derrrr,….) have hung himself in a field, died, the rope snapped, and since rigor mortis had obviously set in the fall obviously caused his middle to burst open when his obviously bloated corpse hit the ground,… [NonStampCollector WHY can't you SEE this?!] why not be satisfied with “Well gee, perhaps two writers in different times and places reported different versions of the FORTY year old story?!” The same two authors, mind you, who also had differing accounts of the time of Jesus’ birth – reporting two dates differing by eleven years! Is it really so difficult to imagine that in a largely illiterate oral culture, an 80 year old story had split into two versions, or are both dates for Jesus’ birth independently true, too?
Yes, apparently it’s possible to consider them both true, if you’re so totally invested in the idea that the text is inerrant, and that ANY explanation, no matter how flimsy, contorted and made-to-order it is, is better and more likely than “a human author (or scribe) made a mistake”.
“A person wrote it down wrong” is not, in any context, an unlikely eventuality. It is attested by centuries of biblical scholarship; it is nothing new. It explains everything, and leaves nothing to be explained. There is simply no better explanation for the texts to be in the state they’re in, in these cases; yet not even the most liberal Christians are entirely comfortable going there. We all know why – only the non-believers are happy to go where that fact inevitably leads: These texts, and the errors that fill them, are the products of exclusively, and entirely, human minds. [shudder]
I challenge any believer reading this to give me an explanation of any of these contradictions that is better, more fulfilling, or more all-encompassing than “A person wrote it down wrong.”
NSC
This by no means covers all the contradictions given in my video, and I’ll be back again some time looking at some of the other kinds, and why the inerrantists’ explanations are, once again, crap.
132 comments
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Lofty
October 30, 2012 at 8:57 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Religion: question nothing, assert everything. Admitting doubt can lead to (Gasp!!!) ATHEISM!!!11!! therefore hell. It’s a great brainwashing. The inerrant babble, my ass.
Aliasalpha
October 30, 2012 at 9:28 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Well for the 800 or 300 murders, it might be a case of some of the victims not being real people, they killed 300 people and 500 women
Aliasalpha
October 30, 2012 at 9:31 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Oh hang on, that would imply that at least one bible writer thought of women as actual people, silly of me.
Longjocks
October 30, 2012 at 11:27 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I remember a discussion about this topic once in a gaming forum with a… I believe he said he was a Jehova’s Witness. A large chunk of the opening of our chat involved the stories of Judas’ death as you described. He used a similar story where the tree was on a cliff, the rope broke and Judas’ body was cut open by sharp rocks far below.
I asked where how the sharp rocks and the cliff came to be in the story. His response was that it doesn’t take much to fill in the blanks and that it was logical that he was cut open on sharp rocks from a significant height. I wasn’t happy with this and came up with a couple of alternative stories of how the scene played out, keeping the stated info in the biblical texts and making up plausible scenarios that could link them together and justify them. He didn’t get the point of my stories. Even when I explained exactly what I was doing he offered no answer and would just retort with “So?” and “What’s your point?”
It didn’t seem important what the story was, just as long as there was a plausible way of justifying it, even if it was a bit far-fetched and had no supporting evidence.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
October 30, 2012 at 11:44 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Pedantic point: zero and place notation were not invented until around 7th century BCE, in India, whence they spread first to the Islamic world, then to Christendom. Similar confusions are however possible in numeral systems that don’t include these features, as this article shows.
The Christian version of the OT was written in Aramaic, where the same sign is used for 300 and 800! (See the article linked above). Whether the relevant parts were originally written in Hebrew, I don’t know.
According to this article in the Jewish Encyclopedia:
Tantalisingly, it doesn’t give any details.
*164 BCE – 63 BCE
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
October 30, 2012 at 12:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
To be fair, NSC, there are plenty of Christians (the majority worldwide, I’d wager) who are not inerrantists. They’re happy to admit that there are translation and transcription errors in the Bible, and that some of the stories are not literally true.
echidna
October 30, 2012 at 12:27 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Sure, but there is a particularly virulent breed of inerrantists here in Australia, and since NSC mentions he was a born again teenager, I guess this is where he is coming from. While I grew up with Catholics who were serious about duty to priests over-riding duty to parents (yes, you can guess there was something dodgy there), I had a serious encounter with an inerrantist at a local church in Melbourne – it was Ken Ham himself, in the 1980′s.
Bible studies with the more relaxed Anglican (now C of E) types was still based on the premise that somehow the bible was coherent and consistent, if only you looked at it the right way. I know many C of E types who might rethink when faced with the obvious contradictions in the way that NSC puts it.
The major problem, of course, is that there is no evidence for any sort of deity, and the contradictions in the bible are a major clue that the bible itself does not constitute evidence for a deity.
One might also ask what it does to people’s ability to reason, when they are asked to accept inconsistent accounts as being true by definition. For me, coming face to face with inconsistency was the deal-breaker that led me to become an atheist.
Nothing
October 30, 2012 at 12:27 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Talk about Occam’s Razor…
I don’t think any explanation based on mental gymnastics could possibly encompass all possibilities and yet be so simple. They simply WON’T go there.
Zeno
October 30, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
My favorite explanation for this contradiction is more simple and elegant than most bend-over-backward rationalizations. It’s like this: David’s captains killed 300, so 1 Chron 11 is true. They enjoyed themselves so much that they kept at it, killing another 500 and making 2 Sam 23 true. (If only the writer of 1 Chron had stuck around a little longer!)
A strict Bible literalist used to participate in a weekly lunch group I attended. Oh, the knots he would tie himself into when the rest of us would challenge him!
raquelsilva
October 30, 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Longjocks I was raised as a JW and know how they use the bible, just quoting a verse at a time so the contradictions pass you by. You never read anything in context and certainly not comparing one book with the other.
JW are programmed to see outsiders as always wrong and under the influence of the devil, so no amount of explanation can reach them.
Camel
October 30, 2012 at 12:56 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I have the perfet solution to the question of wether the door was open or not:
The angel must have left the door open, so when Mary Magdalene came along, it was still open. Problem solved!
jamessweet
October 30, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I think that’s sort of what he’s saying, is that there is a very easy way out of this while still retaining core Christian beliefs (if you’re not a hardcore inerrantist, of course): The Bible is an often inaccurate, often mistranslated account of a very real interaction between God and his people. Of course, that explanation has a lot of things wrong with it too, but it is not so blatantly obviously wrong as the inerrancy explanation. Discarding inerrancy seems like a no-brainer, because a) it doesn’t necessarily lose you that much, and b) it’s so absurd. And yet people cling to it desperately.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
October 30, 2012 at 2:09 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
If you assume the Starship Enterprise was orbiting Earth at the time, using transporters, phasers, replicators, and a fully stocked 24th century sickbay (and the Prime Directive is suspended) the Bible makes so much more sense.
BradC
October 30, 2012 at 2:32 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
First of all, let me say that this is the kind of post I was hoping to see from your blog. Great post!
I love the part of the video where the host prays to determine the winner instead of just using the scores right in front of him! And the losing contestant (who actually had the higher score) is totally fine with that!
For me, I was able to hold on to a belief in the inerrancy of scripture in two ways:
1. My church taught that the original autographs were inerrant, and not necessarily our modern translations. But this was really just an excuse you could toss out when faced with a clear contradiction, in all practical ways they preached and acted as if what we have now was perfect and inspired.
2. When faced with a contradiction, I could always rationalize it with “well, I don’t understand this one, but I’m sure somewhere out there is a biblical scholar who can explain how in the original language, this isn’t really a contradiction.” The weird part is that I didn’t even feel the need to actually find this mythical explanation. I basically just had a faith that smarter people than me had already checked these things out, and if there was a real problem, then well, we wouldn’t all still be Christians, would we?
Yeah, that was a bit naive.
harrysanborn
October 30, 2012 at 2:41 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
If only people would stick to one side or the other, inerrant or not. I’ve had the extremely frustrating experience of discussing the bible with someone who would conveniently flip flop -
“This part of the Bible is morally unjust, or inconsistent.”
“The Bible was written by man, of course there can be errors.”
The next moment they’d be saying how Jesus literally did X, Y, or Z. And then I’d ask, “Do you really believe Jesus hopped out of a boat, and violated the laws of physics and walked on water?” and this person responded “These were land dwelling people, they were scared of the water, the miracle was that Jesus was calm. That sea is shallow, he could have hopped out and been in knee deep water and they would have thought he was miraculous.” The next moment this person would say that Jesus cured a blind man, and then the next moment claimed that Lazarus had an illness that made him present like he was dead, but he wasn’t, but the miracle was that Jesus cared enough not to be scared.
It’s convenient, I’ll claim that the Bible can have errors when I’m being challenged, and then go back to believing afterward, it’s infuriating.
They have to keep both in their head at the same time. They know they can’t defend the magic. If Jesus and God are magic, then it really brings into question why they are such jerks when it comes to giving people horrible genetic diseases. If Jesus isn’t magic, then he was just a somewhat good guy with some moral teachings, which means your heaven doesn’t have any more chance of existing, and your prayers are falling on deaf ears.
BradC
October 30, 2012 at 2:44 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Agree with you on (b), but strongly disagree on (a).
The problem with discarding inerrancy is that you have to then have some actual criteria for deciding which parts of the Bible you believe are accurate/useful/inspired and which parts are inaccurate/mistaken/mis-translated/ignorable. It shines a giant, glaring spotlight on the fact that it will always be entirely arbitrary.
When we have a clear contradiction, its obvious we have to choose one as the “correct” answer, but why then would we have any confidence at all that the remaining text is correct?
Holding to inerrancy you can at least claim that you have an actual authority to base your beliefs on (let’s ignore for the moment that even they disagree widely about interpretation).
BradC
October 30, 2012 at 2:52 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Yep. Very good article on this, Greta Christina’s A Self-Referential Game of Twister: What Religion Looks Like From the Outside
Enopoletus Harding
October 30, 2012 at 2:56 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
-There were certainly Aramaic translations of the OT used by Christians, but the English translations of the OT are based on the Masoretic Text, which is almost entirely Hebrew.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
So… basically you are saying you are a fundamentalist and that only a literal fundamentalist interpretation of a sacred text is the correct interpretation.
Which tells us a lot about you and next to nothing about the text or the religion the text is based on. Fundamentalism, the belief that only a literal interpretation of the Bible is the authentic one, is a modernist reaction to the enlightenment. It is very new, rising in the early 20th century and not at all representative of Christianity.
Fundamentalist atheism is as much a reaction against enlightenment values as is religious fundamentalism.
But, like all bigots, you take one extreme example as definitive of the whole. Again, this tells us a great deal about you and your reactionary beliefs and attitudes but hardly anything at all about those who are the subjects of your prejudice and bigotry.
Good luck with that. It will only ensure your continued isolation and marginalization and you will, as all extremists do, blame everyone else for your plight except for yourself.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
October 30, 2012 at 3:29 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The non-fundamentalist Christians are not the ones trying to get their religiously-inspired manias enshrined in law in the US.
While effort could be spent debunking the claims of the “just don’t be a jerk, Jesus was a kinda cool guy” Christian, it’s the “THE BIBLE IS INERRANT THEREFORE BURN THE FAGS” kind that rightly attract this kind of ire.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 3:32 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
” I’ve had the extremely frustrating experience of discussing the bible with someone who would conveniently flip flop”
One can have equally frustrating discussions with lay people on a lot of topics. The fact that lay people don’t always know what they talk about is hardly something one should take as a serious argument against something.
If I talk to just anyone on the street about quantum mechanics and they give me confused and conflicted replies am I right to conclude that QM is invalid? Add to that religion is not and does not try to be science and yeah, it’s no wonder people give conflicting answers to difficult theological questions.
harrysanborn
October 30, 2012 at 3:39 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Except that it is a belief that is held 1) By a large number of believers in the US and 2) By a group that is particularly vocal about those beliefs. It’s absolutely reasonable to address those people directly.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 3:42 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Indeed. I was raised a Lutheran. We were specifically taught that an inerrant or literal interpretation of the Bible is a heresy. It is the idolatry of the text.
Interesting that many atheists also believe in idolizing texts. Seems to me you haven’t really left your fundamental beliefs as much as you like to believe you have.
You also idolize the science textbooks you were taught from. Most atheists are science geeks who know surprisingly little about the actual science they genuflect before. Just like how fundamentalists idolize theirs. You are really no different from them you know.
harrysanborn
October 30, 2012 at 4:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
That’s the point of NonStamp Collector. Either the Bible has contradictions, was written by man, and is in context to it’s time, or the Bible is inerrant. He was specifically addressing the inerrantists.
But, if you’re going to take the position that the bible has flaws, is written by men with an agenda, and written in historical context, you don’t have a leg to stand on when you try to apply it to modern day issues like stem cell research. In fact, it’s no better than any other book on moral teaching. It certainly doesn’t tell us anything worth while about the origins of human life, the universe, or if some magic afterlife exists. If that’s the case, you’re now wandering into Jesus and the Bible were magic, but only the bits I pick and choose were magic. The bits that are completely contradictory, those are man’s errors, the bits that make my tummy feel warm and fuzzy, those are magic Jesus sauce.
BradC
October 30, 2012 at 4:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
This sounds suspiciously like your previous comments about the Noah’s Ark video. If your specific faith doesn’t hold to Biblical inerrancy, and therefore doesn’t have a problem with these contradictions, then this video isn’t for you.
So why do you care? Why don’t you just say, “yes, I agree with the point of the video that literal Biblical inerrancy is an untenable position”? Or with the point NSC made in this post, that the way to resolve these conflicts is to admit that one or more writers (or copyists) made a mistake.
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
October 30, 2012 at 4:32 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Bollocks. Complete, unadulterated bollocks. Science geeks view peer reviewed published research as the current best approximation to the truth, and are almost universally aware that one of the main features of science is its conditional nature. The current theories (i.e. the ones that get filtered down to the textbooks) are only good until they’re disproved or shown to be special cases of wider constructs. I’m not making this up, in fact the strength of science in being able to change its conclusions based on new data is a standard argument used against biblical inerrantists. The only people who think that atheists worship published science textbooks unquestioningly are inerrantists with an overabundance of projection and a penchant for the tu quoque fallacy.
fwtbc
October 30, 2012 at 4:50 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Thanks for including the alt text for the images, NSC. It’s much appreciated.
In answer to your question from the other thread, I can’t see the images because I’m legally blind and use a screen reader.
I saw a couple of others complain about nested/threaded comments, too. You said you’d turned them off, but FYI they still appear to be active.
The reason most people give, and the reason I hate them is that if the thread becomes quite active, it’s very difficult to monitor it for new comments. If it’s chronological, you can just reload, go straight to the number of the last comment before you reloaded and read on from there, but with threaded, you pretty much have to skim through the entire comments section from top to bottom. Painful if you’re fully sighted. Fucking torture if you’re not.
Another issue with threaded comments is that not everyone uses them correctly, so you’ll end up with someone posting a new comment that’s a reply and thus it’s not indented and inserted into the thread, or other times people accidentally reply to the wrong comment. It’s a nice idea but in practice they’re just annoying.
Thanks again!
richardwigton
October 30, 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Brenda, the problem is that there are MANY Christians who do take the Bible literally. They believe that the story of Noah’s ark is real, that Jesus walked on water, that everything the Bible talks about actually happened.
And because they take it literally they try to make laws that reflect those beliefs. They are very anti-gay, fanatically pro-Israel, want creationism taught in public schools, etc. They want a country run on “Biblical values. In other words a theocracy. And because of that they are dangerous.
And no, atheists are not like fundamentalists. We demand evidence—something fundamentalists do not do. We are open to new ideas based on new information. Fundamentalists are not. And finally, atheism is growing by leaps and bounds in this country so your comment that we are “mariginalized” and “isolated” holds now water.
davidhart
October 30, 2012 at 5:49 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Name us even one prominent atheist writer or speaker who is on record as declaring that a particular piece of real-world evidence should be ignored (or presumed an illusion) because a published science textbook contradicts it, with details of what that piece of evidence is, and what the textbook is.
smrnda
October 30, 2012 at 6:30 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
As a non-believer who has pretty much always been a non-believer (and who studied psychology, including memory) if people were eyewitnesses to events, different eye-witnesses might get certain things wrong. It happens. “Yesterday I ran into Carol and she was wearing a red coat and a red hat.” Then a few days later I see Carol somewhere else and then I report that she wore the wrong clothes on the wrong day. Errors can creep into narratives over time through deliberate exaggeration or just from faulty memories – was it 300 or 800 killed? How many people died in WWII? I mean, I doubt anybody did a total inventory in either case.
So to me, errors like this aren’t that interesting – you might be able to ascribe them to the fact that memory isn’t 100%.
However, errors as to the moral judgments of the Bible or theological issues is harder to get around. Either people have seen god or not, and if Jesus is saying they hadn’t, this seems to be contradicting a pretty key moment in the Moses narrative, not some trivial fact likely to be forgotten.
Moral judgment errors are harder to get around, unless you end up taking so much of the text as ‘man made’ that you’re left with just a book like any other, or you have to do mental gymnastics to explain how the ‘he who is without sin cast the first stone’ Jesus is the same god who said rape victims should be married off to their rapists who should pay a fine to their fathers for damaged property.
Sines
October 30, 2012 at 6:43 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Brenda, would you not use different arguments to convince people of the truth of your beliefs (I’m guessing liberal christianity, forgive me if I’m incorrect) when addressing atheists or fundamentalists? I’m sure you would.
This is an attack on Biblical Inerrancy. Since you reject that notion yourself, you should agree with everything in it. You could take the ideas of this post and use them to attack the beliefs of fundamentalist christians, in an attempt to convince them to your more liberal christianity.
If NSC were debating more liberal christianity, he would have different arguments, I’m sure. I know I would. I wouldn’t stand there demanding you defend Biblical Inerrancy while you protest that you believe in no such thing. I would proceed to question you about what it is you do believe, and then ask you to justify it. I’ve heard enough liberal christians that I would most likely already have some counter-arguments ready, but I would tailor my responses to what you said.
Likewise, this response is tailored for the fundamentalist. The reason they are attacked the most, is because they’re the ones attacking in the first place. Most people don’t care about their christian friends, neighbors, and co-workers who don’t hurt anyone by their belief. If fundamentalists disappeared from the world, the ‘atheist movement’ would collapse, because most people don’t care about the moderates.
Sure, there are some people like me who would keep debating because they enjoy it, and there would also be some assholes who would continue to argue because they can’t stand anyone disagreeing with them, but the vast majority of atheists only care about religion so much as it affects them.
It is for that reason that most anti-religious statements address fundamentalists. Not because they believe all christians are like that, but because they are a major problem for society, and convincing them that their beliefs are untrue is one way to cease the damage they are doing.
This is not a straw man of Christianity as a whole. It is an accurate depiction of a specific kind of christian. One of which you find just as unjustified in their beliefs as we do, and one of which you may agree is bad for soceity as much as we do. If you wish to convince us that we are going ‘too far’ in the other direction, and to not through out the immaculately concieved baby with the baptismal water, then please, provide your arguments for why Christianity is still valid in the face of an errant Bible.
I would be more than glad to hear and discuss. There is even the possibility that one of us may change our minds. But if all you can say is “Not all Christians believe that!” then I’ll just shrug and say, “Well, yah. And?”
PhilM
October 30, 2012 at 8:22 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
NSC, I agree with most of the discrepancies that you listed, and I agree that some of them are more meaningful than a copying mistake (like “has anyone seen the face of god?”).
However, some really are errors on your understanding (though it would be a small few that fall into this catagory).
For example, numbers had a siginificant meaning to the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) audience. The number 7 meant that something was complete/whole/effective/perfect.
Other numbers such as “hundreds” and “thousands” were often used to have the general meaning of “a lot” or “a very large amount”. So when one author describes a large, complete army, they may simply use the number 700 and another author may use the number 7,000 to describe it. These are not a literal numbers. It is a context where the meaning of each number is identical.
jamessweet
October 30, 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
There is a fundamental (bah-dump) difference between “genuflecting” before an idea where those espousing the idea are in fact willing to back it up with evidence, vs. an idea where the evidence is always disappearing or being chalked up to “mysterious ways”, etc.
To put it another way: If you don’t understand theology, and you ask a priest, you get a lot of smoke and mirrors and pleas to just trust in clerical authority. If you don’t understand quantum mechanics, and you ask a physicist, you will probably get more explanation than you wanted.
Granted, I do find it frustrating when people are all “Yay science!” but then with their words they betray a fundamental misunderstanding of some of the very science they are championing. That is not a good thing, I agree. But to pretend that it’s on par with adherence to religious dogma… please. That’s just silly.
It’s like the difference between attempting to solve a math problem and coming up with the wrong answer vs. simply asserting that math doesn’t matter and making up whatever answer you want. Give ‘em credit for trying!
godlesspanther
October 30, 2012 at 8:39 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Brenda,
— Whoa! Whoa there, pony, you jumped many fences and and landed in a parking lot outside the Burger King!
There are fundamentalist Christians who do insist on taking that Bible literally word-for-word. If you are not one of them, then forget it. Nobody is talking about you.
Think about it, Brenda — is it possible to talk about Christians who embrace an extreme form of xtianity without being accused of labeling all xtians, as such? What is the alternative? Are you saying — don’t eve mention biblical literalists? Is that the only way to make you feel like you are not being accused of being one?
Again — if you do not embrace that form of xtianity — then what are you so bothered about?
This keeps coming up — mention Jack Chick and someone has to accuse me of labeling all xtians Jack Chick. Mention faith healers and someone has to demand an apology for labeling all xtians faith healer frauds.
If you aren’t one, then — forget about it.
jamessweet
October 30, 2012 at 8:41 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I agree that, if one thinks hard on the problem, it becomes clear that without biblical inerrancy, revealed truth becomes an epistemological quagmire. But revealed truth has always been an epistemological disaster, so I stand by my statement that you “haven’t lost all that much”.
To put it another way: There are no philosophical, logical, or evidential problems that apply to Christianity-without-Biblical-inerrancy that don’t apply to Christianity-with-Biblical-inerrancy. Philosophical, logical, and evidential problems abound with either variation, but you don’t really pick up any new ones when you discard Biblical inerrancy. So it’s a no-brainer.
Kevin K
October 30, 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Bullshit. Complete and utter nonsense.
There is not one science book that I idolize. Not one that I consider inerrant.
I make a living proving the science books wrong, by continuing to advance our knowledge beyond what was published last century, last decade, last year, last month.
A true scientist knows that every single science text book is already hopelessly out of date.
Your opinion is so far wrong that it’s not even wrong. It’s absurd.
jamessweet
October 30, 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I think, though, that this still undermines inerrancy. If a supposedly inerrant text uses “seven thousand” as a synonym for “a lot”, well, it’s not inerrant now, is it?
You can still plead inspired-but-not-inerrant (as many Christians do), but you can’t have inerrancy and read way precision numbers as rough estimates.
To be fair, however, this was not one of my favorite NSC videos, because I find that question a little boring. Biblical inerrancy is a logical non-starter, but to make the case against the Bible as an inspired text is a somewhat subtler (though even then, not that subtle) argument that relies more on an evidential case than a logical case.
Kevin K
October 30, 2012 at 8:48 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
What “difficult theological question”?
If you mean “what part of this book of myths actually happened,” that’s a pretty simple question.
The answer is “darn little of it, including the birth, life, and death of someone named ‘Jesus’.”
It’s all mythology, set in ancient Israel. Just like all the other ancient myths were set in a particular real time and place.
The more you look into ‘biblical’ archaeology, the less you’ll find is real.
Why, Hector Avalos even wrote a book about it. I suggest you read it before you bring more uninformed opinions.
Kevin K
October 30, 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Apologetics 101. When you can’t reconcile it literally, declare it to be symbolic or metaphorical.
Got it.
NakkiNyan
October 30, 2012 at 9:32 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
So basically the book does not apply to us today then, got it.
if what you say is correct and it means what you used as an example then either it is human made by people with an agenda or gods are inherently retarded.
Again, this is meant for Bible literalists not your general go to church on Sunday, and bone a prostitute on Monday, repent next Sunday Christian.
Enopoletus Harding
October 30, 2012 at 9:43 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
-The first part is somewhat true, though most Americans have always believed in Young Earth Creationism since the 18th century. Note, however, that the fundamentalism of today is not the fundamentalism of James Orr-it is a movement based far more on ignorance than a desire to defend one’s theology against new theologians. The second is utterly false (at least, for the U.S. of A), as Young Earth Creationism is believed in by 47% of Americans; the majority of American Christians.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 9:52 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“If you don’t understand theology, and you ask a priest, you get a lot of smoke and mirrors and pleas to just trust in clerical authority.”
Is that actually true? Have you ever honestly tried?
“Granted, I do find it frustrating when people are all “Yay science!” but then with their words they betray a fundamental misunderstanding of some of the very science they are championing.”
Thank you for validating my main point.
echidna
October 30, 2012 at 9:55 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
That’s the point. It may not be an important one to you, but the moment you say the numbers are not literal, you have undermined the notion of a literal reading of the bible.
People who take the bible literally exist. Even those who don’t believe they take it literally, because there is no consistent way of deciding what is literal and what isn’t, so they just feel free to toss out the bits they don’t like.
I think even the general “go to church on Sunday” can be a little confronted by just how inconsistent the bible is, though, if they are faced with it.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 10:02 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“Either the Bible has contradictions, was written by man, and is in context to it’s time, or the Bible is inerrant.”
Both can be true. Both “the Bible has contradictions” and “the Bible is the word of God” can be true. You and many others don’t appear to believe that is possible because you believe the only legitimate Bible or sacred text must be literally true.
This is clearly false because Biblical literalism is a recent modern response. Other traditions did not read it in that way.
“you don’t have a leg to stand on when you try to apply it to modern day issues like stem cell research”
Do you know this for a fact or do you only know what televangelists say and misinterpret their beliefs as being the only authentic belief any Christian can have? I would guess the latter.
Enopoletus Harding
October 30, 2012 at 10:05 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
-The Bible does not just contain myths, but history, poetry, fictional accounts of patriarchs and prophets, and quite a bit of prophecy.
-That position is possible, perhaps even plausible, but it is hardly close to certain. Fewer than twenty living scholars have seriously suggested the Historical Jesus™ did not exist (and that trademark symbol is deliberate-each scholar has his own version of the Historical Jesus™, each differing in at least one detail from another version).
-It’s not all mythology, neither is all of it set in ancient Israel. Plenty is set in Egypt, the Sinai, Babylonia, and Transjordan. Hardly all ancient myths were set in a real time or place-many took place in fictional times, and quite a few took place in fictional places.
-It’s not always a linear correlation.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 10:19 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Actually no. I highly doubt many theologians consider questions of historical fact to be “difficult”. I think most, except for fundamentalists of course, would say that whatever historians say happened is what happened and any discrepancies with the Bible are errors of the Biblical record.
Even if the above is incorrect you have not shown it is incorrect. All you or anyone else at least on this blog has done is to claim that all Christians must believe in a literal reading of the Bible and that it is the only valid way anyone can read it.
Your strawman is full of straw.
“It’s all mythology…”
Are you really so ignorant that you don’t know a great many theologians would agree with you? And yet they would consider themselves Christians (or Jews or… whatever) in good standing. You don’t think they are and that is what makes you a fundamentalist.
Have you ever actually talked to… say… a reformed Jewish Rabbi and done so without the gigantic chip on your shoulder? Why don’t you actually find out if the things you believe about people are true?
I don’t know. Maybe you’re just a coward who enjoys taking cheap shots at people from the relative safety of the internet. Yeah, you’re a big hero.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 10:23 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“Young Earth Creationism is believed in by 47% of Americans”
Not true. You are misreading those polls. They are ambiguously worded in such a way to get the results the pollsters wanted.
echidna
October 30, 2012 at 10:26 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Is it true that priests evade and bluff when asked theological questions? Of course it is, and yes, I’ve tried. In fact, the only preacher that I’ve questioned who didn’t evade was Ken Ham. Instead, he bulldozed his way through questions just insisting on his interpretation and allowing no other. It was actually a little scary, but helped my liberation from the mindset of trusting priests.
brenda
October 30, 2012 at 10:43 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“I’m guessing liberal christianity, forgive me if I’m incorrect”
I’m agnostic but yeah, I was raised ALC Lutheran. The church across the street where I live now is Congregational. I attend their discussion groups sometimes because it’s an interest of mine. Oh… and the adjunct pastor who leads them is a trans man. In fact almost ALL of the churches in the metro area are glbt friendly, yes, even the Catholic church.
Almost no one I meet in daily life believes the things you seem to think Christians believe. The version of Christianity you believe in is unrecognizable to the thousands of people all around me and millions more around the world.
I hear it is different in rural and suburban areas but they are not a real majority. Right now in the US rural states are over represented and so have more political power than they’d otherwise have. If we could succeed in getting a more accurate representation of political diversity in the US you would see their power and influence diminish greatly.
“Not because they believe all christians are like that, but because they are a major problem for society, and convincing them that their beliefs are untrue is one way to cease the damage they are doing.”
Is that working? Has the New Atheism been successful in garnering greater support and acceptance of it’s political agenda? I don’t think it has and I don’t think “being a dick” is likely to at any time in the future. Hence my objection to the tactics employed. They won’t work and never have worked in the past.
Enopoletus Harding
October 30, 2012 at 10:57 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
How? The belief in humans being created in the past ten thousand years in their present form by God encompasses all Young Earth Creationism and some Old Earth creationism and practically nothing more. Also, I slipped up in my first response to you; I meant “most American Christians have always believed in Young Earth Creationism since the 18th century”.
PhilM
October 30, 2012 at 11:05 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
It’s not just “my” declaration that it’s symbolic, and since I’m not a christian I’m certianly not an apologist. I’m speaking from the perspective of secular history here. If you take a course ancient literature you would find the same thing too.
I think it’s important for atheists to continue to be critical of our own arguments, so we can fine tune them and make them even better (or at least clearer) when necessary.
Rodney Nelson
October 30, 2012 at 11:17 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Brenda said:
Please show me where anyone on this blog has made that claim because I’m not seeing it.
Enopoletus Harding
October 30, 2012 at 11:21 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
-New Atheism’s only political agenda is secularism, which it has certainly not hindered, and has probably helped (though I am not sure to what extent). As for its social agenda, there has, indeed, been an increase in the number of atheists in the past six years by any measure.
-I tend to support the principle of reciprocity: calls to fuck off to trolls, reasoned dialogue with those who can engage in it and won’t whine about it later. Also, while dickish tactics may not persuade the person they are used against, they may well persuade outside observers.
Enopoletus Harding
October 30, 2012 at 11:24 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Darn. I should have used (a) gender-inclusive pronoun(s).
BradC
October 30, 2012 at 11:30 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
So, do you have a poll that you believe accurately reflects the beliefs of the American population on this question? What do you think is accurate, 40%? 25%? 10%? Less?
I think we all are aware that polls can be skewed by how questions are asked, but polls I’ve seen on this issue have been 1) by reputable polling organizations and 2) are fairly consistent on this question (in the 40-60% range).
Even if it was much less (say 10%), that is still a significant portion of the American population, and is therefore worthy of some discussion.
Nobody here is saying that *all* Christians believe this way, just that *some* Christians believe this way. This video (and the Noah one) are arguments against whatever proportion of Christians believe this way.
And as I said above, if you don’t, then this video isn’t aimed at you.
cag
October 30, 2012 at 11:33 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Why do we have to choose one as the correct answer? In most cases involving the bible, they are just flights of fancy, not answers.
Sines
October 30, 2012 at 11:33 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Except it is working. Polls have shown religious ‘nones’ are on the rise. Those who don’t associate with any religion. They may be ‘spiritual but not religious’, but they are mostly harmless. Now it’s possible that this growing number comes from liberal christians, and has taken no chunks out of fundamentalists believers, I suppose, but there is at least some reason to believe it is working.
Besides, NSC isn’t being a dick. He’s saying “You are wrong.” Some people can be a dick about being anti-religious, but NSC is guilty of only the occasional mean comment (and even if fundies are merely a loud minority, a bit of angry response is not unreasonable) and satire. Satire is long considered a great way to change hearts and minds. It’s not exactly polite, but when people hold absurd beliefs, it is not ‘rude’ to point out the absurdity, which is a primary goal of satire.
You seem just as interested in straw-manning as you accuse us of being. I don’t walk around thinking all christians are fundy loons. I live in New England. I’ve never met a fundy loon. I don’t think my friend, who goes to church at least once a week, is some kind of crazy biblical inerrantist.
If you are getting hate back, it’s only because you’re putting it out there first. NSC points out the absurdity of biblical inerrantism, and you bite back saying he’s making a straw man of all christians, when he is doing no such thing. You end up making the straw man, which is more than capable of inviting some angry responses back for yourself. If we’re ‘dicks’ it’s because you started it. I try to remain civil, but it can be hard when someone is straw-manning me (or someone whom I agree with) by accusing them of building straw men.
I think I may see where you’re coming from. I’m okay with abortion, but I despise the arguments of most people on my side of the aisle, who frequently engage in idiotic straw-manning of those against abortion, and who manage to always completely miss the point of the argument. So tell me. Where has NSC done this? Those who believe in inerrancy are not a small portion of the public of America. If they were, teaching creationism in schools wouldn’t be a serious threat.
If NSC can convince some people that inerrancy is unjustified, and move those fundamentalists to moderate christianity or non-belief, then some good has been done, as they will no longer feel the need to deny evolution or gay rights. That the arguments presented here don’t address moderate christianity, which you claim is mainstream christianity’, is irrelevant. The arguments provided here have nothing to do with moderate or liberal believers.
If you aren’t guilty of straw-manning NSC, then please show me where he said, or even implied, that biblical inerrancy was a claim of all christians, from Fred Phelps, to that Transman Priest. Because, as far as I can tell, he was just addressing those who actually hold the belief he was refuting.
If you cannot show me where he did such a thing, then you can apologize, and you and your claims will recieve much more respect from me. We all make mistakes, and showing that you can admit when you are wrong is the surest way to garner credibility for your beliefs with me.
If you can do neither, then I will end up convinced your beliefs hold just as much water as do those of biblical inerrantists.
echidna
October 30, 2012 at 11:53 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I don’t agree that “fine-tuning our argument” is helpful – mainly because fine-tuning implies there is a standard to fine-tune to.
NSC’s argument hit some nails square on the head, but not all of the nails. It’s hard to even imagine an argument that would convince all people of anything.
There is often a moment with Christians when they want to convince you of something, sometimes they deliver themselves to your door to do so. I find it is very effective to ask them questions about what they believe. Sooner or later (usually sooner) they will say something that contradicts something they said before. Ask them, very nicely, how they reconcile the apparent conflict. I don’t need to present an iron-clad fine-tuned argument – Christians are already capable of more cognitive dissonance than any argument that I could come up with could shake. I only ask them for their views, which they are normally very willing to give. And I keep asking questions.
The goal is to shake them of their belief that their views are consistent. The actual argument that does this varies from person to person.
nohellbelowus
October 31, 2012 at 1:40 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The delusion is so strong in these Christians, they probably think admitting simple transcription errors in their ancient book will result in an eternity of hellfire.
It’s therefore an easy choice for them, even if it means rejecting a solid argument they themselves would apply casually to EVERY other book ever written.
Don’t be afraid, Christians! Have courage. The longer you maintain your religious delusions, the longer the foxes will be guarding our henhouses.
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
October 31, 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Still bollocks. Even people who are keen about science which they deeply misunderstand don’t consider the books they misunderstand to be the final and unalterable truth. They still think that new discoveries can overturn older ones, even if they understand neither. Biblical inerrantists, both the minority who have some understanding of the text and the majority who wouldn’t pass Exegesis 101, all agree that the Bible is true and unalterable, and will remain so even if all the evidence in the world contradicts it.
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
October 31, 2012 at 10:06 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Try reading what you’re replying to rather than creating a strawman. The second option isn’t “the Bible is the word of God”, it’s “the Bible is inerrant”. “Word of God poorly transcribed and translated” falls firmly into the first option already given.
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
October 31, 2012 at 10:20 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Also, unlike most decent forum software, the WP comments threading imposes a depth limit, so active subthreads soon hit that limit and lead to new threads being created or chronological comments at the depth limit in an uneven and mixed fashion as decided by individual posters, making it more chaotic to read, not less than simple chronological comments. Furthermore, as noted above, finding new comments is a total pain when, unlike decent forum software, there’s no functionality for highlighting comments posted since your last visit.
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
October 31, 2012 at 10:27 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Except that to the inerrantist, the Bible is dictated verbatim by an onmniscient deity and handed down to us with that same deity’s intervention ensuring there have been no transcription or translation errors. Not only is God’s memory 100%, his knowledge of everything that has ever and will ever happen is 100% and his ability to ensure it’s all written down correctly is 100%. For those reasons, these simple and clear errors in factual detail are actually more damning to the inerrantist idea than more subtle and arguable differences in morality, which are easier to weasel out of using ideas of context.
NonStampCollector
October 31, 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
That’s true. The video just isn’t for those people. The inerrantists are pretty comment-happy on my channel though!
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
October 31, 2012 at 12:13 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Woot, NSC has turned the threading off! Of course, since he did it after I went and put a bunch of replies up, it now looks even more than usual like I’m a babbling imbecile, but it’s a small price to pay. Thanks!
NonStampCollector
October 31, 2012 at 12:14 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Yeah, the idea that the autographs were perfect, or inspired, but not the translations, falls on its face when you see how quickly they were corrupted. There are great letters from around 300CE from church leaders and critics complaining about how no two copies of the texts agree with each other. Stay tuned, they’ll be quoted in a video I’m writing.
And thanks for the feedback, I’m glad this sort of thing has an interested and even appreciative audience.
NonStampCollector
October 31, 2012 at 12:18 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Thanks FWTBC,
I did change that ‘nested’ setting the other day, but I just checked again after your comment, and I think I didn’t scroll down far enough to save all changes. It looks to be fixed now.
Glad to help re the images, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Man, you work hard. resPECT!
NonStampCollector
October 31, 2012 at 12:21 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Yeah, I’m not going to claim to know the cultural nuances of an ancient culture. But if what you’re saying is true, then I can’t trust what the words (or numerals) on the pages of the bible tell me. Simple as that. “It’s not literal…” Again, why don’t we hear that for bits of the bible that appear to us to be historically plausible, or simply ‘nice’?
NonStampCollector
October 31, 2012 at 12:24 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Sorry about that! I did try the other day, before posting this one actually, but it turns out I didn’t scroll far enough down for the ‘save all changes’ button. Fixed now, keep babbling. That’s what it’s all about.
eriktb
October 31, 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“So… basically you are saying you are a fundamentalist and that only a literal fundamentalist interpretation of a sacred text is the correct interpretation.”
No, that’s not being claimed. This post is being directed at Biblical literalists.
“Which tells us a lot about you and next to nothing about the text or the religion the text is based on. Fundamentalism, the belief that only a literal interpretation of the Bible is the authentic one, is a modernist reaction to the enlightenment. It is very new, rising in the early 20th century and not at all representative of Christianity.”
It’s representative of Christian literalists which is who this post addresses which has been brought up to multiple times. If you aren’t a literalist than this simply doesn’t apply to you.
“Fundamentalist atheism is as much a reaction against enlightenment values as is religious fundamentalism.
But, like all bigots, you take one extreme example as definitive of the whole. Again, this tells us a great deal about you and your reactionary beliefs and attitudes but hardly anything at all about those who are the subjects of your prejudice and bigotry.”
Are you a Biblical literalist? If no, then none of this post is directed toward you. What’s so hard for you to understand about that?
doubtthat
October 31, 2012 at 4:18 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Brenda:
“Indeed. I was raised a Lutheran. We were specifically taught that an inerrant or literal interpretation of the Bible is a heresy. It is the idolatry of the text.”
Well, you just lost. Once you’ve admitted that the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally, then you’ve opened the door to questioning everything. Why believe some parts are accurate and others aren’t? How are you making that decision.
Of course, the answer is that like those of us freed from the stupidity of believing ancient fairy tales, you go through the Bible analyzing it with your 21st century morality (developed, interestingly, through centuries of people fighting against the teachings in the…Bible), and you choose those teachings that are compatible with modernity.
Should we take all the stuff about slavery literally? No…but then we need to take all the stuff about homosexuality literally.
Once you’ve stepped away from the Bible’s inerrancy, you’ve completely eliminated its worth. If that bullshit isn’t literally true, what value does it have? It’s just a particularly bad book of fairy tales.
doubtthat
October 31, 2012 at 4:25 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@brenda:
“Almost no one I meet in daily life believes the things you seem to think Christians believe. The version of Christianity you believe in is unrecognizable to the thousands of people all around me and millions more around the world.”
I grew up in Bible-belt America. I would conservatively estimate that 80% of my high school (2000 people) claimed to believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Of course, no one actually believes that shit literally, which is why they wear blended cloth and such, but they saw that sort of hypocrisy as the type of personal failing that necessitated salvation from Christ.
And beyond the fact that they actually did believe these things in exactly the way the video describes, they used that idiotic belief to push to eliminate the teaching of evolution in schools (which they succeeded in doing for a short period during my high school career), they push to eliminate a wide range of women’s rights most notably those involving reproduction; they don’t believe global warming is an issue because God promised Noah that he wouldn’t fuck everything up again–they really, honestly, truly believe that happened.
So, as a second issue we can argue with folks like you who don’t take the Bible literally. That was the direction of my first post, but you are accusing the author of this blog of essentially creating a straw man. This is inaccurate. He is really dealing with a rather large population of people. The sorts of people that clap when Todd Akin begins talking about “legitimate rape,” for example.
You are the one who is off-topic. Just because the video isn’t directed at your particular brad of Jesus-worship does not mean that it isn’t aimed at something specific, and, at least in the United States, the folks who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible are a potent political force.
carovee
October 31, 2012 at 5:36 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I have nothing a substance to say on the post. I just wanted to say I love your videos and I’m glad FtB brought you on board.
berior
October 31, 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I wonder, has anyone ever tried to justify the bible by using this particular excuse.
The bible story exist like the schrodinger cat. Both version are true at the same time and differ only when observed (or read about).
Given the obsession of some for Quantum (as opposed to real quantum physic). I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.
jaybee
October 31, 2012 at 6:45 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Brenda, here is an analogy I use when addressing the issue about people trusting science that they themselves don’t understand (you said worship, but that is so over the top as to be laughable).
Due to limitations of time, or intelligence, we can’t all know everything there is to know about how accounting is done in stock funds where we might wish to entrust our investment.
Say the prospectus for one fund says: “Trust us; we’re really good.” Say the other has pages of explanation for their investment strategy, historical trends, past performance, and at any time I can go online and confirm my account status. Even though I’m not qualified to evaluate the accounting practices of the second company, I’m far more likely to believe them than the first company.
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, nobody worships science. Everything is provisional and subject to revision. The simple fact is that the scientific method continues to produce results, whereas faith has produced nothing but victims.
rob
October 31, 2012 at 7:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I’m with doubtthat @#71; if you’re honest, once you admit that the entire bible isn’t literally true, you’re left with the hard reality that there’s no objective way to know which parts are true and which aren’t. All you can do is guess. And once you realize that, the whole house of cards falls down. So it’s no wonder that brenda is upset. The people who say this isn’t aimed at her are wrong; if she accepts the logical conclusion that the bible isn’t believable, then she can no longer pretend it means anything to be a christian.
And this is just funny:
Yeah right. “The polls don’t say what I want them to, so the polls are wrong.” It’s the same thing conservatives are saying about the election.
carlie
November 1, 2012 at 12:52 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I meet almost no Latvians in my daily life, therefore they don’t exist and you’ve made them up.
And it is more than recognizable to millions of other Christians. In fact, if you go by the Wikipedia numbers, the top denominations are Catholics and Southern Baptists. Those are both well-known for being biblical literalists.
Nice bit of classicism and flyover-countryism you’ve got there. See above for actual numbers.
Ichthyic
November 1, 2012 at 2:08 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Other numbers such as “hundreds” and “thousands” were often used to have the general meaning of “a lot” or “a very large amount”. So when one author describes a large, complete army, they may simply use the number 700 and another author may use the number 7,000 to describe it
great Phil.
you’ve now possibly accounted for 1% of the noted contradictions.
only 99% to go.
NonStampCollector
November 1, 2012 at 2:41 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Not really, though.
I’m unsure of Phil’s intentions, I didn’t catch whether he’s excusing the contradiction or explaining the theists’ justifications for excusing it.
Either way, though, it has to fall back to “No, it’s not a contradiction, because the words as they are printed on the page don’t have the meaning associated with those words in every other example of their use elsewhere in all printed and spoken language.”
ie, 700 doesn’t mean the integer between 699 and 701.
However, when the bible says that Jesus had 12 disciples, that “12″ is situated exactly between the integers 11 and 13.
When he was in the desert for forty days, it means longer than 39 days but not quite as long as 41.
I call bullshit on that excuse. I think still 100% of the noted contradictions that are yet to be accounted for.
samsaptaka
November 1, 2012 at 3:28 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I once had a long conversation on a board with a Biblical inerrantist who actually claimed that the “minor discrepancies” in the Bible were explained by copying errors and the well-known problems with eyewitness accounts. But he couldn’t see the contradiction between that stance and inerrancy. Go figure. Then again, he finished a conversation that started with his claiming to be a Christian whose belief rested on reason by telling me that all my objections were simply me “putting up barriers to faith.”
kestrel
November 1, 2012 at 3:41 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Biblical literalists exist, and in great numbers… sorry, Brenda. Sounds like you live in a very progressive community, good for you! Nevertheless biblical literalists exist even if you can’t see them.
As a child I was told over and over by religious leaders that the bible was the inerrant word of god… that god would not allow the bible to become impure or full of mistakes. When I asked questions, I got shouted at. I guess you are not allowed to ask questions in religion, like you are in science. In fact you are actually encouraged to ask questions in science. I finally had to come down on the side of science. In science, you are allowed to learn and then change your mind when you have better information. You are not allowed to do that in any of the religions I tried (about half a dozen different ones).
To NSC, what a great post, I really enjoyed it.
Derek Anthony McDow
November 1, 2012 at 5:04 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I’m not sure if you actually read through all your comments but after looking at a few, I think I might just read them for myself.
I’ve wanted to say “thank you” for a long, long, LOOOOOOONG time. I think I started watching your hokey little 2D sketch skit vids in late ’08. I was a seminary schooled, bible teaching, gospel preaching, (reformed) evangelical Christian for 10 years. Between ’06 and ’08 I underwent a painstaking and arduous trek through a pent-up and bursting valley of religious doubt and disbelief. Since then, I’ve passed “through the valley of the shadow of…” doubt and am in the process of becoming “whole” on the other side. I am a staunch de-facto atheist and have been for 3 years and I want to thank you for significantly contributing to my personal “journey”. I have sincerely appreciated your comedic benefaction to my painful de-conversion process. I want you to know that I am in deep debt to you, sir.
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
November 1, 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
carlie @77: Southern Baptists are generally literalists, but Catholics are not. They don’t venerate the book, their central dogma is salvation through faith and confession of sins.
carlie
November 1, 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Thanks for the correction, Marcus. I was misinformed on that, then. I thought Jesuits were the only sect of Catholicism that admitted errancy. But still, Brenda, try walking around anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line and not hit a Southern Baptist while swinging the proverbial dead cat. And that includes metro areas, not just rural.
echidna
November 1, 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Carlie,
I think it’s probably fair to say that Catholics are authoritarian rather than biblical literalists. But even biblical literalists are more authoritarian than biblical literalists.
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
November 1, 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Catholics think the bible is true, but sometimes in the manner of a poem or parable rather than the literal truth. The official line on evolution, for example, is that it’s true but had some nudges from God in creating humanity, and there’s some waffle about ensoulment thrown in.
NonStampCollector
November 1, 2012 at 2:20 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@Echidna @85,
That’s so deep that my head imploded.
3D
November 1, 2012 at 2:50 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
> I challenge any believer reading this
> to give me an explanation of any of these
> contradictions that is better, more
> fulfilling, or more all-encompassing than
> “A person wrote it down wrong.”
I am not a believer, but I do have a better explanation: the whole thing is fan fiction, and the people writing it were doing it years apart and not collaborating with each other. If there *weren’t* a zillion contradictions, it would be a miracle.
IslandBrewer
November 1, 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@3D @88
That’s the trouble with fan fiction. No one policing the writing for non canonical storylines.
IslandBrewer
November 1, 2012 at 3:24 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Actually, now I want to write my own gospel! Jesus and Ted go back in time, and fight an evil space robot that can change into a mechanical dinosaur. I’ll get Mel Gibson and Michael Bey to tag-team the screen version!
IslandBrewer
November 1, 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
… and the robot-dinosaur is a tool for the gay agenda. And Ted turns out to be Einstein.
NonStampCollector
November 1, 2012 at 4:59 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Derek, thank you very much indeed for your message – it is good to know that sometimes the videos can and do achieve the greatest purpose I could have for them.
I have also been through the valley of the shadow of … doubt and a crisis of faith; it isn’t fun. I felt like every day I was getting closer and closer to breaking a solemn, life-long promise with the person who had given His life for me, … etc etc…
Any part I had in your experience, and any thanks for that, I deflect onto those whose ideas I heard, processed, and recycled into cartoon form, whoever they are: the ‘community’ at large I guess.
No debt incurred, I love every stage of making those videos, and re-presenting the ideas that strike me so deeply when I hear and read them, or, on the odd occasion, when they occur to me. NSC.
josephstricklin
November 1, 2012 at 5:41 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
If taken in the proper context, 1+1=75.682, people who say it equals 2 are not getting the real meaning of 1=1′s importance and the real message trying to be conveyed. I mean 75.682 makes so much sense to me and helps me feel good about where I am going in life and that is what’s most important.
doubtthat
November 1, 2012 at 7:09 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)@86
“Catholics think the bible is true, but sometimes in the manner of a poem or parable rather than the literal truth. The official line on evolution, for example, is that it’s true but had some nudges from God in creating humanity, and there’s some waffle about ensoulment thrown in.”
NSC has been good about pointing this out, but the problem is that you can’t have the view that it’s all poetry when someone points out the silly stuff or the contradictions, then say, “no condoms in Africa because that’s the will of God.”
Either it’s poetry, in which case a religious person needs to justify their moral stance in exactly the same way a non-religious person does, or you can use the Bible as the WORD OF GOD, but then you need to explain why it’s written so incoherently.
It’s the convenient waffling that drives us crazy. Why is it that the parts about killing kids for being rude to their parents is just a “poetry rule” that we can ignore, but gays can’t marry because another rule from the same part of the same book is clearly the unambiguous word of god?
Daniel Brookshier
November 1, 2012 at 9:18 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Amazing the people that comment that just don’t get it.
I wrote the book, Boys Book of Armageddon, which is satire of the world’s ultimate destruction with non denominational bent (I bash and promote religion and science – often in the same sentence). As a book of outright blasphemy and humor, folks still comment on how I am somehow bashing a specific religion – though Christians have been busy in the last 2,000 years to create targets for a brunt of the book’s satire.
I get comments that hate it for the exposure of contradiction or love it because they think the humor is all for the Republican right agenda (I both bash global warming and love its apocalyptic effects, so they see only where the text agrees with their beliefs).
Someday… Maybe… Pray (sic) for enforced education in Critical Thinking.
danielbrookshier
November 1, 2012 at 9:25 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Forgot to say, love that you are doing a blog!
Here is my blog Boys Bookof Armageddon at Blogspot
echidna
November 1, 2012 at 10:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
NSC@87, I could have resolved the ambiguity, and prevented heads imploding, if I’d added the word in the square brackets:
But it was more fun the other way, no?
Marcus Hill (mysterious and nefarious)
November 2, 2012 at 10:16 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Islandbrewer @89:
Actually, the Council of Nicea (among others) did exactly that. Which is why the Bible reads like a collection of fan fiction edited by a committee who couldn’t even agree about how many gods there are.
doubtthat@94: I wasn’t defending Catholics, just pointing out they’re not biblical literalists. It pays to criticise each religion’s actual faults, not attribute to it the faults of other religions, or we come across as not understanding what we’re criticising.
foo
November 2, 2012 at 6:29 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Here’s an idea for a new video: comparing the Ten Commandments with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It would go something like this:
GOD is asking the opinion of the ANGEL about some ideas he had, to put some order in the world — after all, human beings wouldn’t ever be able to come up with morality without GOD, right?
—
GOD: So, my first commandment is: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
ANGEL: I don’t know… why don’t we start with something like: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…”
GOD: What?
ANGEL: “…They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
GOD: Freedom? Equality? Reason? That makes no sense!
(They discuss. God scraps that.)
GOD: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.”
ANGEL: Why is that?
GOD: I hate carved images!
ANGEL: Why not… “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion…”
GOD: Wait a moment!
ANGEL: “…political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
GOD: Wait a moment!
ANGEL: Yes?
GOD: You want give people freedom of religion?
ANGEL: Yes, but…
GOD: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(They discuss. God scraps that.)
GOD: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”
ANGEL: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
GOD: What?
ANGEL: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”
GOD: No slavery? Come’on!!!
ANGEL: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
GOD: Are you crazy???
ANGEL: “Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.”
GOD: I am the law!!!
ANGEL: “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.”
ANGEL: “Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals”
ANGEL: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”
(…)
ANGEL: “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.”
ANGEL: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
ANGEL: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
—
If we compare each item of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the Words of God, we’ll notice two things:
1) The declaration made by humans is much better than the one made by God
2) Many of God words and actions go directly against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
NonStampCollector
November 3, 2012 at 8:20 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
foo@99,
You know you’re pretty much describing my Ten Commandments video, right?
I’ve got it embedded down the right side of the blog page.
NonStampCollector
November 3, 2012 at 8:22 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@echidna
Indeed it was.
No One
November 3, 2012 at 1:00 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Romney speaks “candidly” about his religion:
foo
November 3, 2012 at 5:00 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@NonStampCollector,
I hadn’t seen that… now I have, yes, it’s pretty much the same subject.
Perhaps you could use this as a prequel for the 10 commandments video? Where Gabriel tells God about the future Declaration of Human Rights… “freedom of religion”, “no slavery”, “equal rights”, “freedom of opinion”, etc.
foo
November 3, 2012 at 10:03 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
BTW… here’s a small contribution:
http://oi47.tinypic.com/2jb15hz.jpg
(Feel free to use this image… let me know if you’d like to see an animated version)
Tony–Queer Duck Overlord of The Bronze–
November 4, 2012 at 4:30 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
brenda @19:
“fundamentalist atheism” is every bit as stupid a phrase as “militant atheist”.
Please note the words theological and doctrine.
Atheism is lack of belief in a deity. That’s it. I want to make sure we understand some basic terminology here. There isn’t a belief system because atheism is a NON belief, so there is no doctrine. Fundamentalist atheism doesn’t exist.
Please explain how NSC is a bigot.
Throughout the OP, he consistently speaks about his critics. Not large swaths of believers.
So, when you try to explain how he’s a bigot, please explain what group he’s bigoted against. Then I’ll need you to document how he treats or regards members of this group with hatred and intolerance. Please remember than hating an idea or being intolerant of an idea is not bigotry.
I find much of the crap in the bible to be intolerant, sexist, homphobic, misogynistic and more. Thus I am justified in saying that I *hate* these ideas. That doesn’t make me a bigot.
Marginalization? Where do you get that from? How would you know NSC has been marginalized? Unless you have proof to back that up, this sounds more like projection on your part.
As for isolation, in case you haven’t noticed, NSC is a blogger at FreeThoughtBlogs. I hardly think he’s isolated.
Finally, what’s so extremist about trying to make sense out of your nonsensical holy book? Theists have been doing it for millenia. If atheists attempt to make sense of the bible by reading it, somehow *that’s* extremist? Or is it the fact that NSC comes to different conclusions than believers?
Tony–Queer Duck Overlord of The Bronze–
November 4, 2012 at 4:45 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
brenda:
So religion hasn’t been used to describe the motion of heavenly bodies?
Religion hasn’t been used to explain how the cosmos was formed?
Religion hasn’t been used to explain how natural disasters occur?
Religion hasn’t been used to explain diseases?
Religion hasn’t been used to explain the creation of humanity?
You really need to read up on your holy bookS (yes, plural. There are a whole lot of religions out there and a great many of them have much to say about how they think the world works) if you think religion doesn’t “try to be science”.
@23:
Those telepathic powers of yours are staggering.
Do you even *know* most atheists?
If not, then how are you even qualified to make any statement regarding what “most” atheists believe?
How many atheists do you even know?
Are you reading from prepared material?
****
NakkiNyan @40:
As someone who has become increasingly aware of the impact words and phrases can have on a minority group, I cringe every time I see someone use the word “retarded” as you have done here. An individual who is mentally disabled is not broken. There is nothing bad or wrong about them. When “retard” is used as a pejorative, it carries the implication that there is something wrong with being mentally retarded, which can have an impact on those who actually are mentally disabled. Please keep that in mind in the future when you use ableist slurs like this.
mikmik
November 4, 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Brenda is a troll. She passes judgements and assumptions but never gives examples or any relevant evidence to support her prejudiced views.
Eh whut? What the fuck is fundamental atheism? There is no such thing. The only fundamental tenet of atheism is that atheists do not believe in gods or higher powers. Period. You don’t make a fucking bit is sense. Furthermore, atheism is based on evidence and logic, for fuck’s sake, which is enlightenment values.
Who the fuck is us? You are the one generalizing from a specific occurence, and one you purposely misinterpret at that. There are so many logical fallacies in your disingenuous verbal sewage that I seriously doubt your ability to be rational, is not sane.
What the fuck are you talking about? Exposing bullshit is extremism now? You are fucked right up. You don’t make any sense, or display any evidence of understanding the definitions of plain english words that you use.
Isolation and marginalism? You mean that atheists are the fastest growing group in the realm of religious belief?
Blame others for what plight? Not only are your conclusions non-sequiturs, you then use this as a premise in your next conclusion.
You are an exercise in projection and hypocrisy. You say the exact same shit every time I’ve seen you comment, and I think you are nothing but a bot, or some sucker being paid to cut and paste generic remarks from a script. You repeat the same memes and phrasing that are obviously so general that you could be blabbering about anything.
I’ve, and many others, have called your bullshit. You must be training by reading CARM: Cut and Paste Information
LOL, they have a section on addressing Bible Difficulties which starts with http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy
Tomas, doubter at large
November 5, 2012 at 4:11 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
” yet not even the most liberal Christians are entirely comfortable going there.”
As someone who is a fairly liberal Christian –liberal enough to read Pharygula for shits and giggles– I think this quote is either dishonest or misinformed. Granted, there may be a third option, but none comes to mind at the moment. This is my first time posting on FTB, and I can’t promise you immediate responses. Nevertheless, your statement really rubbed me the wrong way, and I feel rather impelled to comment.
From my experience working in a church and in a college, every liberal Christian I have ever encountered, or read or worked with, is completely comfortable about the human errancy in scripture. Hell, they would even say that the texts have a 1st century cultural and gender bias that isn’t applicable in today’s society. There is even a whole method for investigating this in scripture: Hermenutics of Suspision.
Now, whether or not scripture has contradictions is one argument, but for you to claim that, “not even the most Liberal Christians are entirely comfortable going there” is empirically wrong. Read anything out of the Jesus Seminar to see how more than comfortable Liberal Christians are about scripture’s fallibility. Caveat: the Wikipedia page on the Jesus Seminar is somewhat skewed against them. If you want a tangible author, try John Dominic Crossan, for starters.
Other than this one point, I rather enjoyed your post. It’s blatantly observeable, there are contradictions in Scripture.
BEHOLDERGUARD
November 5, 2012 at 3:13 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Lol man do not listen to all these pathetic Christians; your video is AWESOME, and the contradictions are exactly that: CONTRADICTIONS!!! Keep up the good work!!!
mikmik
November 5, 2012 at 10:21 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Fa-a-a-a-ck! I just remembered telling a devout counselor a few years back that the bible contained contradictions and vulgarity, and that most translations seem to try to tone it down. He said that every translation is the literal word of God, and then for some reason he added that men only have thirteen ribs.
I said, “no they don’t…” but before I could say more, he explained that yes we do, just count them and you’ll see!!
I mean, when all you have to do is feel your sides a bit to know the truth, some apparently rational people are so far out of touch with reality it scares me. It’s one thing to do a reality check once in a while, but when it is so specific and concrete that the results come back ‘you just counted 14, counselor’ and he says ‘count ‘em, there’s thirteen,’ with all honesty at his disposal, I marvel at the depth of brainwashing that occurs in some people.
How in the world can someone like that pass grade one arithmetic, let alone high school math?
jb
November 6, 2012 at 1:02 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
so here is my question
how do they think the bible was written (literaly, on the paper)? if not by men, who, just maybe, made a mistake in writing it down?
do they think god *literally* put pen to paper?
NonStampCollector
November 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Thanks Tomas @108
Allow me to clarify.
When I say “… where it ultimately leads”, I’m talking about where it ***I*** think it leads, or where all the dots lead ME. That is, towards an acknowledgement that these texts are not only man-made, but ENTIRELY man made. Not even slightly divinely inspired.
They’re full of stories of magic – and given the fallability we see in the text, there is really no reason to accept those incredible (literally) reports as being factual.
So where it leads ME to, is that Jesus never performed miraculous acts. He never miraculously fed thousands of people, walked on water, or healed or brought anyone back to life. He wasn’t the son of any invisible deity. He was no more or less human than the guy who drove my bus yesterday.
Given what we know about these texts, there’s no reason to think the claims of magical powers and divine origin are anything more than blown-up exaggerations – the result of decade after decade of word of mouth.
Certainly, there is no reason to trust that he himself came back to life.
Even if were were dealing with the most accurate writing, with original autographs – these claims would demand the strictest scrutiny. Instead what we’re dealing with is manuscripts produced after 40-80 years of hearsay, copied predominantly by amateurs for the first few centuries, to the consternation of contemporary scholars such as Origen and Celsus, leaving us with over 5,000 manuscripts in Greek alone, no two of which are identical.
Yes, I know there are “Christians” who don’t dispute there being contradictions. There are “Christians” who don’t accept that Jesus was a manifestation of God. There are “Christians” who are cool with abortion, homosexuality, divorce… I mean, I know that not all Christians are Southern Baptists. In my years of being in this debate, I’ve seen that there are about as many ways to be a Christian as there are people being one.
So – if a line of inquiry that leads us towards a conclusion that these texts are simply not worth trusting when it comes to extraordinary supernatural claims, then why believe anything more than that Jesus was some 1st century rabble-rouser who managed to attract a following by saying…. well who knows what, really, if we’re really honest about it? I for one wouldn’t trust 50 year-old hearsay about anyone else – not to the point of identifying as the person’s ‘follower’, anyway.
But, if you’re happy to go there, then I fully retract my statement.
Tomas, doubter at large
November 6, 2012 at 2:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Nonstampcollector@112
You’re welcome!
Have you read Domick Crossan, or even Hans Kung? Kung, a Christian, denies the physical resurrection of Christ. Crossan, a Christian, denies miracles. For instance, Crossan would argue that the multiplication of the loaves was not a miracle, but that people brought their own food and were compelled to share. Also, both would argue that there was a Jesus of history and a Christ of faith. And that the Christ of faith, with all the miracles and son of God overtones was imposed on this Palestinian Jew who roused up enough trouble to be sentenced to death. They deny the ressurrection, they deny the miracles, and yet they still call themselves Christian.
You ask me if I go there. That is a bit of a red herring, because my point isn’t whether I go there, my point is that there are Liberal Christians who do in fact go to the extreme’s you mention. I’ve given you a few of their terms (Hermenuetics of Suspision, Jesus of History, Christ of Faith). I’ve given you two names of leading scholars in this area (John Dominic Crossan, Hans Kung). And I’ve given you the program under which many gather and try to understand what it means to be Christian with a secularly sceptical eye (the Jesus Seminar.)
Just do the research and be informed.
NonStampCollector
November 6, 2012 at 11:35 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@Tomas,
OK back up. I just said : “Yes, I know there are “Christians” who don’t dispute there being contradictions. There are “Christians” who don’t accept that Jesus was a manifestation of God. ” and then you go on to tell me that exactly, but with the tone of an admonishment?
You said “They deny the ressurrection, they deny the miracles, and yet they still call themselves Christian.”. Yes. Exactly. I know that. That’s why I wrote that above, and “I’ve seen that there are about as many ways to be a Christian as there are people being one.”
So please, knock off the “Just do the research and be informed” vibe, and read what I’ve written rather than apparently skip it and teach it back to me. I went to the effort of making myself clear, and instead of finding common ground you seem to be more concerned with maintaining the line that I’m uninformed despite my writing something that we agree on.
Tomas, doubter at large
November 7, 2012 at 12:12 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Nonstampcollector,
My apologies. I guess I didn’t see that we had agreed.
godhatesyeast
November 8, 2012 at 6:05 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
PALPATINE’S BEHIND IT ALL
ericarichardson
November 9, 2012 at 4:29 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
excellent points. my hubby & i recently had a conversation with our christain sibs, as to why we are no longer christians. We walked through the illogical points in the bible, the twisted-subjective morals, the flat out provable untruths, massive historical and geographical errors, and the contradictions. to our surprise, there was acceptance of what we believe, or rather, don’t believe. i still wonder though, why is it so easy for us humans to put logic on the shelf, and just “believe”. especially, when its in bs that we don’t need to live happy, well adjusted lives.
JesusIsMyHomeboy
November 10, 2012 at 8:14 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Two words: Quantum superposition
mikmik
November 10, 2012 at 9:26 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
JesusIsMyHomeboy, that’s a good one!
ericarichardson
November 11, 2012 at 5:03 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
LOL..Wow, so the bible exists in all states simultaneously…my brain can’t contain that idea. Which may mean that idea IS God..New Religion!! Please give a name to the God of Quantum Superposition so I can know who to pray to.
Marcus Ranum
November 15, 2012 at 3:28 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Please give a name to the God of Quantum Superposition so I can know who to pray to.
I’d say Heisenberg, but I’m uncertain.
mikmik
November 15, 2012 at 5:12 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I think He is probably named ‘Dicemaster’ aka ‘The Holy Roller’ with a .14 probability His name is ‘The Uncertainty’ at any given moment of prayer.
Although I’m not too sure about that.
A typical prayer might be: Oh great Collapser(.28 of the time), I more than likely pray for my unworthy wave function to be collapsed to the state of just having won the lottery. Upon receipt of this prayer, may your Holiness actualize as Benevolent.
For instance, for a lottery of 6 out of 49 numbers, He will collapse your pilot function as THE winner, over one in fourteen million times you pray! Only He knows what state you will be in when the numbers are picked, yet there is a 1:14,000,000 chance your prayer will change the mind of His Eternally Collapsedness.
mikmik
November 15, 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Drat, I hate being actualized to what I thinks is a discontinuous mindset.
HemlockStew
December 2, 2012 at 4:54 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“I invite any believer to explain to me why a contortionist explanation featuring some magical behind-the-scnese mathematics or invisible narrative ‘glue’ is better than “Someone made a mistake”.”
Can you please clarify for me what “behind-the-scnese” means? As for right now, it sounds to me like the “someone made a mistake” option is the better one.
HemlockStew
December 2, 2012 at 5:02 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Oh, and P.S., you spelled completely “competely”, and been “ben”… you might want to correct those.
tomas, doubter at large
December 2, 2012 at 2:03 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Hem 124
I’ll bite; however, I find your question to be a bit obtuse. Could you please concisely rephrase it?
Oh, and P.S., you misspelled the word, “scenes.”
HemlockStew
December 2, 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Tomas 126
If you read the article, it was Non-Stamp who misspelled “scenes”. The point of my comment was just to poke fun of the fact that Non-Stamp dropped the ball on reviewing this article before it was published.
tomas, doubter at large
December 2, 2012 at 6:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Humor noted! I guess the email format is a bit foreign to me. Perhaps, I should reread the comments thread before posting –just to be sure. I thought you were the purveyor of the obtuse question. Sorry.
Cheers, and happy spelling.
HemlockStew
December 2, 2012 at 9:31 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I suppose it would have been more clear what if I used blockquotes.
Robert Price
December 17, 2012 at 4:26 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I only just got why they are Craig and Ken – more than a year after I first watched the video.
CreatedbyGod
February 9, 2013 at 5:29 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Killing 800, and in 1Chron, it says he killed 300, but it doesn’t tell us that after that he didn’t kill 500. So it might be that he killed 300 and after he killed 500.
mikmik
February 10, 2013 at 8:24 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Oh, yeah, that happens all the time, even nowadays. Like, do you remember all the news channels that reported that just one tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed on 9/11, and that was all? So that it might be that one Tower collapsed, and then after, a second tower collapsed, but they didn’t mention it? They didn’t say it didn’t collapse.
Didn’t think so.
That would be perfect evidence that the news station that reported it that way was so unreliable, it was ridiculous. You think that 1chron was some kind of play-by-play account written in real time, when the reporter’s chisel broke, and he had to run out and get a new one, and he missed the killing of the 5 hundred.
You must be friend’s with the guy who told me we all had 13 ribs. Or is that you, yourself? Lyle? Are you CreatedbyGod? How you doing, man! How about that iraq war, eh? 3 U.S. soldiers got killed. Isn’t that wicked?