Yep. Prove that Zeus isn’t the King of the Gods, using only the myths which claim he’s the King of the Gods.
If you can’t do that, accept that Bulfinch’s Mythology is the Word of the Gods.
I will also not address any contradictions in the myths because unless you are willing to accept, sans proof, that Bulfinch’s is the Word of the Gods, there’s really no point in me even pretending to use basic logic.
Only if you’ve decided that circular reasoning is okay and a book can be its own proof, and that one of countless myth systems is the Real True Word of Og? Only then can we have a discussion. It’s much easier to have a discussion if you’ve already accepted the conclusion on faith and don’t require pesky proof or logical coherence.
“Prove the Bible wrong” is kind of a misstatement of what intenal criticism can do. Much of it can certainly be proven to be ahistorical with external evidence, but if you want to confine things to internal evidence, contradictions abound.
Here’s a few easy questions for you:
[ul][li]Did God make animals first or people first?[/li][li]How many of each animal did Noah take on the ark?[/li][li]How did Judas die?[/li][li]Was Jesus born before or after the death of Herod the Great?[/li][li]What were Jesus’ last words on the cross?[/li][li]Who was the first person to see Jesus after the resurrection?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
[list][li]In Genesis chapter one, the spiritual creation, God created man last. In chapter 2 God creates man first and then creates the animals.[/li][li] Two of each kind… not species.[/li][li]He hung himself and fell off a cliff. (I’m aware of this “contradiction”)[/li][li]Before.[/li][li]“It is Finished”[/li]His mother.
In other words, you don’t want to put up an argument that someone else will blow apart. You want THEM to go looking for one. No doubt so you can just say “Oh, no that’s not the argument I was talking about” when they pick apart whatever they find.
This is like saying “I’m black and I hate white people because they beat my ancestors and made them slaves”. Let’s not forget that it was also a white man who abolished slavery.
I haven’t persecuted any Jew. I don’t blame the Jews for killing Jesus. You know that I believe Jesus gave His own life… no one took it. You cannot hate me for being a Christian based off your argument because I know that, as a Christian, that post doesn’t describe the way I have acted or the way I feel towards your people.
This is an interesting point you bring up… The book of Mormon has this to say about the Bible… “…for behold, the have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have the taken away. And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord. that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men”–I Nephi 13:26-27.
It is basically saying the most simple and understandable things have been taken out of the Bible by evil men for the purpose of mind control.
No. I don’t want to argue because I know that the one who posted those contradictions has no desire in finding the answers because he/she already has made up their mind about those contradictions. Those contradictions are enough for that person to be satisfied with believing the Bible is full of error, so it can’t possibly be true. I’m well aware of the popular contradictions in the Bible… I Googled the answers to some of them and found logical explanations. Even if there were no logical explanations I wouldn’t refute it as the Word of God… I have even admitted that I believe there are errors in the Bible… but they are there because of evil men with a desire for things that aren’t godly.
[ul][li]In Genesis chapter one, the spiritual creation, God created man last. In chapter 2 God creates man first and then creates the animals.[/li][li] Two of each kind… not species.[/li][li]He hung himself and fell off a cliff. (I’m aware of this “contradiction”)[/li][li]Before.[/li][li]“It is Finished”[/li][li]His mother.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
YET, gotta love irony. The Master posted this classic articleyesterday.
Lucanus, please read and reflect (maybe we should just start a new post for this).
Please note none of my cites are from religious sources or atheistic sources.****
As far as you coming directly from the bloodline of Adam & Eve, doesn’t that mean your ancestors are inbred through incest? You did say a while back (maybe 542 pages ago) that incest was necessary to procreate…
Yeah, except there’s no actual evidence that the bible has been corrupted. The oldest copy of the OT we have is contained in the dead sea scrolls and it is almost exactly the same as the OT we have now.
There’s a few minor differences but none of these support the mormon (or muslim) position. No copies of an altered OT have ever been found. So the only “evidence” for an altered OT is what it says in the book of mormon (or in islam). That’s not evidence because they were both written down long after the fact.
Likewise with the NT. There are the apocryphal gospels but they were written long after the NT. The oldest copy of the NT is the same as the one we have now. No altered version has come to light. So again - no evidence.
The only reasonable position to take is that neither of them have been altered, pending some evidence to the contrary. It’s particularly surprising with the OT because one might have perhaps expected the christians to have messed with it - but then we found the dead sea scrolls and it seems they didn’t.
I have a pretty good idea what that article is about and I don’t even need to read it… this was something that was discussed in a Bible class I had years ago. It’s a simple question to answer.
Eve was created from a rib of Adam’s… she wasn’t given an extra rib… and men don’t have one less rib than a woman because missing body parts aren’t a genetic trait. For example… if a man loses his finger in an accident and has a child later in life, that child won’t be born with one less finger because his father was missing a finger.
… I think a more challenging question would be… “Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons”?
About the incest thing… There weren’t laws against incest when Adam and Eve had their children… incest laws are introduced in Leviticus.
“Many people immediately see a problem with marriages that must, of necessity, be incestuous in nature. Remember, however, that incest itself was outlawed only with the coming of the Mosaic covenant (Leviticus 18). There was no need for strict laws on marriage partners in the early Patriarchal Age (apart from the divine “one man, one woman, for life” institution), and for at least one good reason: during this time, man was in a relatively pure state, at least physically, having left not long before the perfect condition in which he was created and the Garden that had sustained his life. Adam and Eve could have lived forever had it not been for their corruption by sin, and their consequent expulsion from Eden (Genesis 3:1-6). Hence, no harmful genetic traits had emerged at this point that could have been expressed in the children of closely related partners. However, after many generations, and especially after the Noahic Flood (Genesis 6-9), solar and cosmic radiation, chemical and viral mutagens, and DNA replication errors, led to the multiplication of genetic disorders. God protected His people by instituting strict laws against incestuous marriages in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. Needless to say, more genetic disorders have arisen in the world population since the time of Moses, and thus it is even more important to avoid marrying a close relative. Christianity thus far has insured that such rules have been carried forward into modern laws in the western world”. (taken from where did Cain get his wife?)
…for future reference… my user name is Lacunae… It used to be Lacunas but that was a mistake. No harm, no foul… just lettin’ ya know Locracians… erm… Locrian
Lacunae Quell, as demonstrated before, the apologetic press just prints industrial strength ignorance, so continuing to use that in your cites shows you only prefer to dwell on it.
Sorry, I still refer to Paul as Saul (or That Dude From Tarsis), so that Lucanus term still lingers.
Please humor me and the rest of the world and read the articles. I think if you like posting here, getting to know The Straight Dope and how ignorance is fought, you might like it.
Incest LAWS don’t concern me. It’s the INBREEDING. When bros and sisses procreate, we only get children who look like Kuato (sp?) and think like Andy Dick. Even if I were a descendant from these supposed people, at least I inherited a desire for truth instead of a desire to listen to an ancient story at our nightly bonfire accompanied by an out of tune banjo.
I really just don’t get why you insist on never reading any source of information that doesn’t come from a religious site or the bible. Yeah, Yeah, that’s the only info you need.
Unfortunately they have two ready fallbacks: the parable explanation, and the notion of total depravity. The latter is especially pernicious, as it implies that mortal understanding is categorically mistaken about the true nature of the universe, and thus any contrary opinion or information can be explained away as easily as Bobby Ewing’s death was undone by Pam looking into the shower.
Back before I learned to stop arguing with him about religion, my father and I used to get into screaming matches. Once upon a time I pointed out what seemed to be an inarguable contradiction (I apologize for not specifying which, but this was 18-some years ago). He got furious, ripped the Bible out of my hands, and told me that the scriptures were not for us to UNDERSTAND–they were only meant for us to BELIEVE. He entirely rejected the notion of Biblical fallibility.
I will read the article… I guess… It’s not that I have a problem with sources of information besides the Bible or something religious… I just assumed the article was something I already have heard before. I’ll check it out though…
I do like this site so much already… though I haven’t devoted much time to reading the articles. I like the articles I have read and find them very informative. I don’t know why people scoff at me when I tell them to find information on the internet because It’s not like Cecil doesn’t use the internet for research. I don’t believe Cecil is the smartest human alive because all he does is research the work of other people. I don’t even believe Cecil is one human… I think it’s a group of people but, as usual, I could be wrong.
This website is really great. I like the people and I think they’re all smart and intelligent. I just wish I didn’t get picked on so much and called ignorant… because considering what I talk about I think I display intelligence at times… again I’m probably wrong, but you all set the bar so high.
