The bible - fact or fiction???

[AUTaxMan]

What does any of those things have to do with the existence of a God or Creator?

Well, answer my last question - what would evidence of God involve?

[mrveggieman]

Here's a question that I want to put out there. Anyone with an opinion feel free to chime in. Someone can believe the the Bible is the only true word of God. But how can you prove that the Quron, The Book of the Dead, Ancient Texts, and other sacred books are not also the true word of God. Please don't answer by saying "because the Bible says so" because all other holy books claim that their book is the only true book of God. BTW I am not here to prove or disprove a particular point of view I am only interested in seeing what people have to say. Thanks for your time.

[AUTaxMan]

Here's a question that I want to put out there. Anyone with an opinion feel free to chime in. Someone can believe the the Bible is the only true word of God. But how can you prove that the Quron, The Book of the Dead, Ancient Texts, and other sacred books are not also the true word of God. Please don't answer by saying "because the Bible says so" because all other holy books claim that their book is the only true book of God. BTW I am not here to prove or disprove a particular point of view I am only interested in seeing what people have to say. Thanks for your time.

Like much of this discussion, it cannot be proven in the scientific or mathematical sense of the word. Each religion's answer to this question will presumably be guided by what that religion's writings say. Christians will say that only the Bible is the written word of God, and anything that is not part of the canon was rejected by God, because God guided the canonizing process of the Bible. Jude 1:3 says that the faith (that is, the Christian doctrine) had been "once for all delivered" to the saints (the members of the church). In other words, once the canon was closed, everything that came thereafter (or was written before and didn't make it in) is not true scripture.

That is the general Christian answer. I hope it satisfies you, but I can understand if it does not.

[karnivore]

by your beliefs, does a murderer that finds god in prison have a better chance to go to heaven than me, who lives my life as a productive member of society, but does not believe?

My belief is that God shows judgement to each person, and in the Bible it talks about judging people accordingly, so I personally do not believe that people the likes of Ghandi and all are going to Hell. I believe that God will sort through it all and make the perfect judgement.

But of course there are exceptions. Surely, a child that dies in the first few minutes or hours of life is going to Heaven. God would not subject such an innocent soul to damnation would He? How about the isolated tribal elder who has spent his entire life without a knowledge of Jesus? Surely, God would not condemn him?

The first part of this, no he would not send a child like that to hell.

The tribal elder is a different story, because if we as Christians are to do what we are suppose to do and spread the Gospel, there wouldn't be any isolated people who don't know.

Of course the writer of the books is a higher power than the child, but is he the highest power?



Where are you seeing this in the quotation you posted? I see nothing of that nature in his words.

I thought our debate was on if Einstein thought there was a higher power? Theres a higher power then the Child (us), so he must believe in it right?

as an atheist I do have beliefs, just not ones of a higher power, and definitely not one that specifically defines how people should live and what they should do or eat or has an active role in the day to day lives of man. That's not to say that I don't have standards or ethics in which I live my life by. The word atheist has such a negative connotation. People are sometimes freaked out by the definition and sometimes seem to think that atheist means you are evil or have no structure in your life to live as a productive member of society.

Athiest to me is defined as not believing in a higher being, which you have every right to do. Which is why I argued that Einstein DOES believe in one, hence calling himself "Not a athiest"

I don't believe athiest is a bad word. One of my closest friends is a athiest, but he is a good person.

agreed, I don't have problems with people being religious. Ironically most of my really great friends have very strong christian views. I'm able to get along with people that have all sorts of different views. My main issues deal with trying to force christians views and beliefs on the country as a whole, which is always being tried and discussed.

And the worst part is the people that try to "force" it is the same people that have scandals and skeletons in the closet, or just flat out doesnt act like a Christian. It sucks because it turns alot of people away :/

hmm... interesting. I've never heard that before. Thanks for posting.

I guess this makes me wonder why if god would take action towards these people that went against his command, why wouldn't things like this happen now to people that are not obeying his commands. I know people will deem things these days as miracles, but nothing similar to moving people and changing their races isn't close to the things people have called miracles or acts of god these days. Usually people call natural disasters acts of god, but to me they are all explained by science.

oh, and I hope you don't take my questions as trying to be sarcastic or a smart alec.

Because in the Old Testament was when God had to show his judgement on the Sins of people. Once Jesus died for us, was when we didn't have to have action against us for our Sins.

This is what bothers me. It is offered as "the real reason" without any evidence to support it. Wouldn't an intelligent person consider that all the research done and theories developed over the past hundred years offer a more reasonable, logical explanation for our diversity?

This is the case for so many outlandish claims in the Bible. The most obvious explanation for all of it is that it is NOT TRUE. Here's a list:

World created in 6 days!
World is only 6,000 years old!
Woman created from Man! (why not create her from scratch?)
The human race was propogated by incestual siblings!
Humans lived to be hundreds of years old!
Noah's Ark!
Jesus born through Immaculate Conception!
Jesus resurrected!

It goes on and on. There is a simple explanation! None of it is true!

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... IT'S a DUCK!!!!

But no, there are all these convoluted explanations accompanied by supposition only, that defy everything man has learned over the centuries.

And the most frustrating part is that believers can't even get their explainations and reasoning consistent. They are all over the board. Some believe this, some believe that. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

Because different denominations believe different things. But as a whole for a Christian, you should believe on all of those things. But see what you don't talk about is the fact that there are things you just simply cannot explain, but some of those things you mentioned can be explained.

Woman was created for Man, so why create her from scratch when She was made just for him? Take a piece of the man, shows he is not whole by himself.

How else was humans created then? Wouldn't it have started by two people no matter what?

These next two I am going on memory, but if I need to I will look them up. But isn't it proven that the Life Expectancy keeps decling every 50ish years? So, then at the beginning people would have lived alot longer? And theres proof on mountain tops to suggest that the whole world was underwater at one point, so the Ark is highly plausible.

If Jesus didn't ressurect, why did people who was still alive when the New Testament came out debunk it? Some of the New Testament came out before70-76A.D., so why did Christianity not be disproved right from the get-go?

Here's a question that I want to put out there. Anyone with an opinion feel free to chime in. Someone can believe the the Bible is the only true word of God. But how can you prove that the Quron, The Book of the Dead, Ancient Texts, and other sacred books are not also the true word of God. Please don't answer by saying "because the Bible says so" because all other holy books claim that their book is the only true book of God. BTW I am not here to prove or disprove a particular point of view I am only interested in seeing what people have to say. Thanks for your time.

The Quran has contradictions that cant be explained, unlike the Bibles "contradictions". The Quran says that Jesus was a Prophet, but Jesus says in the Bible (written by his Apostles) about his divinity. So wouldn't that mean Jesus is lieing, and not a prophet?

[habsheaven]

Well, answer my last question - what would evidence of God involve?

Thought about this on the drive home. She would have to reveal herself to the world. Then she would have to CREATE a new Mother Earth and place it next to us for all to see.

Shouldn't be too hard. Think of all the new recruits!

[karnivore]

Thought about this on the drive home. She would have to reveal herself to the world. Then she would have to CREATE a new Mother Earth and place it next to us for all to see.

Shouldn't be too hard. Think of all the new recruits!

But if God shows himself to everyone that takes away free will.

[gatorboymike]

Burden of proof shifting is one of the most common fallacies employed by religionists. "Can you prove there's no god? No? Well then I guess you're just an idiot and you need to shut up and agree with me, don't you?" In fact, half the time, that's the first thing out of their mouths. And it seems to me that "you can't prove me wrong" is the last, desperate attempt at defending one's position by an intellectually dishonest scoundrel who has nothing to support their position and they darn well know it.

To use a common example to illustrate how inane this is, take Bigfoot. Do you believe the claim that Bigfoot exists until it's proven false, or do you disbelieve it until it's proven true? If you ran into someone who believed in Bigfoot, and when you asked him how he knew there was a Bigfoot, and he said "Can you prove there's no Bigfoot?" would that in any way convince you that there was a Bigfoot? Or would you think to yourself that this guy isn't being very fair or mature?

It's impossible to prove something doesn't exist. In order to do that, you would have to know the entire contents of the entire universe, and know that the thing in question was not among them. And since no one possesses such knowledge, no one can do any such thing. You can prove something does exist, or you can fail to prove something does exist, but you can't prove something doesn't exist. Unless you're talking about something confined to a space that is searchable in its entirity. Staying with cryptozoology, the Loch Ness Monster, for example. People say there's an aquatic dinosaur living in this lake? Well, we've looked through the entire lake and never found any aquatic dinosaur. Of course, Loch Ness Monster apologists might just say Nessie lives outside of space and time...

It's not atheists' job to prove there is no god. It's theists' job to prove there is one. An assertion with no evidence to back it up is worthy of dismissal until such time as there is sufficiently convincing evidence to back it up. This will probably lead you to dismiss ideas which, despite being poorly supported, may happen to be true. But the point is that you have no reason to accept that they are true at the time. Once support is built up for them, then it's time to revise your position. That's how the scientific method works. The problem is that as the Abrahamic god is traditionally described, it is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. In other words, an idea specifically formulated so that nobody will ever be able to prove it wrong...so that people's inability to prove it wrong will somehow be construed as evidence of its truth by adherents. Of course, you know what else is an unfalsifiable hypothesis? The Matrix. "Hey, what if we're all stuck inside a computer program wired into our brains, which is so sophisticated that it mimics real life 100% and is impossible to identify as a computer program?" Can you PROVE we're NOT in the Matrix? No? Well then I guess we must be, mustn't we? Are you convinced? Surely not. So why are you convinced by "Hey, what if there's a supernatural being who created the universe and cares about the day-to-day goings-on in our lives, who uses his powers to keep himself and his actions completely undetectable?"

Theists are the ones who say "I'm 100%, absolutely certain that there is a god, and I know what his nature is, and I know what he wants, what he doesn't want, what he loves, what he hates, how he works, when he works, and what he's going to do in the future. I have complete, unwavering, ironclad, inassailable and permanent faith in this. There's absolutely nothing anyone can ever do or say, and absolutely nothing that can ever happen, to make me change my mind even the tineist bit about anything, in any part, in any way, for any reason, under any circumstances, at any time, ever, period, end of story." And because they recognize how intellectually dishonest that assertion is, they want to try to make atheists out to be exactly the same as they are, or even worse, claiming we say the exact same thing about there not being a god. Well, that's a lie, and a strawman argument. Atheists say, "We don't believe you." And to try to claim that "We don't believe you" is equivalent to "I have 100% faith that there is no god and I'll never change my mind or admit I'm wrong" is an absolute LIE. It's a diversionary ploy on the part of those who have nothing to support their position and they know it. And that's usually the second thing out of their mouths, right on the heels of "You can't prove there's no god."

P.S. - For those who say they do have evidence that there's a god, they can go ahead and state their claims. But I've heard a lot of such so-called evidences and all the ones I've ever heard, I've found to be lacking.

[habsheaven]

I thought our debate was on if Einstein thought there was a higher power? Theres a higher power then the Child (us), so he must believe in it right?

Not so much whether he thought there was a higher power. It is only logical to make that assumption. My contention is he never says he thinks that higher power manifests itself as your God.

Because different denominations believe different things. But as a whole for a Christian, you should believe on all of those things. But see what you don't talk about is the fact that there are things you just simply cannot explain, but some of those things you mentioned can be explained.

I am talking about believers within the same denominations having differing explanations of various Bible passages.

Woman was created for Man, so why create her from scratch when She was made just for him? Take a piece of the man, shows he is not whole by himself.

Sounds like a reasonable assumption.

How else was humans created then? Wouldn't it have started by two people no matter what?

Not necessarily, but way above my pay grade. I just don't believe the justification for the obvious incestual relationships that God sanctioned. Would it not have been better to "create" more people in His image to avoid this?

These next two I am going on memory, but if I need to I will look them up. But isn't it proven that the Life Expectancy keeps decling every 50ish years? So, then at the beginning people would have lived alot longer? And theres proof on mountain tops to suggest that the whole world was underwater at one point, so the Ark is highly plausible.

No, life expectancy has been increasing. I believe the "party line" is that our current lifespans started after the Flood. I do not take issue with the occurrence of a flood. My issue is with the improbablity of a craft large enough to achieve what is claimed. I have heard the explanations on this as well, and they just aren't plausible.

If Jesus didn't ressurect, why did people who was still alive when the New Testament came out debunk it? Some of the New Testament came out before70-76A.D., so why did Christianity not be disproved right from the get-go?

As with all "history". I will explain it with an old adage, the author of which I do not know. "History is written by the victors" Who knows what opposition there was to it? Christianity obviously prevailed enough to carve out a following.

[habsheaven]

But if God shows himself to everyone that takes away free will.

Can you explain that? I don't follow the correlation between the two.

[AUTaxMan]

Burden of proof shifting is one of the most common fallacies employed by religionists. "Can you prove there's no god? No? Well then I guess you're just an idiot and you need to shut up and agree with me, don't you?" In fact, half the time, that's the first thing out of their mouths. And it seems to me that "you can't prove me wrong" is the last, desperate attempt at defending one's position by an intellectually dishonest scoundrel who has nothing to support their position and they darn well know it.

You are correct, but in this thread, we've already acknowledged that you cannot prove a negative. The question posed was if God's existence must be "proven" for you to accept it, what would constitute "evidence" to that end?