Video: The atheist’s nightmare

People that have dedicated there lives to finding nuance in a piece of fiction.
*sigh*
JayHaw Phrenzie on May 7, 2007 at 10:49 AM

Two points to make, first of all you can’t prove that. All you can say is that it’s highly unlikely and portions were exaggerated. As far as we know it has been fairly reliable when dealing with history. It is a matter of faith. Many people who have the faith, like myself and other theologians I hope to join, have found it rewarding.

Second, people do the same thing with Shakespeare and other great works. The Bible is a great work of literature. Just read the Book of Job or Ecclesiastes and you’ll see what I mean. Not only is it beautifully written but it also weaves together better than you’d expect being in the works for hundreds of years. It tells us much about Jewish culture, and it has influenced people throughout hundreds of years. I don’t see how a great work doesn’t warrant study. Are you saying we should get rid of our English and Philosophy departments?

No, we haven’t mastered creating life, but we sure have gone a long way toward disproving the existence of god. So far Atheists have hundreds of years of scientific experimentation. Christians have a single book, written for a despot, translated dozens of times. I’ll take the science over your storybook any day.
shackler on May 7, 2007 at 2:31 PM

Are you Ray Comfort’s secularist twin? First off it’s not just that science has failed to create life ex nihilo, science can’t adequadely explain how it’s happened. This is why we cannot say that this theory is fact, and it will always remain a theory until we can observe it. That’s how science works.

I don’t understand how you can say you have gone a long way in disproving the existence of God. What has happened is that science has been able to offer a contradictory theory, with its own faults. The existence of God cannot be disproven as long as there are people who claim to be touched by his hand and exhibit no signs of insanity. As long as these people exist it can reasonably be assumed that there is a possibility. Also, as long as these people exist it is not reasonable to state as a fact that there is no God. That would be a universal negative. The source must be discredited, and so far that can’t be done. So either this, or that, faith is required.

Now I see your understanding of Biblical Scholarship is lacking. I do not know which despot you are refering to. To my understanding Matthew or James was not written with Caesar in mind. Are you refering to King James and his translation? Either way, the contents of the Bible have been written over a period of at least 500 years. No single despot had it written for them. As to your assumption that the same work has been translated dozens of times, that is false. As JayHaw noted people have dedicated their lives to finding nuance in the Bible. Any reasonable person, and most Christians are reasonable, would go to the source texts. Not all of them survive, however we always go back to the oldest we can recover. The Bible isn’t being translated from St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. It’s being translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. It’s not being translated from greek, to french to english. Every translation is trying to go back to the most reliable source.

There is a science to Christianity. And I find it unfortunate that many people cannot see this. Because of people like Ray Comfort we are seen as a bunch of hicks believing in a “flying spaghetti monster.” Christianity has a great intellectual and scientific history. We do utilize this in Biblical scholarship. In case you didn’t know, which it seems you didn’t.

I’d prefer to take science as well, but science can only answer certain questions. Science can’t dictate morals or tell us why we are here. Science can’t provide us with a purpose. For that I go to my “storybook” as you have so kindly called the Bible.

Keljeck on May 7, 2007 at 7:43 PM

No one is claiming Shakespeare’s works are “literal truth” and if they did it would no less absurd.

ronsfi on May 7, 2007 at 8:22 PM

Neither did they claim to be the Word of God. Apples to oranges.

PRCalDude on May 7, 2007 at 8:26 PM

Also, if you read JayHaw carefully he never mentioned anything about “literal truth” he said that they “dedicated their lives to finding nuance in a piece of fiction.” I don’t see where he said, “poor souls believe that it’s the word of God.” My point is that people dedicate their lives to finding nuance in Shakespeare, so are they to be pitied as well?

Keljeck on May 7, 2007 at 9:46 PM

And lastly, various Gospels were either approved into Canon or declared heresy on the basis of rulings from a human council hundreds of years after Jesus’s death.

If you are going to base your life on a book, do some research on that book. Do some critical thinking.

The Christians didn’t start writing until roughly thirty years after Christ’s resurrection. Once the writings were made they started to be passed around Christian circles, and they were given an almost religious significance. Works such as Luke, Matthew, and John, can be placed in the first century and perhaps be granted their traditional authorship. Books such as The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, or The Gospel of Mary Magnaline were written over a hundred years after the fact. By the time a canon of the New Testament was solidified they were able to say which works were most likely reliable, and sadly some of them disappeared until now. In fact, early canon’s were very much alike save a few differences.

Also, I have done critical thinking concerining Christianity and the Bible. My conclusion is that Christianity cannot be understood. I have also concluded that when looking at the evidence you find a level playing field between Theism and Atheism. The difference is where each side places their faith. The Bible has done well as an historical record, and I’m suprised you would argue to the contrary. Many campaigns written have been validated by history, we have discovered characters what we thought were fictionalized, and in fact whole civilizations. The Bible has been a tremendous resource culturally and historically.

This is one thing that confuses me though:

In addition, it is clearly written by different people with different writing styles.

I don’t see how this can be counted against the Bible. Are you seriously under the impression Christians believe the Bible was transcribed from God? Maybe my knowledge of various Christian groups is lacking, but I do not know of anyone who claims that. What people do say is that it has been “written by God” but that phrase cannot be taken at face value. What Christians believe is that the Bible is God’s revelation to us. It is where the fullness of his revelation is revealed. Now, that does not mean it is his literal word. It does not mean St. Paul was writing down what a voice in his head told him. It was written by his influence, and he revealed it. Clearly people wrote through their own hands, and wrote in their own ways. To use various writing styles as a counter-argument proves a lack of understanding, in my view. If anything, seeing various writing styles proves various authors. The fact that these authors have created a coherent story over hundreds of years, in many cases never communicating, is a reason to believe in the Bible not discount it.

I have read the bible thoroughly, I have researched Christianity, and I reject this mythology.

I reject it, because I understand it. Not because I don’t.

I am amazed by your intellectual strength. Clearly you are a man of great knowledge, an Einstein or Newton for our time. In fact, you must be even more intelligent than themselves. To claim to comprehend Christianity proves your arrogance. Seeing as Christians should not claim to comprehend it as well. If Christianity could be comprehended faith would not be necessary.

It is precisely because you don’t understand Christianity that you do not accept it. It is in spite of the fact that I don’t understand Christianity that I do. I cannot explain the Resurrection, I cannot explain the Trinity, I cannot explain how a God can walk the earth, I cannot explain how God could die, I cannot explain how the universe is created. Despite that I have faith in it. If you can explain these things, feel free. In fact I welcome it because they are questions that burn inside me.

The Darwinist’s answers are always based on theory and assumption.

And the Christian’s answers are based on faith, does that make us any less absurd?

Keljeck on May 8, 2007 at 12:56 PM