Saturday, December 2, 2006

The Inerrancy Delusion

Anybody who knows me will attest to the following: Never has skepticism had a more faithful follower. Quite literally, I am skeptical about everything. In fact, I even am skeptical of a notion such as “Fetal defenestration is immoral.” After all, I can conceive of no laboratory test that could be conducted which would demonstrate the immorality of fetal defenestration. [Morality cannot be measured, tested, quantified or gauged via scientific instrumentation.] With such a high degree of skepticism, naturally I look upon extraordinary, supernatural claims with tremendous suspicion. And, as any individual familiar with the Bible will agree, that particular tome is chock-full of extraordinary, supernatural assertions (for example, the Jesus resurrection tale and the Lazarus corpse-to-companion resurrection tale). Considering that the events of the Bible happened millennia in the past, how possibly could they be substantiated now? Theists have the answer.

Many Christians claim the Bible is inerrant. By virtue of its inerrancy—indeed, by definition—all the fantastical stories in the Bible must be true, resurrections included. The presence of the stories in an inerrant book is sufficient to substantiate them. This answer is satisfactory for about 12 seconds. Thereafter, one recalls the gross inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, scientific impossibilities and internal incoherence contained within “the truest book ever composed.” A book containing grotesquely egregious inconsistencies, by definition, cannot be inerrant. Inerrancy also eludes any tome that has its historical facts wrong, or its scientific principles scrambled. Indeed, I intend to demonstrate here that the Bible is so unreliable on even the most mundane of matters that it surely cannot be trusted with respect to extraordinary, supernatural claims.

Prior to pontificating any further, I turn the stage over to Tom Flynn, writing in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Free Inquiry. In the following passage, Flynn explains some of the basic inconsistencies in the much-beloved Christmas story. It seems that Matthew and Luke simply cannot agree on anything:


The popular image of shepherds and wise men side by side before the cradle? Matthew says wise men. Luke says shepherds. Neither says both. The star in the East? Only in Matthew. ‘Hark, the herald angels sing’...but only in Luke. Matthew never heard of them.

But then, only Matthew heard of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents…That’s right, the indiscriminate killing of every male baby in Judea—with one significant exception—did not merit Luke’s attention. On the other hand, no Roman historian chronicles this atrocity either, not even Flavius Josephus. Josephus reviled Herod and took care to lay at his feet every crime for which even a shred of evidence existed. Had Herod really slaughtered those innocents, it is almost unimaginable that Josephus would have failed to chronicle it.

Matthew says Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem, moving to Nazareth after their flight into Egypt...But Luke says Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth all along; Jesus was born in Bethlehem only because Joseph and Mary had traveled there to enroll in the census...Roman records mention no such census; in fact, Roman history records no census ever in which each man was required to return to the city where his ancestral line originated. That’s not how the Romans did things.


Unfortunately for biblical literalists, the Bible’s indisputable fallibility does not end there. We are provided with conflicting genealogies tracing the ancestral lineage between David and Joseph. In the genealogy according to Matthew, there are fewer than 30 generations separating David and Joseph. In the genealogy according to Luke, there are more than 40 generations. According to Matthew, the relevant son of David is Solomon. According to Luke, the relevant son of David is Nathan. According to Matthew, Joseph’s father is Jacob. According to Luke, Joseph’s father is Heli. The lists have little crossover. Again, these are the mundane, little details that the Bible has all fouled up. One also must wonder why the scribes bothered to list Joseph’s two ancestral histories. After all, Jesus was born via mammalian parthenogenesis. As Dr. Richard Dawkins, in "The God Delusion," rightly observes, “...if Jesus really was born of a virgin, Joseph’s ancestry is irrelevant and cannot be used to fulfill, on Jesus’ behalf, the Old Testament prophecy that the Messiah should be descended from David.”

I submit that, considering the Bible’s gross inconsistencies on mundane, ordinary details, Jesus’ alleged life must also be treated with extreme skepticism. Although I believe it’s probable that Jesus, as a man, actually existed, I doubt very much the narrative commonly accepted among Christians. It is notable that Jesus’ alleged life has nearly all the hallmarks of the classic hero myth, on which many religious characters were modeled. In "The God Delusion," Dr. Dawkins writes, “...all the essential features of the Jesus legend, including the star in the east, the virgin birth, the veneration of the baby by kings, the miracles, the execution, the resurrection and the ascension are borrowed – every last one of them – from other religions already in existence in the Mediterranean and Near East region.” In trying to adapt Jesus’ life to conflicting mythologies, the aforementioned contradictions were created. Dr. Dawkins continues, “...Matthew’s desire to fulfill messianic prophecies (descent from David, birth in Bethlehem) for the benefit of Jewish readers came into headlong collision with Luke’s desire to adapt Christianity for the Gentiles, and hence to press the familiar hot buttons of pagan Hellenistic religions (virgin birth, worship by kings, etc.).”

Some of the most convincing evidence demonstrating that the Jesus narrative with which we are familiar might be fabricated comes from Saint Paul. One of the earliest associates of the Christian church wrote voluminously about Christianity...but did not seem to know one thing about Jesus’ life as we know it. The admirable film The God Who Wasn’t There broke down Jesus’ crucial life events and then showed just how many Saint Paul apparently never had heard of. Even the things Paul did know about, such as the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, didn’t happen in the real world, but rather in a realm of myth. There’s very little evidence that Paul ever seriously considered the notion that Jesus walked the same ground as he did. Another meaningful bit of evidence relates to secular historians. No such historians, who lived at the same time as Jesus did, ever made mention of the man. Yes, secular historians did mention Jesus after he was dead. However, none mentions him while he was alive and, allegedly, working amazing miracles.

With respect to Jesus, my conclusion is as follows: Jesus probably lived, but his life was nothing like what is portrayed in any of the Gospels. His life, as recounted differently in each Gospel, was a construction to fulfill the scribes' varied agendas. His life simply was wedged into the writer’s mythology of choice.

And, finally, to biblical veracity.... Letting my arguments speak for themselves, I will close with a question to which I hope I have given readers the answer. If the Gospels are demonstrably contradictory, historically inaccurate and fallible on the most mundane and ordinary of details, why should one believe them when it comes to their most incredible, extraordinary claims? In the final analysis, it seems inerrancy has come up bankrupt.

24 Comments:

Blogger Tommykey said...

Believe it or not, but some Christians argue that the contradictions in the Gospels are proof that they are true. If they were a forgery, the forgers would have made everything consistent. I kid you not.

Christians, while conceding these contradictions, will instead argue that the Bible was divinely inspired. The Holy Spirit guided the writers of the Gospels.


The same thing with the Empty Tomb story. If Jesus really did not rise from the dead and his resurrection was a fiction, the apologists argue, then the resurrection would have been described with pageantry and visual imagery. I ad one Christian tell me in the comments section of a blog where we had a running debate "Explain the empty tomb to my satisfaction and I will give up Christianity." Of course, I can't explain why the resurrection story was written that way, because I don't know who wrote it or why they wrote it that way.

9:38 PM EDT  
Blogger Baconeater said...

I don't know why you believe Jesus existed. There is no evidence for this. In fact, it appears that Paul made the whole thing up.

3:43 PM EDT  
Blogger adelaine said...

i am also always skeptical.. i feel that we need to have religious belief to balance off our insecurities.. if there is no life after death, no heaven, no hell, no reincranation.. no hope that the crappy life we are leading will in anyway turn for the better.. people might as well kill themselves now or lead totally hedonistic lives with no regards for others..

faith is a need i guess..

10:43 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ME, I WOULD RATHER ERROR ON THE SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY AND FOLLOW THE TEACHINGS AND PHILOSIPHY OF THE BIBLE.(WHICH IS NOT A BAD WAY TO LIVE) THE FLIP SIDE HAS DIRE CONCEQUENSES.

9:54 AM EDT  
Blogger Tommykey said...

Hi Adelaine. I manage to live a fairly righteous life even though I do not believe in a God.

Think about what kind of a world do you want to live in. Do you want to be stolen from, beaten, harrassed, killed etc? No, I would imagine not. Neither do I. So I do not engage in such things myself because by leading a good life, I help to make the world a better place than it would be if I lived a life of mindless hedonism or destructive behavior.

The problem is, we all live in a world where the majority of people take it for granted that there is an invisible sky daddy watching over us and intervening in our lives and in history. So to be an atheist is to be a noncomformist, and that is not always an easy thing to be.

9:24 PM EDT  
Blogger pgc1981 said...

if Jesus really isn't real than why do you waste your time trying to discredit him? Why would you create a website like this?

The Bible was written for Christians to follow Almost every book of the Bible is written by someone different, Paul wrote several Luke wrote 2 and Moses wrote 5 and others wrote more than one. If Matthew and Luke would include everything in their stories they would be never ending. Neither Luke nor Matthew were at the birth of Jesus, they came along much later. Matthew was Jewish, Luke was not so they are going to write different things with totally different perspectives.
If you are looking for inaccuracies in the Bible you will find them because that is what you are looking for and that is all you want to find. Everything about Jesus is not revealed because you are suppose to have Faith and believe what you can't see.
One last point. Christians and Jews make up about 4 billion people world wide maybe more, Muslims make up about 1 billion worldwide. All three started from the same roots, Adam & Eve and in time branched off. Christanity and Judaism are the true religions of the world. Muslims believe in Muhammad and in thier bible mention Jesus something like 44 times while muhammed only 25, Jews and Muslims believe Jesus was a great profit but not the Savior of the world.

One thing most Christians know is that not everything is revealed in the Bible you follow Christ by Faith and believe is something that you cannot see.

Jesus said "blessed are those who believe yet cannot see"

If you don't believe in Christ that's your choice but for your sake I hope you open up your mind and change your heart before the end of your time.

4:53 PM EST  
Blogger pgc1981 said...

one more thing to add. If Jesus doesn't exist why are so many people killed for believing in Him?
One of the girls that was killed at Collumbine several years ago was asked if she believed in Jesus, she said yes and was killed others who said no lived.

4:59 PM EST  
Blogger The Jolly Nihilist said...

if Jesus really isn't real than why do you waste your time trying to discredit him? Why would you create a website like this?

To convert believers into atheists, and to arm atheists with intellectual ammunition. And, because I enjoy writing.

The Bible was written for Christians to follow. Almost every book of the Bible is written by someone different, Paul wrote several Luke wrote 2 and Moses wrote 5 and others wrote more than one. If Matthew and Luke would include everything in their stories they would be never ending. Neither Luke nor Matthew were at the birth of Jesus, they came along much later. Matthew was Jewish, Luke was not so they are going to write different things with totally different perspectives.

Nevertheless, that does not forgive inconsistencies in a book that is alleged to be without error. When stories conflict and details do not match up, that seems to preclude inerrancy from even being considered.

If you are looking for inaccuracies in the Bible you will find them because that is what you are looking for and that is all you want to find.

They're there whether you want to find them or don't want to. It's just that believers try to craft reinterpretions and invent loopholes to explain the inconsistencies and errors away. I'm not willing to invent explanations that don't have the benefit of solid supporting evidence.

Everything about Jesus is not revealed because you are suppose to have Faith and believe what you can't see.

I don't believe things that have no supporting evidence. Faith simply is another way of saying belief in things for which no evidence exists.

One last point. Christians and Jews make up about 4 billion people world wide maybe more, Muslims make up about 1 billion worldwide. All three started from the same roots, Adam & Eve and in time branched off. Christanity and Judaism are the true religions of the world. Muslims believe in Muhammad and in thier bible mention Jesus something like 44 times while muhammed only 25, Jews and Muslims believe Jesus was a great profit but not the Savior of the world.

I don't see your point on this one. Widespread belief has nothing to do with actual truth. Tens of thousands of years ago, other Gods and other religions were followed widely. Are they also true, but simply ignored today?

One thing most Christians know is that not everything is revealed in the Bible you follow Christ by Faith and believe is something that you cannot see.

I do not believe in that for which no solid evidence exists. I demand evidence, and accept nothing by way of faith.

Jesus said "blessed are those who believe yet cannot see"

I cannot see Yahweh and I also cannot see Zeus. Therefore, Yahweh and Zeus apparently are on equal footing in the faith regard.

If you don't believe in Christ that's your choice but for your sake I hope you open up your mind and change your heart before the end of your time.

And I would urge you to consider the Truth of Zeus. Or the Truth of Buddha. Or the Truth of Hinduism. Or the Truth of Voodoo. Or the Truth of Apollonius of Tyana. Or the Truth of Raelism. ...

one more thing to add. If Jesus doesn't exist why are so many people killed for believing in Him?
One of the girls that was killed at Collumbine several years ago was asked if she believed in Jesus, she said yes and was killed others who said no lived.


Maybe you should ask why, if Jesus does exist, he didn't choose to intervene to save that particular student, or any of the others killed in that massacre. Why doesn't Jesus just make his presence known already, to shut atheists like me up?

7:54 PM EST  
Blogger pgc1981 said...

i can see your hatred for Jesus runs deep. This is a never ending debate because as long as their is life on this earth people will always debate the exisistence of God and Jesus. I'm not a minister or a priest, I'm a believer in God and Jesus. Thier is probably nothing that I could say to change your mind. Maybe one day you will be sitting their and will question yourself with an open mind and things will change. Image having no more anger and hatred. Image waking up and feeling good about the day.

You said.
"Nevertheless, that does not forgive inconsistencies in a book that is alleged to be without error. When stories conflict and details do not match up, that seems to preclude inerrancy from even being considered"

If a rich man who was African-American and an average man who was a history teacher who was Candadian, wrote a story on Martin Luther King, neither who were actually their. Only facts written down from others and through interviews they wrote their own stories about Martin Luther King. Oh yeah they don't speak the same language. Do you think their stories about the same man are going to be exactly alike? Do you think that they will have the exact same facts?

you said.
"I don't see your point on this one. Widespread belief has nothing to do with actual truth. Tens of thousands of years ago, other Gods and other religions were followed widely. Are they also true, but simply ignored today?"

if you read the bible you would know that these religions and other gods started to die with the Coming of Christ. Several accounts are listed in the new testament from Luke and Paul.

You said.
"Maybe you should ask why, if Jesus does exist, he didn't choose to intervene to save that particular student, or any of the others killed in that massacre. Why doesn't Jesus just make his presence known already, to shut atheists like me up?"


Your answer is in all four gospels, read the read text.
And the day is coming

2:22 PM EST  
Blogger pgc1981 said...

Josh Brown former lead singer of Full Devil Jacket, probably never heard of them. He was an alcoholic and heroin addict one step form death. Doctors say once a heroin addict always a heroin addict. Do you think it was by chance that he found Jesus and is not completely cured from heroin and alcohol and is the lead singer of Day of Fire, a hard rock christian band?

4:41 PM EST  
Blogger The Jolly Nihilist said...

i can see your hatred for Jesus runs deep. This is a never ending debate because as long as their is life on this earth people will always debate the exisistence of God and Jesus. I'm not a minister or a priest, I'm a believer in God and Jesus. Thier is probably nothing that I could say to change your mind. Maybe one day you will be sitting their and will question yourself with an open mind and things will change.

I don't think you mean to be, but you sound very condescending here. I don't have hatred in my heart for Jesus. I don't believe that Jesus is the son of god and I don't believe any gods exist. You saying that I hate Jesus would be like me saying that you hate Zeus or Apollonius of Tyana. You don't hate them - you just disbelieve.

Image having no more anger and hatred. Image waking up and feeling good about the day.

I do wake up happy. I have no void in my life that needs spiritual fulfillment. I am a perfectly happy and contented atheist, except with respect to the political climate in which I live [I despise the Republican Party.]

If a rich man who was African-American and an average man who was a history teacher who was Candadian, wrote a story on Martin Luther King, neither who were actually their. Only facts written down from others and through interviews they wrote their own stories about Martin Luther King. Oh yeah they don't speak the same language. Do you think their stories about the same man are going to be exactly alike? Do you think that they will have the exact same facts?

No, they would not tell the same exact stories; there probably would be marked differences. But I think you make a serious error when you ask if they will have "the exact same facts." There is only one set of facts. Anything deviating from that set of facts would count as errors. In your example, both texts probably would have their fair share of errors. And the Bible, too, has its fair share of errors. And that's the point of this particular essay - The Bible has errors in it, and thus, by definition, is not inerrant.

if you read the bible you would know that these religions and other gods started to die with the Coming of Christ. Several accounts are listed in the new testament from Luke and Paul.

Yet still, most people on this planet are not Christian. More than half of the planet's population follows a faith other than Christianity, or has no faith at all. There are still 1 billion Muslims kicking. There's still Hinduism, Buddhism, Scientology, Raelism, Voodoo, Judaism, African tribal religions, etc. I'll bet there probably are even a few Apollonius of Tyanans around. There might even be a few Zeus loyalists left.

Your answer is in all four gospels, read the text.
And the day is coming


And we've already established that the Bible has errors in it. Thus, I don't consider it a good factual reference.

Josh Brown former lead singer of Full Devil Jacket, probably never heard of them. He was an alcoholic and heroin addict one step form death. Doctors say once a heroin addict always a heroin addict. Do you think it was by chance that he found Jesus and is not completely cured from heroin and alcohol and is the lead singer of Day of Fire, a hard rock christian band?

This has no bearing on Christianity's veracity. It proves that faith in Christianity helped this person clean up. If Zeus were still a popular deity, it very well could have been faith in Zeus that was the emotional crutch on which Josh leaned. This demonstrates that religion can have some positive effects in people's lives. It does not demonstrate that the mythology actually is real.

11:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just a few thoughts

I was a christian, strong believer ,youth leader and was actually studying to be a minister up until a year and a half ago when I had a change in faith. My reason being? I am a deep thinker and crave knowledge, and would study theology and philosophy as to gain better understanding, and that would include looking to Jesus, but the more I studied, the more I doubted, before I eventually walked away from the church. Probably the most(and still is) the most difficult point in my life.

I studied theology through the church and gained a lot of doubt throught that, amazing what the church knows and fails to teach you and will still finalise all argument with "just have faith"

I do not deny the existance of God yet, but I am merely sitting on the fence, call me an agnostic if you like, or a rebel christian, I dont know, but I consider to know a lot about religion, especially christianity.

For me I do not really like to use the argument of the bible being contradictory as I believe the argument fails to stand by itself and I see a lot of athiest and christian haters to stand on this stone. The bible never claims to be "perfect" but rather "inspired" Therefore you cannot say that historic inaccuricies are proof for its fallacy. Scripture was said to be "God breathed" meaning not to be written by the hand of God, but by the man of hand, yet its content or principle was supposed to be inspired. Its same principles and moral values were to show the charachter of God and ask others to reflect this to the best of their ability.

God called chrisitans and jews to be perfect (as far as what they could attain) but they were still human. Unfortunatly History is not always the complete truth due to the fact that there are still always holes. The absence does not necesserily mean it never happened

I prefer in my own arguments or thoughts try to abstain from jumping to a conlcusion without seeing every area is of question is deducted to an answer. To keep an open mind until a worthy conlcusion is gathered.
Hence the reason I have not ruled out athiesm or theism for that matter.

Through studying the scriptures and researching(before and after my deconversion) I have seen a lot more fact to tie in with the bible than to denounce it. I think if some were to have a clearer understanding for the purpose of the bible, they would not try to scrutinize the bible so much.

My one argument I have out of all of this is with the person who tried to defend the bible so much. I would like to offer advice in your christian walk as to arguments such as these. Please learn to stop using the point of faith as your argument. You need to understand how to deal with arguments or rather debates such as these. Faith and logic have have no relationship. Faith says you can walk on water, raise people from the dead, divide the seas, move mountains, logic denies this. The biggest frustration I had with my church groups was that when ever I brough up questions such as these, their response would be "have faith" or "you cant ask questions like that." Arguments between theists and athiests become difficult because they both argue from different veiws. A reasonable conversation or debate is held, supporting veiws with evidence and logic until faith is brought in. The argument collapses between each other because the other ones last argument lays on "I have faith" which says "no matter what you say, ill be ignorant and nothing you say will convince me otherwise." It is the most annoying statement! It is a copout.

Anyway, just wanted to give 10 cents worth.

Interesting blogs, keep them going!

9:37 AM EST  
Blogger pgc1981 said...

no i was not trying to be condesending, just a wrong statement.

I guess the statement "if you don't want to start a debate dont talk about religion, war, and politics" because they are debates that will never be won by either side because you will always have two sides.

as for you politics statement, i lean toward the republic side by overall both sides argue non stop and they don't work together it would be nice if they did and got things accomplished instead of fighting each other.

as for christians making up less than half the worlds population.
Christianity is the biggest religion in the world that is fact. Christians Jews and Muslims or Islaam all started from the same roots and all, Adam and Eve. All three branched off with time. Those 3 make up roughly 5 billion or more people on this planet, more than half the worlds population.
In the end Christianity and Judaism will be the same because of each ones belief about the end times.
Their are all kinds of facts and evidence about the stories in the bible. archeologists find things all the time in the middle east. it's been proven that the books of the bible were written over the course of about 1000 years or so. Things prophesyied (spelling?) in the old testament happened in the new testament. if God and Jesus are not real how did Isaiha in 750 bc (dead sea scroll if believe) write down the exact coming of Jesus 750 years before? other prophets also prophsyied about Jesus. The books of the bible have been scientifically dated, it's a fact that they exist. 5 billion or more people in todays world believe they started from adam and eve, the first two humans God created, not from monkeys or the big bang theory.

Christianity is the fastest spreading religion in the world, that also if a fact. I never hear of a life changing story of a person commiting thier life to zeus. People commit to islaam now a days they kill for thier religion, i don't remember much from school about hindu or buddism other they they are idol religions, something talked about in the Bible.
I do hear about life changing stories of people committing their lives to Christ. As fast as the minority is trying to take Christ out of this world, Christ is spreading his truth faster.

I'm sure you have a good life but i hope and pray that over time you change your views and learn to follow Jesus. Jesus excepts anyone no matter where they are or what they have done, this is what He died for, to take our sin and forgive us. Everyone sins, everyone. Not one person other than Jesus that walked this earth has been perfect. That includes all the prophets and disciples that wrote the bible.

My walk with Christ goes up and down all the time and for awhile i was away, but he showed me the truth and brought me back. It's a work in progress everyday. So no matter what at at anytime you can change and He will except you.

TO MARK
it's too bad the church has put a road block in your way. remember this NO CHURCH IS PERFECT, because they are all filled with humans who are imperfect. This is the work of the Devil's influence. Too often does this happen, i know people that this happen to, you just can't give up.

8:34 PM EST  
Blogger pgc1981 said...

Just to set the record straight on the genealogies, Matthew traced Jesus back through Joseph back to David and than back to Abraham, Jacob was Joseph's father. Luke traced Mary's genealogy back to David and to Abraham than to Adam. Heli was Mary's father and Joseph's father in law. Women were not greatly mentioned in biblical times and most probably didn't know Mary but knew Joseph it is believed that Luke talked directly to Mary to get a lot of information. And yes Joseph and Mary are both decedents from David that's why the genealogies greatly differ between David and Joseph in Matthew and Luke. They are both same from David back to Abraham. Genealogies are extremely important to Jewish people so I don't think they would have the genealogies in the Holy Bible if they weren't accurate or contradicted one another. I think someone would have realized that a long time ago and would have omitted it if it were not accurate or contradictory.

2:48 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

neither argument can prove anything. it takes faith to be a thiest or an athiest. either way, one has to have faith (or hope) that they aren't wrong. but if the athiest is wrong, he will regret it. if the thiest is wrong, then he might have lived his life for a "non-existent" entity, but nobody will ever prove him wrong b/c they will cease to exist. i just can't understand how some people can hear two or three points for either argument and base their lifestyle on that... they have more balls than me. i, persoanally, would love to hear intelligent arguments from either side b/c i haven't totally made up my mind after reading volumes. i would definately prefer the christian worldview, but i'm about as objective and open-minded as they come, so i will continue to pray that God helps me understand while i study the sciences and listen to everybody's opinion. one day, hopefully, i will have my answer.

e-mail: cambro21@yahoo.com

thank you all

10:54 PM EST  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

RE : pgc1981

Rather than trace mary's geneology, I would be attempting to trace the "incorporeal sperm" which supposedly fertilized her ovum.

But then, they didn't know of the existence of the female ovum 2 thousand years ago, just the existence of male seed.

In fact, as far as the knowledge of the ancients went, women didn't need eggs, they just needed sperm deposited in the right place to create new life.

I would be much more interested in a sample of this invisible sperm which fertilized a non-existent egg.

(non-existent because the female ovum was not known until the mid 1800s)

7:45 PM EST  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

Once you have a belief in incorporeal sperm and non-existent ova, you have the beginning of a patriarchal religion based in an ignorance of biology.

7:54 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wow, I find it hard to believe youve ever talked to a Christian who is really knowledgable in anything There is much evidence to support the claims of the Bible, and just as much evidence against evolution.
The fact is, we can't prove that one-off events down through history happened at all. Can you prove what you saw on the news to be true? howabout what you had for breakfast? Even if we are eyewitnesses to something, it is difficult to prove to others that the information we are telling them is exactly the way it happened. The world's law courts and jails throb with stories of guilty people being acquitted and innocent people being convicted because one side was more persuasive than the other (and persuasive doesn't mean accurate). Sometimes the courts convict people wrongly (such as Australian beauty consultant Schapelle Corby in Indonesia), and sometimes the penalty is death. No one doubts the existence of Julius Caesar, yet there is less evidence for his existence than for the historicity of the New Testament. There are probably 5000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in Greek, and at least 15,000 more in other languages. Nothing like this abundance exists for any other historical writing. No one has refuted the Book of Acts, and this book is filled with healings, miracles, raising of the dead etc. Even more interestingly, not one major fact mentioned in the Bible has been indisputably proved to be untrue. There are many thousands of highly qualified scientists who believe that the Bible's account of creation is more in harmony with true science than is the theory of evolution. And there have been countless scholars — historians, archaeologists, theologians, and others — who have come to believe that those who wrote the Bible were truly writing the Word of God. And that the Word of God is true. A professor of philosophy has used a probability formula to weigh evidence for and against Jesus Christ's Resurrection — and says the probability of the Resurrection comes out to be a whopping 97 per cent! An article in The New York Times of May 11, 2002, written by Emily Eakin, reviewed a conference on ethics and belief at Yale University in April, 2002.
Eakin said Richard Swinburne, a Greek Orthodox professor of philosophy from Oxford University, used a probability formula known as Bayes's theorem to assign values to factors like the probability that there is a God, the nature of Jesus' behavior during his lifetime, and the quality of witness testimony after his death. Much of the Bible(including the gospels) if not all can be proven through secular records (that is non-religous) historical documents. The Bible is NOT the only thing that writes about what happened then. And above all the best proof is the fact that archeologists have found much evidence in the ground to show the history of the Bible is accurate. And NOT ONE thing has been disproven by digging. This is just a list of some of the most convincing things to prove Christianity. So as you can see a educated Christian has MUCH more backing up what he believes than "blind faith".
Now some questions for you about evolution.
Many athiests say they dont believe in God because they say "i dont believe it if i dont see it" and "how can something come from nothing?", they would say they believe in logic, but the more you look into the "logic" that is evolution the more you find it has no logic in it at all.
1.) How did the universe come about?
There is no scientific law that allows something to evolve from nothing. If there was nothing in the universe to begin with, obviously nothing could happen to cause anything to appear.
2.)How could living creatures come from non-life?
athiests believe the flaw with a creator is that he was able to create everthing out of nothing. They dont seem to realize this is EXACTLY what they believe, just taking place over a longer time. No scientific law can account for non-living things’ coming to life. The non-living soil in your garden didn't turn into living trees and flowers. They came from seeds, cuttings, or grafts from other living trees and flowers. biology has found no law to support this idea, and much against it. The invariable observation is that only living things give rise to other living things. Life could not begin if God and miracles took no part!
3.)How could new genetic information arise?
There is no known scientific law that would allow one kind of creature to turn naturally into a completely different kind. Insects don't evolve into more complex non-insects for instance, because they don't have the genes to do it. To show that all life evolved from a single cell, which itself came from some type of chemical soup, there would have had to be massive genetic information gains. But evolutionists have failed to show how this gain of new information occurred. Where did the information come from for the first bristles, stomaches, spines, intestines, complex blood circulation systems, intricate mouthpieces to strain special foods out of the water, and so on, when these are not found in the ancestral species? mutations and natural selection do not show gain in information, just rearrangement or loss of what is already there — therefore there may be beneficial mutations without an increase in genetic information. Mutations overwhelmingly DESTROY genetic information and produce creatures more handicapped than the parents. And natural selection simply weeds out unfit creatures. Natural selection may explain why light-colored moths in England decreased and dark moths proliferated (because during the industrial revolution the light moths on dark tree trunks were more easily seen and eaten by birds), but it cannot show that moths could ever turn into effective, totally different, non-moth creatures. Moths do not have the genetic information to evolve into something that is not a moth, no matter how much time you give them. Plus there are THOUSANDS of complex systems in a single celled organism that are way to complex to have evolved. And even more systems in larger animals that have no way of evolving one organ at a time because the whole system would fail.
4.) Can you show any PROOF no matter how small of one reason you go by what you see and not blind faith?
paleontology/archeology has yet to discover one single fossil to give any evidence of evolution. We have not found one bone of the first air/water breathing fish. or the first walking fish/lizard or amphibian/mammal, and ALL of the "ape-men" found have been proven to be just apes or just humans NOT half and half, PLUS the fact remains that if these truely were the missing links then evolution would have to have taken great leaps in the form of humans from apes, not tiny small mutations over hundreds of thousands of years.
So can you give me a "logical" answer to one of these questions? You would be the first evolutionist able to do it hahaha. Planning to just ignore these questions and throw a pointless arguement that has no merit at me, you definetely WOULDNT be the first athiest to do that. So answer this, whose the one led by blind faith?
my email is thaking0@yahoo.com please feel free to email me with all "logic" you posess

9:37 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dont have a google name thats why it is anonymous but i do leave my email

9:39 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous said......
"How could living creatures come from non-life?
athiests believe the flaw with a creator is that he was able to create everthing out of nothing. They dont seem to realize this is EXACTLY what they believe, just taking place over a longer time"

"The invariable observation is that only living things give rise to other living things."

You claim that "living" things only come from "living" things... well do you breath?... All "living" things breath in some way so they take directly (what we assume is a non-living chemical) Oxygen in our case, and it is absorbed and forms some part of our "living" bodies. We need water also.. Is water living or dead? These apparently "dead" chemicals are absolutely vital to life. So, can it not be that the periodic table of elements have some intrinsic will to live? and by that will created life? Or could we say they are already living... I mean we cannot absolutely be sure that the elements around us are "dead" by the human sense of the word. We could take it further and say that living things are actually just a mish math of dead chemicals so we are really no more sophisticated than your average household brick, which is the same. Anyway something for you to ponder. Something from nothing has already been proven by quantum physics with observations that matter can appear and disappear at quantum level.

8:48 AM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One of the fascinating bits about Jesus as a man was that he lived and studied with yoga masters in India. This is recorded in the Essenes as well as ancient Hindu scrolls. While this may seem blasphemous, if Jesus was a yogi adept, he knew how to slow down his heart rate and breathing to a point which resembled death to those who aren't familiar with such techniques. His resurrection was merely arising from this deep state of consciousness/unconsciousness, called "samadhi."

The Bible has no account of Jesus for most of his life, except for his last three years. Jesus, known as Isa in India, spent most of his life there and studied with the great yogi masters. This is recorded in Hindu texts.

More food for thought:
http://sadhu.sulekha.com/blog/post/2004/01/was-jesus-a-hindu-yogi.htm
http://www.atmajyoti.org/spirwrit-the_christ_of_india.asp
http://www.indiamike.com/india/showthread.php?t=2127

10:40 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe that god is a dog and Jesus was born because a dog mated with the "virgin" mary.

8:23 PM EDT  
Blogger Gavin said...

I'd be interested in your thoughts about my blog post:

Faithful Atheist


gavin@engel.com

5:07 PM EDT  
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also you cam get good information from http://mony4free.blogspot.com/

4:38 PM EST  

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