Open letter to all Atheists.

quote:

---

As a Christian, you have to acknowledge that the Bible (including Genesis) is the inerrant word of God

---

Not all Christians are inerrantists.Moreover, I don't see how it is possible for a Christian to seriously believe it.The Bible never claims to be the inerrant word of God. You can find parts which claim to be repeating words God said, but that just emphasises that the surrounding text makes no such claim. You can point to 2 Timothy 3:16, but that is vague and doesn't seem to go so far as to claim that the writings referred to (and it's not even clear which writings are meant, but it's pretty unlikely to include itself) are the word of God, or inerrant (and how do you know that 2 Timothy is correct ?)And then there are the disagreements in the Bible. Sure, if you're prepared to strain the text you can explain them away, but such explanations are hardly satisfactory - unless you insist that the inerrancy doctrine dictates the interpretation of the Bible - to the point of making it more important than the actual text.So, the doctrine that the Bible is the inerrant word of God appears to be a human creation at odds with the Bible. The only way to believe the the doctrine that the Bible the inerrant word of God is to say that that doctrine is MORE IMPORTANT than the inerrant word of God.Does that really make sense to ANYONE ?

quote:

---

If a comet is passing through the Alpha Centauri system, it's not also at the same time a school of plankton being devoured by a blue whale. Again, nothing to do with human language.

---

Really ? Wouldn't you say that the MEANING of the statement "a comet is passing through Alpha Centauri" has rather a lot to do with human language ? And the fact that it excludes the meaning of the statement "it is a school of plankton being devoured by a blue whale" also has rather a lot to do with human language ?

quote:

---

And not all cops follow the law.

---

That's a piece of deliberate nastiness. Especially when you don't answer most of my post.

quote:

---

It does claim to be God's word

---

No, it doesn't.And if the Bible is so perfect, why do so many inerrantists feel that they have to improve it, by pretending that it says what they think it ought to say ?

quote:

---

Could a comet in a distant solar system and a school of plankton here on Earth exist without humans (and thus our language)?
The answer is of course yes. Neither event requires our presence nor our language.

---

And it is not logic which makes them different. Thus you miss the point.

Actually it's your poor understanding of logic that is the problemFormal logic is essentially a "truth algebra" as indifferent to the meaning of the statements plugged into it as algebra is to the value of the variables - or, perhaps better, the physical meaning of the variables when algebra is deployed in physics.The contradictions you identify are not formal logical contradictions - they contradict only because the meanings of the statements are incompatible. But that incompatibility has nothing to do with logic. That the states of affairs described by the statements are incompatible is a matter if physical rather than logical impossibility.Now logic is derived from ordinary human language, and formalises certain aspects. Notably the concept of "truth", the operators "and", "or" and "not" and the notion of implication (although the formalisation of that may surprise you!).Further, as a consequence of this a valid logical argument tells us nothing that is not inherent in the collection of premises it is given. All valid logical arguments are tautologous.Logic is not a set of laws applying to the physical world at all. Edited by PaulK, : correct the auto-"correct" (WHY does it hate apostrophes?)