Testing The Christian Apologists

I listened to the five minute. It covered two topics.The first insisted that it was all right to make laws because they were consistent with the Bible rather than being based on it. That sounds like a distinction without a difference.The second made a hash of the moral argument. Arguing that the standard of morality must be a person pretty much denies the existence of objective morality. So Turek evaded the point and talked about the source - by which he meant an enforcer - of justice.So, two points - and neither of them honest.He did make the valid point that the Calvinist God is not all-loving, which is at least true. But then the Bible can be used to argue that point so it’s not a killer blow.

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Arguably the points are honest coming from his belief.

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I hardly think that answering a completely different question can be considered honest.

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We believe in the person and character of Jesus Christ. We believe that the enforcer of justice being living and active. How is that dishonest?

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Because being the enforcer of justice is different from being the source of morality. To make an analogy with the legal system, the cops aren’t the legislature.I don’t see much of interest in the other quotes. No specifics at all.

I think that the apologists argument is problematic.His reading relies on the phrase meaning a death sentence rather than an execution. But, by his own admission it is read as an actual execution (put to death) and since the repetition is typically for emphasis I think that is more likely the case.And I think that it is a bit of a stretch to consider the actual sentence a literal sentence of death. There is no execution involved at all.But there is more. The serpent does NOT correct the woman. The serpent says that the tree has the properties of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but he does not say that it is a different tree. (NRSV)Let me note that the woman does not know the properties of either tree. If she were originally thinking of the Tree of Life she would still be thinking of the Tree of Life and eat from that.

The apologist you cite certainly edited the story.So I’m going to ask this: When an apologist disagrees with the Bible, why do you decide that the apologist is right ?

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I don't believe that the Bible has only one objective meaning.

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That doesn’t answer the question. The apologist you cited completely made up the idea of the serpent correcting the woman. Why believe him ?Indeed, why bother with a literalist reading of the Adam and Eve story at all ?

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Therefore, who cares what human authors may or may not have intended? The book would only become as important as a room full of other books.

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So, are you just setting up the Bible as an idol, devoid of meaning?
That would be a pretty poor thing to do. If there is wisdom in there it’s still there no matter who said it. And if God wrote it shouldn’t you be strongly against it’s misrepresentation?

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I question those who show me that the book says something that I don't agree with...or that doesn't feel right. To me, it does not feel right for god to "lie". It is patently ridiculous, in my opinion.

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I don’t quite agree with the claims that God lied - but the apologist you cited didn’t really help in that respect. But it is certainly untrue that the serpent lied and misrepresenting the story to try and make the serpent a liar seems bizarre.

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If that's the way they insist that the book must be presented, I reject it. It is the ideology of not needing God and relying on human intuition

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Well, if you think that The Knowledge of Good and Evil described in the story is intuition, that’s your reading. I think it is intended to be something more.

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You do the same thing, after all. Are we not free to question anything that is taught?

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I have no objection to you questioning and disagreeing with what the Bible says. I do object to you trying to make the Bible agree with you. However, if you really believe that God wrote the Bible should you even be questioning it?

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Well, He gave me a brain. He also gave me free will. I believe that within the context of my perceived relationship with Him I am allowed to question many things. I see what blind obedience does to people. When they refuse to question their books, they blow themselves up, die for ideology, and cause harm to society. I wouldn't want to ever be faced with doing that.

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Why not start with questioning the idea that God wrote it? There’s not a single book in the Bible that claims to be written by God, and quite a few identify the author.And I see plenty of room for questioning interpretations, even if you go with the unBiblical idea of God as the author.

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Is lacking a belief in God" the proper and helpful definition of atheism?

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It is certainly a proper definition of atheism. Especially when we consider the original definition of agnostic.

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By what moral standard are atheists judging God to be immoral?

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This is a pretty silly question since the answer is obvious. Everyone judges by their own moral standard - but there is a very large measure of agreement in those standards.Indeed it is strictly speaking incorrect to say that atheists judge God - since atheists do not believe that God did any of the things that prompt the judgement. And liberal Christians like GDR will often agree that God did not do those things because they would be immoral.

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Why atheists have a burden of proof just like Christians(this was helpful)

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Atheists who simply lack belief in God have no burden of proof. Even those who say that God does not exist have a lesser burden than those who say that God does exist. And the Problem of Evil is a compelling argument which has no entirely satisfactory response.

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Why Christianity is the best explanation of why reality is the way it is.

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It isn’t. The very idea is daft.

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The snake story which you defend is implausible to me for several reasons

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If you want to say that the story is wrong, say it’s wrong. I don’t think that either Ringo or jar claim that the story is literally true.

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1) Assuming we are discussing a book of origins and a growing understanding of who God is, the consensus seems to be that God cannot lie. If as you claim God did in fact lie, what do you expect people to do?...

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For Ringo or jar to claim that God actually lied they would have to assert that the story is true.

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... Worship the snake? Worship the Books themselves, as GDR warns us against?

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I hardly think that worshipping the apologists is better, but it seems to be what you are suggesting.

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I am not challenging what the book says.

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You certainly are. You are the one misrepresenting the story, and the one who calls it implausible.

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I am challenging what you get out of it and why you defend it simply because "the book says it".

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I think the only defending they are doing is defending the story against misrepresentation. And if you are championing misrepresentation of the story you are going further than merely challenging it.

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You know all too well what a lot of apologetics teaches

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And that is why they reject it. With good reason.

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For now, let's just say that jar and ringos interpretation is unpopular. It makes God out to be a human creation and a character who lies in the book.

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At most it makes the story a human creation. Like the The Three Musketeers is a human creation and the D’Artagnan of the book is largely Dumas’ creation. There was still a real D’Artagnan - and the sane can be said for many of the other characters.And given the depiction of God in the story seems to be more like a pagan polytheistic God I don’t see why Christians would expect that depiction to be very accurate.

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jar gets around that one by calling God the "god character, lending support to his idea that there are many different "god characters" within the book

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That isn’t getting around it that is pretty clearly saying the he is only talking about the story as a story. And I don’t see anything wrong with acknowledging the fact that the Bible has differing depictions of God.

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Apologists would counter that by saying that some things are only discerned through "spiritual eyes".

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Which is a perfect excuse for saying whatever they want. Wilfully blind eyes might be a better description (at best).

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... Some say that Jesus was the first true apologist and that the Apostle Paul was the next one. Critics say that Paul was trying to start his own religion in opposition to the Judaism he was raised in. You also assert that redactors sabotaged John and other parts of the book, whichj if we believe that, dismantles the book as a valid description of Christian belief.

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I don’t think that Jesus was an apologist, although Paul might be.I don’t think that I’ve accused redactors of sabotaging any part of the Bible, nor am I sure what sabotage you mean. And why would the redactors beliefs be less valid as Christian beliefs than the unedited text?

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Campolos basic message is similar to what ringo has been trying to get me to accept as well as jar. That it is not the source that is important but the content as lived out through us in our daily lives.

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Tell me how often the Bible says that the source is more important than the message? Indeed, when a message is attributed to God, isn’t the point to say that the message IS important?

John Pavlovitz

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Seems harris was challenging the word used for virgin in Isaiah. "Alma".

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Ravi set him straight.

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It looks like you were fooled by Zacharias’ tone of superiority. However, behind the bluster, he concedes pretty much everything.He admits that the virgin birth is part of a larger prophecy taken out of it’s context. He alleges that is a legitimate reading, but if it is - and if it can be done in hindsight as is the case here then I think he needs more support for the claim that it is legitimate in this case. But he provides little support for the claim that it is a legitimate reading in any case. But without some very strict rules all it does is make prophecy even more malleable - and therefore less impressive.In the specific case he admits that almah does not mean virgin. Now I will grant that if Isaiah wanted the same phrase to refer to both births he could not specifically claim that the mother was a virgin. But that still means that Isaiah did not predict a virgin birth.The assertion that the virgin birth story is based on Mary’s testimony is also lacking any adequate support. We have no knowledge of where the story came from, and the discrepancies in the two Nativity stories don’t leave us much cause to trust either.

I think you have misunderstood - I checked out the Dinah reference myself a while back.The Greek word parthenos usually translated as virgin - is used for Dinah after the rape in the Septuagint. That’s the word used in Matthew (so why the NT translators authority comes into it I have no idea). Obviously the Septuagint translators did not necessarily mean virgin when they used parthenos. (I am pretty sure that the word translated as parthenos was not almah)The author of Matthew was probably relying on the Greek translation of Isaiah, not translating it himself.ABE this online Strong’s shows that the only appearance of almah in Genesis is in chapter 24, referring to RebekahEdited by PaulK, : No reason given.Edited by PaulK, : Add url & fix it

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Cmmentary I found says that Matthew did do the translation himself, and now I'm forgetting the evidence. Oh, simply the fact that the Jewish translation of Isaiah 7:14 didn't use "virgin."

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What Jewish translation ? The Septuagint used parthenos, just as I said. And that is the one that matters.

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It turns out that it was not Dinah I was thinking of, but the word "virgins" used twice in the Song of Solomon: 1:3 and 6:8, both trnalsations of "almah."

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And the significance of this is? Is there any reason to think that that is anything more than a questionable choice by the translator (especially in the case of 6:8).

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The amazing thing about the Bible is that all 66 of its books work together in a supernatural way despite the independent writings that make it up, all working together toward a single supernatural revelation of the mind of God

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It would be if it was true, but it isn’t. The really amazing thing is the way believers twist the Bible to fit their doctrines.

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This could not happen simply with indifividual prophets in different times and cultural contexts writing from their own separate messages from God

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Then it is hardly surprising that - despite the selective process that assembled the canon - it didn’t happen

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This is major evidence for the supernatural inspiration of scripture,and a major caveat against picking and choosing from among its writings.

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Tell that to Martin Luther.

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You may see this if you read it as it is supposed to be read, each part building on each other part. That will mean giving up some of your first takes on a reading to see how it fits into the grand design.

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Try reading it honestly instead of trying to force it into the mould of dogma. Or perhaps your kind of believer can’t do that.

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That makes zero sense

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Christianity doesn’t make sense. And Biblical Inerrancy makes even less sense (especially when it seems to really propose an errant a Bible that humans can correct - while pretending not to).

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What's amazing to me is how unbelievers insist on turning whatever the tradition says backwards like this.

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If tradition is obviously false - and it often is - why would it be surprising that unbelievers - or even believers disagree with it. By the way that’s a hardline Catholic position. Protestantism was founded on not trusting traditions.

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Millennia of Biblical scholars derived the doctrines from the Bible itself. Unless you are talking about the RCC and they had a lot of pagan stuff to cram into the Bible

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Biblical Inerrancy is, of course, a Catholic doctrine. And not one that is found in the Bible. Are you calling it pagan stuff then ? If not where did it come from ?

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Anyway we twist no scripture, scripture dictates its own interpretation to honest exegetes.

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I guess that Biblical Inerrantists can’t be honest exegete then. I’m glad you agree.

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The consistency is there to be discovered by honest students, it's not invented.

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Of course it is invented. Matthew and Luke can’t even agree on where the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were seen.

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Yes Luther struggled with some parts of the Bible though he was brilliant with most of it and gave us most of what I'm talking about here. No biblical scholar is perfect, it takes all of them together to assemble the whole truth.

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And yet you regularly attack Biblical scholars for daring to disagree with your belief, and try to discredit them with smears. You’re no friend of scholarship.