Testing The Christian Apologists

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We will never convince them because they think that spiritual discernment is invented

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If the Bible was supernaturally consistent as Faith claimed then you wouldn’t need spiritual discernment to see it.

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They critically evaluate the Bible as if it is an ordinary book

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And that is the only way to read it that could prove Faith’s point.Spiritual discernment is just a boast to justify twisting the Bible.
We know that neither of you have any special capability to see tha truth, just blindness to the text. Faith spent ages arguing that Isaiah 7:14 was only about Jesus (which makes no sense in context and that isn’t even her worst misreading). You, Phat have intentionally left out part of Genesis 3:5, misrepresenting what the serpent said.Not impressive.

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The reason that you do is because not everyone automatically has the Spirit.

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Again, Faith was trying to use this alleged consistency to prove that the a Bible had supernatural origins. If you need some supernatural ability to see that it doesn’t mean what it says to see this consistency it isn’t much of an argument.

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I know that critics will say that this exclusivity is a cheap marketing ploy, but I have seen evidence

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Silly misreadings are not evidence if the Spirit. Or even a Lying Spirit (although the latter is at least a little less implausible).

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You could be a disciplined scholar of many Biblical texts and yet not have the Holy Spirit.

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You can be a fool he thinks he can get away with obvious misrepresentation but that isn’t a reason to think you have anything other than human folly.

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Unbelievers and unbiased critics do the same thing.

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Generally, no. Remember you are the one intentionally omitting text in order to misrepresent the story. An unbiased critic would not do that.

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The whole snake explanation clearly proves that

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That is an obvious falsehood.

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You take what popular opinion shows to be a villain in the narrative and turn it into a plot device, then take God and turn Him into a liar.

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No, I don’t.However, popular perception of the story is based in shoehorning it into Christian understanding, even though the story itself is pre-Christian - and obviously depicts God in a way very different from popular Christian belief. This is an example of how the alleged consistency of the Bible is imposed on it, and often at odds with the actual text.

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That is clearly your preconceived doctrine.

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Funny how things I neither say nor believe are my preconceived doctrine. I don’t for instance, call God a liar (I don’t find it clear whether God meant that the forbidden fruit was poison or whether he meant he would execute Adam and Eve). In fact my conclusions about the story are based in the story - not on any preconceived belief.

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What I wrote is a paraphrase of traditional Christian theology.

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It’s also quite obviously untrue. As I pointed out there are some big disagreements between Matthew and Luke/Acts - and they aren’t even fully independent, having - at least - shared sources.

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The Byble is a WHOLE that could only have been put together out of its many separate parts by God Himself.

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And that’s just silly. The Bible is obviously a collection of human-authored documents, gathered together by humans.

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I have seen no evidence that apologists lie

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You certainly saw evidence of dishonesty. Why not admit that?

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If by that you mean liberally interpreting scripture to support other scripture and dogma, I don't classify that as dishonest.

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Do you mean outright inventing things ? Because I don’t think liberal interpretation goes that far. Message 13. And if it does it can’t be considered honest.But confusing the roles of origin of morality and enforcer of justice isn’t even that. Message 4. Nor is using weasel wording to try work around the Constitution (same message)And I’d add.

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You must remember that we believe that all scripture is inspired by God to begin with. If we don't call each other on it, (which we would do if it truly was dishonest) then we give no weight to the argument from the unbiased critical thinkers.

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You (in general) don’t. Even if it is truly dishonest

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The very first time I read the story of the snake and Eve, I understood basically what it said.

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Except that you didn’t. That is why you had to resort to misrepresentation to support your understanding.

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Nobody lies about Genesis. Some simply see a different message.

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Says the man who go caught in an obvious misrepresentation. And then went on to repeat that misrepresentation.

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Who praytell am I misrepresenting?

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You misrepresented the story, therefore the who would be the author of the story.

Apologetics is simply arguing in favour of a predetermined position. When that position is clearly false, honesty has to take a back seat.It is notable that the apologists examined frequently failed the test, even though in-depth discussion was avoided.Cases where I caught an apologist being less than honest may be seen in Message 4, Message 13, Message 256 (although the last is deceptive bluster rather than outright fabrication)Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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And when it is true, as the Bible is, then apologists have their work cut out for them as their job is to show its consistency and draw out all the implications of a divine work.

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Well, there can be additional lying to make the Bible fit their ideas of what it should be - but that is beyond apologetics.And really, insisting that the Bible is true when you can’t or won’t address the obvious inconsistencies is hardly honest.

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No information was uncovered that showed any indication that the apologist--any of them---were lying or dishonest either

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That’s just not true, Phat. And I’ve already corrected you on this earlier in the thread. I’ve pointed out more than one example myself.As I posted recently:

Two points that seem relevant.Firstly, deception is part of his method. As Phat quoted in Message 617
Misrepresenting his credentials to add the appearance of credibility to his claims is part of that. And it works on those who are in sufficiently sceptical. From the same quote: See also the deceptive bluster quoted in Message 253 as explained in my Message 256Secondly credential inflation seems to be quite common among creationists, who are a similar brand of apologist. From Kent Hovind’s diploma mill doctorate to the Discovery Institute’s lists of scientists to the attempts to present Werner Gitt as an academic, rather than a manager.