There is an appalling lack of historical evidence backing the Bible's veracity

Which is the reason that appeals to authority are logical fallacies.But let's get down to the real point of this thread.Like any other mythology, the mundane events recorded in the Bible were most likely at least grounded in reality. We do have examples of kings and so on mentioned in the Bible and corroborated by external, unrelated sources. It's even one of the methodologies used to date the events in teh Bible.It's the extraordinary claims where the Bible breaks down. Fundamentalists typically use examples of historically accurate parts of the bible to claim that the Bible in its entirety is a historically valid set of documents, and this is plainly silly.When the Bible says "so and so begat such and such," there's no real reason to doubt such a claim. Even uncorroborated, there's little point in arguing it unless contradictory claims are found elsewhere - people have children all the time, and while you can't say that a given uncorroborated geneology in the Bible is iron-clad evidence of a family line, you can certainly say that the geneology is possibly or even probably accurate (again, not refering to cases where contradictions are found).The point, though, is that on the whole the Bible makes a rather unimpressive historical document because it records such things as 6-day Creationism of the global Flood that are wholly contradicted by multiple fields of science, as well as stories like the Exodus or the Tower of Babel where no archeological or anthropological evidence is ever found to corroborate the stories even where such evidence should be found.In their completely biased predetermined conclusions from blind, unbreakable faith, fundamentalists forget the most basic facts regarding evidence of any sort: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When the Bible claims a geneology, or even mentions an individual as king, there's no reason whatsoever to doubt that such evidence may be factual unless contradictory information is revealed. Such claims are not extraordinary in the least. But when the Bible claims the world was Flooded and repopulated in its entirety by the contents of a rather small wooden boat, or that millions of Jewish slaves escaped Egypt amidst myriad plagues including the sudden unexplainable death of every first-born child in the nation, and there is absolutely no evidence to support those claims, there is no more reason to believe them than to believe that Achilles was a literally invincible warrior and that the Illiad was a "historical account" simply because Troy was a real city.

You fail to understand what an appeal to authority is, as demonstrated again in subsequent posts. An appeal to authority is a logical argument whereby the conclusion is asserted to be valid based on the authority of an individual(s). This is fallacious because authorities can be wrong. The weight of an individual's authority is irrelevant - all that matters is their evidence and their argument, which are the substance missing from an appeal to authority.If you claim that the Bible is historically accurate because x, y, and x are all authorities on the subject and they also say that the Bible is historically accurate, this is fallacious reasoning because there is no actual evidence or argument presented byond the appeal to authority.If you claim that the Bible is historically accurate because of evidence a, b, and c, and repeat argument d as presented by authority x, your argument will not be fallacious (at least so far as an appeal to authority is concerned) because there is an actual line of reasoning and evidence beyond a simple "it's true because this guy said so." You are correct that lack of evidence is not positive evidence for falsification. However, in the case of significant historical events where physical evidence and ancient records should be found aplenty as with such accounts as the global Flood, the Exodus, the plagues of Egypt, 6-day Creationism, etc, a lack of evidence is strongly suggestive that the accounts are not historically accurate even if they were originally based on far less broadly reaching real events. In the case of 6-day Creationism or the global Flood, there are also significant amounts of contradictory evidence that falsify the historical accuracy of such accounts. Such reasoning is absurd, and it's trivially easy to illustrate it as such:Imagine that I write an account of World War 2. It's not overly detailed, just most of the more significant events, and the places and names used are all accurate and objectively verifiable elsewhere. However, I make an addition: I speak of a super-soldier named Captain America, who was the subject of a top-secret government program to develop a serum that would physically transform any regular person into a virtual superman with beyond-Olympic level strength and agility. In one instance I recount a tale of Captain America single-handedly devastating several German army divisions and thwarting the German attempts to develop nuclear weapons.Does the overall accuracy of my account of World War 2 "lend credible support" that the US government actually developed a "super-soldier serum," and that a single successful subject of this project essentially won the war single-handedly?Of course it does not. Each claim in a historical text must be handled individually, and as always, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The accuracy of the remainder of my account may give sufficient reason to look for further evidence of a super-soldier program, but it certainly doesn't provide "credible support" that such a program ever actually existed. The strength of evidence provided by a single extraordinary account in a single text without outside verification rregardless of the accuracy of the more mundane aspects of the same text is extremely weak. So weak that simply dismissing such evidence out-of-hand as "likely mythological" is a reasonable conclusion, as we have many examples of such mythology, as in the case of the Illiad - a story that recounts real places and possibly some real events and people, but also contains wholly untrue mythological fabrications. The lack of evidence I'm speaking of is specific, Bertot. The Exodus should have left significant evidence of so many people traversing the desert over 40 years; we have found evidence from desert nomads in far smaller groups than described int eh Exodus account, and yet the Exodus of the Jews seems to have left absolutely no evidence whatsoever. When we expect to find evidence, have found similar evidence for far less significant events, and find nothing, the lack of evidence is strongly suggestive that the account is not actually historically accurate.Likewise, the Egyptian plagues, including the loss of all firstborn children, resulted in no records being left by the Egyptians. The only account of those plagues is in the Biblical texts, and nowhere else. Such a significant event is bound to be recorded somewhere, and yet there is nothing. The river turning to blood should have also left evidence of a mass die-off (most aquatic creatures wouldn't do so well living in a river that suddenly, magically turned into blood), and no evidence is found.Extraordinary accounts such as these require extraordinary evidence to provide "credible support" that they actually happened. Such evidence cannot be provided by a single account in the Biblical texts, and is not found elsewhere. It is not likely that these events ever actually happened as recorded in teh Bible.Other examples, such as the Flood or 6-day Creationism, have mountains of objective evidence directly contradicting the Biblical accounts. In these cases it's not a mere lack of evidence we're discussing, but the contradiction of significant amounts of it. The weak evidence provided by an extraordinary claim in an ancient text is completely and utterly overridden by actual objective evidence to the contrary. In these cases we can say with near certainty that these Biblical accounts are not even remotely historically accurate. To give you the level of certainty, I would say that it is as certain that the Biblical accounts of the Flood and Creation did not happen as reported as it is that the Sun will rise tomorrow. Quite to the contrary. The reason I am not convinced is the lack of evidence. if you can provide objective evidence of the divine or miraculous, I will follow it.Your response is a childish "I'm right, you're just being stubborn" approach, and you take this course because you know you cannot win this argument because your evidence and arguments have the logical strength of wet tissue.Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

Even the miraculous should leave evidence.As an example, miracles were used in the Biblical account of the Exodus to account for the logistical problems of food and water. Similarly, the plagues of Egypt were said to be miraculous. Given that these events actually happened, we should expect to see evidence of their happening regardless of whether their cause was miraculous or not. If the plagues of Egypt occurred, we should see corroborating accoutns of such disasters in teh writings of ancient Egypt from around the right time. If the Exodus occurred, we should see corroborating writings regarding the sudden release/escape of hundreds of thousands of slaves from across the nation. We should further see physical evidence of such things as rivers turning to blood or hundreds of thousands of desert nomads wandering a relatively small area of the desert for 40 years (particularly since, as I noted above, we do see evidence of much smaller nomad groups not related tot he Biblical account, emaning we are obviously capable of detecting such evidence). If the Flood actually happened as recorded in teh Bible, we should see in the fossil record a massive die-off of basically everything living followed by a mass dispersal of a small population from the middle-east repopulating the Earth, as well as genetic bottlenechs in every single species corresponding to the appropriate time. If Creationism happened, we should not see contradictory evidence regarding the age of the Earth from multiple, agreeing fields of science, and the Theory of Evolution should not fit the evidence.These events should have left evidence regarless of whether their source was miraculous or not.The exception would be if you claimed that further miracles were used to erase all trace of their occurrance, in which case we cease to discuss the matter rationally and gain the ability to make up literally whatever we want and claim equal validity. After all, it's equally likely that the Judeo-Christian deity miraculously allowed the Exodus as it is Zeus is responsible for lightning if we allow that further miracles are used to disguise these "facts" from us. This would, of course, mean that any deity would have to be purposely misleading us, leaving false trails and completely erasing any trace of his miraculous deeds with the exception of a set of ancient texts from a single nomadic middle-eastern culture.That's an incredible extraordinary claim, one for which you have no extraordinary evidence to match. In fact, such a line of reasoning is identical to the pitiful "reasoning" of conspiracy theorists - there's no evidence for such bizzare claims because the evidence is being hidden!Once again, Bertot, you have failed to support the Bible as a historically accurate texts as it pertains to its extraordinary claims such as the Flood, Creation, or the Exodus. If your best attempt is to hand-wave it away witha miraculous divine cover-up, then your position is sorely lacking in intelligence.If you'd like to convince me that these miracles happened, simply provide the evidence that such miracles would leave behind. For instance, if I were to try to convince you that I could miraculously fire high-energy laser beams from my eyes, I would provide you with the evidence of laser-burned holes in objects spaced the same distance as my eyes. This is perhaps a poor analogy, but it illustrates that even the miraculous should leave evidence behind unless further miracles are invoked to explain the alck of evidence, at which point no objective evidence or even rational discussion is possible. I eagerly await your response, as I'm sure it will prove to be just as easily dismantled as your previous posts.

Ray!Did you intend to actually post some content? You didn't actually provide a logical critique of any of my arguments, you simply supplied a series of bare assertions with no evidence to back them up.It's not even worth doing a line-by-line rebuttal for you, Ray, because you can't even back up your own statements.Immediately provide some of this evidence you claim exists supporting the Exodus or Genesis. When you cannot, your concession will be accepted.Or is the lack of evidence actually a secret Atheist conspiracy to keep the good Christians like you in the dark? Oooh, maybe the lack of evidence supporting the more incredible bits of the Bible is actually a punishment from God for us not having found the evidence! That would certainly be a good Ray argument!

This topic has unfortunately broadened far beyond what's reasonable to discuss in a single thread. I'm going to make an effort to redirect Bertot and teh conversation at large back to something resembling the original topic.Cavediver, when creating this thread, asserted that there is an "appalling lack of historical evidence regarding the Bible's veracity."In other words, the asserions in the Bible are typically assumed to be true by Christians without any consideration for outside objective verification.There are many historical claims in the Bible, from Creation to Exodus to geneologies to Jesus' execution.When analyzing a text for historical accuracy, it's important to be aware that not all claims are equal, and that essencially every "fact" in the text is actually a separate claim that needs to be independantly verified. This means that a passage regarding who was king of what nation at what time requires outside verification, but that the threshold of evidence required to support such a mundane (meaning not extraordinary) claim is orders of magnitude lower than the threshold required to support the more extraordinary claims such as the global Flood.In this thread, commentary has been made surrounding some of the more mundane claims - the existence of Jericho, various royal lineages, etc. These are ordinary claims and have a low threshold of evidence. Some, like the existence of Jericho, have been independantly confirmed.But this has no bearing on any of the unconfirmed claims in the Bible. The existence of city, a confirmed royal dynasty, these things do not lend any evidenciary support for any of the unrelated claims in teh Bible. For example, whether David was ever actually King of Israel or not is compeltely irrelevant to whether the Tower of Babel ever existed - one can be true and the other false, both can be true, or both can be false. Multiple attempts in this thread have been made to illustrate this point to Bertot and have seemingly failed, but make no mistake - this is the same for every other ancient text. Proving Pilate was actually a Roman beureaucrat has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether the Flood happened. Again, both can be true, both can be false, or one can be true and the other false. When Bertot says that the veracity of parts of a document support the veracity of the remainder, he is flat wrong.Let's try to take just a single example of a claim int he Bible that is wholly unsupported but is assumed by virtually every Christian and Jew to be compeltely true: the Exodus.We have a very significant set of very specific events described in the Exodus account. None of these events are supported by any evidence outside of the Biblical account.So what should we expect to find if we were to test the veracity of the Exodus claim? I'm going to focus exclusively on testable claims - I'm not going to deal with, for example, the burning bush.Let's go through what Exodus claims, specifically:1) The Hebrew population was greater than the entire population of Egypt

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1:8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
1:9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:
1:10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
1:11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.
1:12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

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Emphasis mine, of course.2) The first plague: the Nile and all other water in Egypt is turned to blood

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7:17 Thus saith the LORD, In this thou shalt know that I am the LORD: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.
7:18 And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river.
7:19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.
7:20 And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
7:21 And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

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All of the water in all of Egypt turned to blood. It is specifically mentioned that all of the fish died.3) All of the cattle in Egypt, except for that held by the Hebrews, dies.

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9:6 And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.

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God kills more Egyptian cattle later on, which shouldn't be possible if he killed all of the egyptian cattle here, but that's not the topic at the moment - I want only to discuss those things that should be testable at least to some degree (which is why I didn't mention the plagues of frogs, lice, or flies). A mass cattle dieoff should result in famine from the sudden loss of meat and milk.4) The killing of the firstborn

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12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

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All of the firstborn children of Egypt, including animals (and I thought all the cattle were dead already?) were killed.I won't mention any of the other plagues, even though we have what appears to be a meteor shower and a 3-day-long eclipse. These should be written about, certainly, but we can't really test for them. We can tell when and where eclipses happen even into the past, but without knowing when exactly Exodus is supposed to have happened, we can't test whether there was an eclipse in Egypt at the appropriate time.3-4 all involve the plagues of Egypt. We should expect from these to see evidence of a famine in Egypt, where all of the cattle and fish are dead, as well as textual sources outside of teh Biblical account mentioning nation-wide disasters. Many Christian apologetics (including Bertot earlier in the thread) claim that Egyptians would not have written down an account of their "defeat." But this is absurd - history texts aren't the only things we find in archaeological digs. When a large segment of the population suddenly dies, we should expect to find some evidence (certainly textual, but also mass graves or other leavings indicative of such major events as all of the first-born dying and a famine from the devastation of food stores).5) The crossing of the Red Sea

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14:7 And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.
14:8 And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel: and the children of Israel went out with an high hand.
14:9 But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pihahiroth, before Baalzephon.
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14:22 And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
14:23 And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.
14:24 And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians,
14:25 And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fighteth for them against the Egyptians. The Lord took off their chariot wheels
14:26 And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.
14:27 And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
14:28 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.

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Here again Exodus gives us some numbers. Pharoah (odd how "Pharoah" is never mentioned by name, isn't it? The Bible makes note of kings' names everywhere else, but not here...) took 600 "chosen" chariots, and all of the chariots and horsemen of Egypt. This sets 600 as the absolute lower limit for the number of chariots involved in the persuit.We should expect to find significant evidence of this event in the Red Sea. Not just one or two chariot wheels, not several, but the remains of hundreds (with a good possibility of thousands) of chariots should be found in the seabed, along with the remains of people and horses in the same locations. Much should be decomposed now, but the shear number of people, animals, weapons, and chariots involved in this pursuit according to the Exodus account should have left undisputable evidence in the Red Sea that the crossing actually took place.6) Wandering the desertI'm not going to provide a specific passage here, because the details are all over the remainder of the book. But we all know the basics: 40 years of wandering the desert. We also know that they typical trappings of nomads would be present, such as cooking fires (along with manna, God provided the Hebrews with "flesh to eat" apparently in teh form of quails (16:13), which would need to be cooked), pottery and such for storage of food and water, tents, etc, as such things are specifically mentioned several times in teh account.We don't need to discuss the logistics of feeding and watering a population this size for 40 years as that's dismissed in the story, and this is a discussion of historical accuracy, not a determination of whether the event was possible. But we should still see evidence of the passing of a population greater than the population of Egypt passing through the desert for 40 years.So, with these 6, specific claims from Exodus, what evidence should we expect to find? We know a general estimate for the population of the Hebrews from Exodus 1. We know that it should be greater than the population of Egypt, which places it comfortably in teh millions range, several orders of magnitude larger than populations we have found evidence of in the past, so we know that we should find similar evidence of teh Exodus. We know there were a series of plagues that should be recorded in texts outside of the book of Exodus simply becasue of their magnitude and import. We know that we should find evidence of a sudden famine where all of the cattle and fish die over a very short span of time. We should see evidence of mass dehydration from all of the water of Egypt turning to blood. We know that at minimum 600 chariots (and likely thousands of combined horsemen, chariots, and soldiers) were supposed to have been suddenly drowned on the bottom of the Red Sea, which should leave more than ample remains (human, animal, chariots, weapons, etc) to be found.We have found evidence of ancient nomads in deserts before, in groups much smaller than referred to in the Exodus account. What do we find? Pottery. Weapons. Human remains. Remains of cookfires. Tents. All of the things a nomadic people would of necessity leave behind to be well-preserved in the dry sand of the desert. We should see the same evidence on a much larger scale for the Exodus account, with artifacts consistent with those found in other Hebrew settlements.We haven't found any. Studies have been done. We have looked. Modern satelite imaging and radar have uncovered much smaller examples as I mentioned earlier, but have not revealed the massive passage of hundreds of thousands to millions of Hebrews crossing a relatively small area of the desert over the course of 40 years.We haven't found evidence for any of these claims, in fact, outside of the Bible. There are no Egyptian writings regarding such a population of Hebrew slaves, even before the Exodus. No writings about plagues or famines or the sudden death of every first-born human and animal in the entire country in a single night. No writings about a massive loss of military forces at the Red Sea, either from Egypt or its surrounding nations, who would surely have jumped at the opportunity while Egypt was weak. No remains at the bottom of the Red Sea consistent with the crossing. No remains of a massive nomadic Hebrew population in the desert.Nothing. The whole story from start to finish is unsupported anywhere else. Exodus doesn't even mention the name of the Pharaoh at the time, when other Biblical books mention the specific names of kings all the time.This is an example of the "appalling lack of historical evidence surrounding the Bible's veracity." The entire book of Exodus is essencially one unsupported assertion after another, with no confirming evidence anywhere. Yet almost all Christians simply assume that the story is true, taking it for granted. It's this practice that's appalling, to me - taking Biblical accounts as "Gospel truth" (pun intended) even when their claims are totally unsupported and, in some cases, even directly contradicted by real objective evidence.More appalling are people like Bertot who, when confronted with these facts, grasps for straws through apologetics. No doubt he'll return with evidence of one or two wheels found at the bottom of the Red Sea - but not in numbers consistent with the Biblical account, and not with human and horse remains along with wepons. He'll repeat his assertion that the Egyptians simply "wouldn't write that down," without supporting that assertion.But apologetics, the "re-interpretation" of evidence (I'd call it the "rape" or "mangling" of evidence myself) to fit a pre-determined conclusion, is not a valid method of inquiry because the conclusion never changes regardless of the evidence.

So...the evidence found regarding dinosaurs existing millions of years ago shows that the Bible is accurate when it shows through geneologies that the Earth is around 6000 years old?And of course the evidence found regardign the formation of stars, planets, and cosmology in general showed that the Bible was accurate in a literal 6-day Creation week, right?Modern geology showing that the Earth has never had a global Flood (not an absence of evidence, but mutually exclusive contradictory evidence) surely showed that the Biblical deluge story was accurate, right? And the lack of a genetic bottleneck at the same time for all species on Earth as would be required by that level of mass-dieoff (again, not an absence of evidence, but rather mutually exclusive contradictory evidence) showed that the Flood happened as told in the Bible, right?Right.And absence of evidence is evidence of absence. If I don't see a fly on my monitor, that is evidence that there is no fly on my monitor. It's simply not proof of absence...but then, actual proof is difficult to come by for just about everything. When evidence should be present if an event occurred (ie, a dead body must exist for a murder to have occurred), the absence of that evidence (in this case the "victim" walking around alive) is evidence of falsification. Not all evidence is like a fingerprint, where the presence or absence alone means little. Some evidence ismutually exclusive.You're approaching this like a gullible fool. You assume that the Bible is accurate until it's proven otherwise (and apparently even then), instead of approaching all claims with skepticism until they are supported by evidence. By that standard, Harry Potter should be regarded as true - all of the evidence that has been found (ie, the existence of London) demonstrates the accuracy of the book, and the abence of any evidence surrounding magic is not actually evidence of its absence.So do you treat all historical claims and myths this way, or only the Bible?

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ev·i·dence
-noun
1. that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
2. something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign: His flushed look was visible evidence of his fever.
3. Law. data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.
-verb (used with object) 4. to make evident or clear; show clearly; manifest: He evidenced his approval by promising his full support.
5. to support by evidence: He evidenced his accusation with incriminating letters.
”Idiom6. in evidence, plainly visible; conspicuous: The first signs of spring are in evidence.

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Relevant definitions bolded. I think the dictionary makes it clear. Evidence is anything that tends to prove an assertion. Sometimes true. However, that doesn't mean both of them will be right, or that both of them understood the evidence, or that the subject actually is evidence in the first place. With regard to religions such as Christianity, it's plainly a case of "belief" without supporting evidence. The only evidence of the more unusual claims of the Bible (6-day Creation, the existence of a deity, the Flood, the Exodus, the settlement of the Hebrews in teh promised land, the miracles performed by Jesus, the resurrection, etc) is the text of teh Bible itself. All other texts that speak of the same events have already been attributed back to the Biblical texts - that is, there are no first-hand accounts or historical documentation outside of the Bible that were not originated by the same Biblical text. There is no physical evidence of Creation, the existence of a deity, the Flood, or the Exodus, all events that should have left plenty of evidence to find. Instead, we typically find evidence that contradicts the Biblical account.In this case, it's certainly possible for two people to look at the evidence and come to different conclusions. However, the person who believes the account of a set of texts written by ancient, ignorant goat-herders over the accumulated models of science which have been repeatedly tested and verified is a gullible fool.Quite literally, the person who believes that teh Bible is evidence of its own veracity must either use special pleading or accept every text, no matter how ficticious, from the Quoran to Harry Potter, as "evidence" that similarly overrides all observation of reality. Both are quite plainly irrational positions. As an Atheist, I can say I have no reason to beleive in any gods, whether that be yours or anyone elses, because your collective theological brethren have never supplied anything approaching actual evidence to support your wild claims. When your beliefs require that every species of animal on Earth must have existed within walking distance of Noah's house, and is contradicted by every single model accepted by mainstream geology, archaeology, paleontology, oceanography, biology, and physics, models that are based on and supported by actual real-life observations of the world around us, I think it's pretty reasonable to ask why I should beleive you.As for the existence of Jesus, claiming that a man by that name existed around the specified time is not a very extraordinary claim, and I'd as readily believe such an assertion as I would if you claimed there was once a man named George in England. However, as with the previous set of claims, if you assert that this Jesus performed a series of magical miracles and rose from the dead, I'd again have to ask why I should believe you.If your answer to both of those questions is "the Bible says so," I'm afraid you aren't helping your case much. The Illiad says that Zeus exists and that there was a man named Achilles who participated in the destruction of Troy and who was invulnerable except for a spot on his ankle. While I'll readily accept the existence of a man named Achilles, and even that he may have participated in the destructon of Troy (a city we have externally verified to exist), I certainly don't think anyone, Achilles or otherwise, had some sort of superhuman invulnerability that protected him from all harm so long as nobody hurt his ankle. And I certainly see no reason to accept that Zeus exists.The only way around accepting all extraordinary claims so long as they are written down is to make special pleading for the Bible...and I'm afraid I just don't buy that. If "believers" are unable to explain the scriptures to "nonbelievers," how are you ever supposed to convince anyone?This seems like a rationalization for ignoring all evidence outside of the Bible, and a support for apologetic reasoning that puts the conclusion first and finds evidence to support it later.Further, do the scriptures not say that the Earth was Created in 6 days, and that there was a global Flood which was survived by a single family and a small number of every animal on Earth by getting onto a relatively small boat to wait out the storm? Do they not say that there were a large number of Hebrew slaves held in Egypt, and that they were released after God plagued Egypt with such things as famine, disease, meteor showers, and the killing of all first-born children? I fail to see how such basic assertions could be "understood" only by someone who already believes in them. They seem pretty straightforward to me. It's odd that you should paraphrase that passage in such a way. To me, that quote is a reminder of how God purposefully "hardened Pharoah's heart." It sounds like Jesus is saying that he will deliberately make comprehension of the scriptures impossible. It doesn't say anything about "truth" or "evidence" at all.This is again your attempt to promote apologetics - only the "interpretation" of the evidence that supports the preconceived conclusion is "valid." This is the reasoning of an idiot. What other forms of evidence are there? If you have evidence that the Christian faith is valid, please share it with us.But then, the Bible also makes very physical claims, such as the aforementioned Creation story and the global Flood. Are you saying that these events, which are global in scale, would not leave any physical evidence? That we shouldn't see any evidence of a genetic bottleneck across all animals around the time of the Flood, despite the fact that we do see genetic bottlenecks for some species around the time of other, more local natural disasters that thinned the population? Should we not see archeological and geological evidence of a 100-ish-day long global Flood? Should we not see a global sediment layer as everything was moved by the Flood waters?If we should not expect to see physical evidence of such events, why not? If your explanation involves divine magic, why should I believe you, and not any of the thouands of other myths dreampt up by humanity? Again with the apologetics. Unless you believe in the preconceived conclusion before looking at the evidence, your interpretation of the evidence will be incorrect?This methodology leads to unfalsifiability. If I "interpret" any and all evidence (including contradictory evidence) to support the existence of fairies that I've already decided exist, how can my belief be tested against reality? This line of reasoning is detached from rality, and leads to gullible, blind-faith beliefs that have no evidenciary support at all. Not really. Evidence that is so vague as to be interpreted any which-way is not really evidence at all. Let's use an example:There is a pen on my desk.Could this be interpreted as evidence of many things? Sure. You could interpret it to mean writing tasks have been performed at the desk. You could interpret it to mean a famous novel may have been written with the pen. You could interpret it to mean a man was stabbed to death by the pen at this desk.Of course, the existence of a pen doesn't necessarily imply, even in the slightest, that ths particular pen was used to write a particular novel, and it most certainly doesn't actually imply that it was used as a murder weapon. These conclusions are "speculative," and simply don't follow the evidence. In your method of reasoning, we should conclude that a murder had happened and "interpret" any and all evidence, such as the existence of the pen, in support of that conclusion. The fact that the supposed "victim" may in fact be standing next to you alive in well would somehow be ignored, just as with the physical evidence that contradicts the Biblical accounts.This is the sort of vaguery that lowers the value of any evidence. If a conclusion cannot be reached with a minimal degree of certainty base don the evidence, then the evidence does not really support that conclusion any more than the infinite numebr of alternative and similarly unsupported potential "interpretations."But in science, only conclusions that are directly supported by evidence are acceptable. In our example, only the conclusion that writing tasks were likely performed at the desk would be a tenable conclusion, because it is at least somewhat supported by the evidence of a pen at the desk.Not all "interpretations" are equal, and not all conclusions require faith. ...if it ever happens. When was that supposed to be? "Soon?" Almost every faith has an apocalypse myth of some sort, and I see no reason to differentiate yours from the others in the absence of real evidence.

I note that you compeltely ignored the vast majority of my post. Should I take this to mean yo have no way to respond, that you are simply lazy, or that you don't actually intend to participate in an honest debate? Of course. That's the most important part of the scientific method - all models are rigorously tested against realist to determine their accuracy. So, what you're saying is that when a reasonable person reads the account of the Flood in the Bible, unless he believes the story before trying to examine the evidence (and subsequently "interpreting" any and all evidence to match the preconceived conclusion), any testing of teh story against reality will be invalid.I'd say that's pretty dumb, Me4Him.Once again, you're promoting apologetics. Apologetics is the practice of taking an already-held belief as an absolute axiom, and then trying to find "supporting evidence" for that already-held belief. It's basically starting at the ending and then working your way back, and it leads to fallacious reasoning. Conclusions must be drawn from evidence, not the other way around. If a position can only be supported if you already believe that position, then it's reasonable to say that there is no objective evidence for that position. How can you test something by assuming it's true from the beginning?The answer, of course, is that you can't.Since you seem to be very fond of making blanket statements without any specific reference or supporting evidence of your assertions, let's make you a little less comfortable by being very specific. We'll analyze the Flood account, just briefly.Any reasonable person reading the Bible can see exactly what it says about the Flood. In fact, let's copy the relavent bits, from Genesis of course:

quote:

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7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
7:18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
7:22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
7:23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
7:24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days

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So we have a global Flood that kills "every living substance...which was upon the face of the ground." This Flood rose over 40 days, and lasted for 150 before receding, covering the entire Earth including the "high hills" to a depth of 15 cubits. Later, of course, the Ark landed on a mountain, so it's reasonable to assume that "high hills" includes mountains.By apologetic reasoning (your methodology), only one who already believes that this is literally true will be "qualified" to test it against reality. Any and all evidence should be "interpreted" in support of the Flood. So, we find the fossilized remains of sea creatures on mountaintops, and the apologetic exclaims "see? Evidence of the Flood!" We see sedimentary deposits on what is now dry land, and the apologetic exclaims "see? Evidence of the Flood!" We find fossilized dinosar bones and other remains deep in the Earth, and the apologetic assumes they must all have been killed in the Flood.Where is the testing? Nowhere. It's a farce. By assuming that the conclusion must be true, even evidence that contradicts the Flood account is assumed to support it.What does a real scientist say? Well, there's a reason that, despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists are religious, the Flood account is not held as even remotely accurate in any accepted model of geology. The reason, of course, is that it simply doesn't fit. The fossilized remains of dinosaurs are sorted by age, not be body density or swimming ability, in layers of rock that are not consistent with a singular Flood event. Even teh mere act of fossilization takes longer than the supposed age of the Earth held by most Creationists. The fossils of sea creatures on mountaintops matches what we would expect to see if current models of plate tectonics are accurate - a global Flood wouldn't allow the aquatic organisms enough time to develop the fully-formed ecosystems and incremental yearly deposits that we find. The sediments found arounf the globe are not part of any consistent global layer that would be representative of any single, global event, but are rather completely consistent with local processes, many of which we can observe happening directly even today.If one had never heard of the Biblical Flood story and looked only at the evidence, the conclusion would look nothing like the Biblical account.I would say that your suggestion that only "believers" can "understand" the "precepts" of the Bible sufficiently to test it against reality requires that you support that assertion, Me4Him. Given the above example, what aspect of the Flood story is "incomprehensible" to a non-believer? Is your only response that anything that disagrees with the Bible is wrong? If that's the case, you're simply continuing to hold your pre-determined conclusion as unassailably factual. You aren't testing or verifying anything. I'd call that "bad science" of such a high degree that even a Jr. High School student would call you an idiot. Chapter and verse, please. But be warned, this isn't in the "faith" section of EvC. You're required to back up your assertions here, and the Bible alone is not considered evidence above any other simple text. You'll need to explain how your prohpecy applies to the current economic situation and not previous global economic crises. If your prophecy is so vague as to apply to almost anything, be prepared to be mocked severely. I've tested the Biblical accounts of Creation, the FLood, Exodus, and others against reality. Far from being verified "without question," the Bible's accoutns have come up sorely lacking in external support of any type.And I did the testing when I was a believer. How precisely does that fit in with your assertions, Me4Him?

It's rather strange that you claim "there's plenty of evidence" and then don't actually post any. It's also confusing that you don't respond to specific examples, such as my earlier post about the Flood.I will accept evidence, Me4Him. I don't believe because I haven't been given a reason to believe. I have never seen a single Christian ever put forth any significant amount of evidence to support the extraordinary claims of the Bible. I have never seen any reason to consider the Bible any differently than I consider the Illiad or any other mythological text.Evidence I would have accepted would be along the lines of multiple dating techniques (radiometric and others) showing the Earth to be around the age supposed in the Bible. I would also have accepted evidence that species suddenly appeared all at once around the time of Genesis and only slightly deviated from there that clearly shows that life on Earth was directly Created as opposed to having evolved. I'd also accept evidence that the Exodus actually happened, like Egypt or other nearby contemporary nations mentioning the plagues or the loss of a significant military force during the sea crossing. I'd also accept evidence of a nomadic population of teh size described in Exodus from the right time period, since we have found evidence of much smaller nomadic groups in the deserts. I'd also accept the combination of Egyptian chariots, weapons, and corpses under the Red Sea in the numbers described in Exodus. I'd accept as evidence a universal genetic bottleneck dated to around the same time for every species on Earth corresponding to the Biblical Flood. I'd accept a global sediment layer that is consistent with a global Flood event.I could go on. The problem isn't that my mind is closed off from any evidence, Me4Him. The problem is that none of that evidence exists, and in fact most of the evidence we do have directly contradicts those examples.The "closed-minded" example doesn't work when we have looked, have tested, and have found the Biblical accounts to be just as accurate as any other series of myths from any other ancient culture - that is, not accurate at all.

And that's exactly the point of this thread. Christians tend to loudly exclaim the historical veracity of the Bible, and are woefully ignorant of the rather significant areas where there is either no external support at all or actual contradictory evidence that conclusively shows the literal Biblical account to be complete bunk.There never was a global Flood as depicted in Genesis. The formation of life on Earth had nothing to do with the Creation story. There is no support for the Exodus account outside of the Biblical account itself. There's more, of course, but that's enough. The Bible is no different from any other ancient mythological text. It's the attempt by teh Hebrew culture to explain the world around them, just like the Creation and historical myths of all other cultures. Some of the historical events are based in fact, but to say that the Bible is literally true in its historical claims completely contradicts direct observation.It's fortunate that you're able to admit that you have no evidenciary support for your beliefs, but the mere fact that you believe without ever having seriously investigated the accuracy of your beliefs is one of the most disturbing results of theological dogma. And for most everyone, that's just fine. Faith has nothing to do with evidence, and at worst simply having faith means that you might be gullible. Problems only ensue when people insist that their beliefs are factual rather than simply faith. That's when we get people who try to force their religious faith to be taught to people who don't share their faith-based beliefs in public schools, and worse people who try to establish a theocratic government.