10 Questions [#461]

[DL]

I'll try to keep it short because Im sure your get a lot of these.

For starters, I am a Christian, and I am very happy and proud to see people challenging this religion; in fact I believe all Christians should do the same. \

I am not trying to personally attack you or your 10 question video but personally I didn't find it to be good enough. It was full of questions that are easily answered in the Christian religion and a few comments I thought were a little juvenile listening to you (who I find to be a person of reasonable intelligence)

For example: saying that all intelligent people make slavery illegal when comparing it to the old testament, that's sociology 101, ethnocentric is the word Im going to use here. What you said was totally prejudice of a different culture of a different time based on yours, an educated person simply cannot do this.

Also attacking the bible for being inaccurate is a bad move to make, it is believed to be by historians to be the most accurate piece of literature from the ancient world at a rate of 99.9% percent accuracy simply because the other .1% cannot be verified. This is believed by the most respected scholars in the world so I wouldn't challenge that either.

I would absolutely encourage you to continue with your pursuit to prove the bible wrong, I believe one site is offering $1,000,000 to anyone who can. I would like to save you some time:

A very respected atheist (Lee Strobel) wrote a few books: A Case for Christ, A Case for Faith, etc. I would encourage you to not give up in your studies and in educating yourself in this way. And please check out these books, he did a huge amount of research in this matter and spoke with the most educated people across the country in trying to prove the bible wrong, and it is pretty much his story of what happened.

[name]
[email]

[StPatrick]

A very respected atheist (Lee Strobel) wrote a few books: A Case for Christ, A Case for Faith, etc. I would encourage you to not give up in your studies and in educating yourself in this way. And please check out these books, he did a huge amount of research in this matter and spoke with the most educated people across the country in trying to prove the bible wrong, and it is pretty much his story of what happened.

Oh dear.

Do look at caseagainstfaith.com

[bgb]

Also attacking the bible for being inaccurate is a bad move to make, it is believed to be by historians to be the most accurate piece of literature from the ancient world at a rate of 99.9% percent accuracy simply because the other .1% cannot be verified. This is believed by the most respected scholars in the world so I wouldn't challenge that either.

FALSE

[Hermes]

If you would like a more verbose discussion of your message, I'd be glad to accomidate you in the forums here.  Just let me know.

[Irish]

For starters, I am a Christian, and I am very happy and proud to see people challenging this religion; in fact I believe all Christians should do the same.

On this note I applaud you. Christians should be challenged.

I would absolutely encourage you to continue with your pursuit to prove the bible wrong, I believe one site is offering $1,000,000 to anyone who can. I would like to save you some time:

Could I just prove it hypocritical, contradictory, and evil instead? That would be easy.

I do have to say, this person came in, didn't make the best of arguments or persuasive appeals, but did keep it simple, short, to the point and polite. That I like

[Hermes]

I missed the $1,000,000 part the first time reading your note.

Care to offer a web site?

BTW: JREF.org is offering $1 million too -- for proof of the supernatural.  Maybe we could both be winners?

[hickdive]

Also attacking the bible for being inaccurate is a bad move to make, it is believed to be by historians to be the most accurate piece of literature from the ancient world at a rate of 99.9% percent accuracy simply because the other .1% cannot be verified. This is believed by the most respected scholars in the world so I wouldn't challenge that either.

Which historians? What measure of accuracy?

I'll let you do the googling because, frankly, I want you to find out for yourself that this amazing 'fact' is simply isn't true. In fact, since we're apparently able to bandy around statistics created from thin air, here's another one for you;

I'm 99.9% certain that your above statement regarding historians isn't something you found out for yourself but is something someone styling themselves 'pastor' or similar pulled out of their arse and told you.

[Codswallop]

I'll try to keep it short because Im sure your get a lot of these.

For starters, I am a Christian, and I am very happy and proud to see people challenging this religion; in fact I believe all Christians should do the same.

Thanks for such a nice, polite post. You are considerate, and the rest of your post suggests you sincerely want to share something that you think is important. You get major props for sincerity and benevolence.

On the subject of Christians challenging Christianity, I would like to offer a suggestion: I would like you to consider giving Christianity the "outsider test." It's a kind of thought experiment. John Hick wrote a book called An Interpretation of Religion (published by Yale Univ. Press) in which he said:

(I)t is evident that in some ninety-nine percent of the cases the religion which an individual professes and to which he or she adheres depends upon the accidents of birth. Someone born to Buddhist parents in Thailand is very likely to be a Buddhist, someone born to Muslim parents in Saudi Arabia to be a Muslim, someone born to Christian parents in mexico to be a Christian, and so on.

Out of this observation grew the idea of evaluating our own beliefs as if we were looking at them as an outsider. A person raised in a predominantly Hindu society will look at Islam with a very different eye than that with which he will examine Hinduism. Similarly, a Christian will examine Buddhism more critically than she will examine Christianity. The "outsider test" tells the Moslem to examine Islam as if he were an outsider, and for the Buddhist to do the same with Buddhism, and the Christian with Christianity.

About the "outsider test," John Loftus has written:

For the Christian theist the challenge of the outsider test means there would be no more quoting the Bible to defend the claim that Jesus' death on the cross saves us from sins. The Christian theist must now try to rationally explain it. No more quoting the Bible to show how it's possible for Jesus to be 100% God and 100% man with nothing left over. The Christian theist must now try to make sense of this claim, coming as it does from an ancient superstitious people who didn't have trouble believing this could happen. The Christian theist must not assume there is an answer to the problem of evil before approaching the evidence of suffering in our world. And she'd be initially skeptical of believing in any of the miracles in the Bible, just as she would be skeptical of any claims of the miraculous in today's world supporting other religious faiths. Why? Because she cannot start out by first believing the Bible, nor can she trust the people close to her who are Christian theists to know the truth, nor can she trust her own anecdotal religious experiences, since such experiences are had by people of all religious faiths who differ about the cognitive content learned as the result of these experiences. She would want evidence and reasons for these beliefs.

I wonder if you can do this? Just temporarily, of course--simply look at Christianity with the same critical eye you turn upon other religions. Pretend you're a Moslem/Buddhist/Hindu/whatever, looking at Christianity. What do you see?

[Ashe]

Also attacking the bible for being inaccurate is a bad move to make, it is believed to be by historians to be the most accurate piece of literature from the ancient world at a rate of 99.9% percent accuracy simply because the other .1% cannot be verified. This is believed by the most respected scholars in the world so I wouldn't challenge that either.

Can you please substantiate this? Where did you hear this? Where did you get your figures?

A very respected atheist (Lee Strobel) wrote a few books: A Case for Christ, A Case for Faith, etc. I would encourage you to not give up in your studies and in educating yourself in this way. And please check out these books, he did a huge amount of research in this matter and spoke with the most educated people across the country in trying to prove the bible wrong, and it is pretty much his story of what happened.

I don't know if you've read up on him or really looked at his work, but he's basically smoke and mirrors. I believe one link with criticism has been provided. There's a bunch more where that came from.

[StPatrick]

I don't know if you've read up on him or really looked at his work, but he's basically smoke and mirrors. I believe one link with criticism has been provided. There's a bunch more where that came from.

Indeed.  There's also a book rebuttal to The Case for Christ:  Earl Doherty's Challenging the Verdict. (Since the site UI provided only deals with the later 3).