It is not fun claiming a literal bible sometimes.
Here is your first problem. Claiming a literal bible is tantamount to intellectual suicide. You need to learn the history of the bible. Who wrote it, how we know who wrote it, how many problems there are with it, etc. I suggest reading some Bart Ehrman. You will learn some stuff in there that might make belief in a literal bible pretty much impossible.
But instead of calling half of it figurative like some. I would just rather be an athiest.
The miracles of the bible either did or didn't happen.
Given the amount of evidence in support of them, I don't see how anyone in their right mind could say it is more likely that they actually happened.
I am a learner right now and do not have the time to refute every one of your anti-bible claims. Hit me with your best stuff and remember some of my statements will sound pointed, but I genuinely feel curios at this time.
OK. But remember, when you postulate an all powerful, supreme being who can literally do anything, then anything we say can be countered with something that the all powerful, supreme being can do without a second thought. If you are going to presuppose that it exists, then the discussion is over before it starts. You have to start with the neutral position..." Does God exist?" and work from there. All we can provide you is with reasonable doubt for the existence of the God character of the bible. Fortunately, it's a landslide of reasonable doubt. A tidal wave of reasonable doubt. A galactic collision of reasonable doubt. But it will never be more than that. Just like all we can provide you is reasonable doubt for the existence of Zeus or Thor too. The case against the God of the bible is equally as strong as the case against a multitude of other fictional characters.
Note: If you really are curious, then let your responses reflect an understanding of the arguments we are presenting, and make sure if you are going to refute them, that you do so with as much evidence as you can provide. For example, if you are going to refute number 2, below, by simply saying "yes we do have the originals", then please present a link or some evidence that you have them.
1. We don't know who wrote the gospels. No idea. This fact brings serious doubt into the validity of the claims written within. In fact, many of the books in the NT were not written by who they are normally believed to have been written by.
2. We have no original copies of the bible in any form. What we have are copies of copies of copies of copies written and translated by people with poor skills, and with personal agendas. The copies we do have, when compared with one another, have more discrepancies than there are words in the entire New Testament.
3. The Gospels were written (at the earliest) 40 years after the death of Jesus, and John was supposedly written in the early second century.
4. The 4 gospels tell different versions of a verbally passed down story about a man named Jesus. If you read them horizontally (passage for passage) you will see that the Jesus character is very different from book to book.
5. The prophecies in the OT are said to have been fulfilled in the NT, but just think about it... if you had the OT in your hands, and you wanted the Jesus character to look like the messiah, yet still remain somewhat true to his real life story that was being passed around, how hard would i t be for you to make up a story in which Jesus fulfilled a bunch of the prophecies? Not hard at all. And considering it wasn't written down for 40 years after he died, who would be alive to refute the actions he supposedly did? Nobody.
6. There is no extra-biblical evidence for the occurrences of any of the miracles performed by Jesus. In fact, a very strong case can be made that Jesus never existed even as a person.
7. There is no evidence of a resurrection.
That scratches the surface of the biblical stuff.
I do not hate you,I do not bash on you around other christians, and some of my favorite friends/professors are atheists.
Anger and hate do not change the validity of an argument. They just spice it up
I don't know why, but part of me wonders if you are a very secure-in-your-beliefs Christian trying to bait people into taking up this argument with you. I don't mind that at all, and quite honestly, if this is the case, you don't need to bait people here into arguing with you about biblical literalism. You will get lots of people coming at you either way. I hope that part of me is wrong though, and that you really are here to learn something from us.
God isn't real christianperson. It's alright to say it. It's alright to think it. It's alright to live it.
