The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

PDN

atmo wrote: »

All modern theological scolarship points to the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) as being a large collection of various scripts by a large number of writers (over many, many centuries) and many subsequent copyists, editors and collators (many of whom added in their own 'take' on the story years after the original authors had died).

Not true. Some modern theological scholarship does indeed point to that. A large number of modern theological scholars disagree. (I speak as someone who lectures in theology at third level institutions).

How can anyone possibly quote verbatim, and have unquestioning trust in the written words (over many centuries) of these varying men, as being the actual words of a supernatural being?

Quite easily actually. Many of us believe that God guided and superintended the writers of Scripture so that what they wrote is indeed theopneustos, or "breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16).

The Bible is not a book but a vast collection of unrelated, 'corrected' and many-times 'edited' documents.

Untrue. The vast majority of biblical scholars agree that the books in the Bible are related.

All pagination, paragraphing, chapter numbering, line numbering, punctuation, etc is added to the original documents by later scribes.

Irrelevant. No-one is claiming that the page, chapter or verse numbering is inspired. Any reasonably informed Christian knows that the division into chapters and verses is simply for convenience.

Most of the 'books' and epistles and gospels had the purported original 'authors' names added much later

That depends. If you are talking about the books that contain the author's names in the text itself (such as Galatians), a great many biblical scholars would disagree with you. But, if you're talking about the traditional names attached to books (like Mark's Gospel) then that's pretty irrelevant to modern believers.

If you listen to the lectures of Prof Dale Martin (B.S, Abilene Christian University; M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Yale University)
and Professor Christine Hayes, both of Yale University (Religious Studies Dept) here at Academic Earth: http://academicearth.org/subjects/religious-studies ,
you will never again quote directly from what today is called "The Bible" as though it is the 'Word of God' (you would feel foolish doing so)

This is pretty much one of the silliest appeals to authority that has littered this forum.

The two individuals you mention, while academically qualified, are hardly the last word in theological knowledge. I've listened to similar liberal theologians on many occasions and, like many others in my field, I still quote directly from the Word of God and don't feel the slightest bit foolish for doing so.

I accept the knowledge of these Professors as being superior to mine (and most likely yours) on the subject of the large numbers of humans who wrote these documents we call the Bible.

So what about the Professors whose knowledge is vastly superior to yours who hold to a very different view? For example, Bruce Metzger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_M._Metzger

If you automatically accept what a highly qualified professor says, on the basis that their knowledge is superior to yours, then in areas where there is disagreement you will end up very confused indeed.

Some of us think it better to study these things for ourselves, think for ourselves, and draw conclusions.

They believe (on the basis of very compelling new evidence)

Really? And what is this compelling "new" evidence? I follow this area very closely and am unaware of anything recent that would prompt a seachange in opinion. Mostly it amounts to, "Er, if we assume from the outset that God is incapable of guiding those who wrote and transmitted these books, then we think it probably would have happened like this."

these 'scriptures' are the sole works of very human men with many and various motives for their writings, and that most, is not all, of the words of the original authors have been 'corrected' and added to by those who 'copied' them many times over, over many centuries in varying languages, under varying pressures, with varying standards of knowledge and education (mostly very low).

Actually the evidence is that the copyists were extremely careful in their work and, considering the lack of technology, very accurate.

We know this by comparing translations from different centuries.

For example, for many years our Old Testament translations were based on Hebrew manuscripts that dated from the 5th Century (the Masoretric text). Liberal theologians (of the same philosophical stripe as the guys in Yale and Princeton whom you cite as authorities) argued that these translations could not be trusted because they would inevitably have been substantially altered since even apostolic times.

Then the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. This was genuine "new evidence" that did indeed change people's views. Here were the same books from 500 years earlier (in the case of Books like Isaiah this cut in half the time lapse between the date of original authorship and the oldest extant manuscripts). To many theologians' amazement, these much older manuscripts were word-for word identical to the Masoretric text. And, even more remarkably, the "variations" were obvious slips of the pen or spelling mistakes (similar to us missing the dot of an i or the cross stroke of a t). No major doctrinal issue was involved.

This demonstrated that for the period of copying and transmission that we do have concrete evidence (100BC through to 450AD) the copyists were both careful and accurate. Nevertheless you still get some liberal theologians who blithely insist "OK, so the copyists were much better than we thought for that particular 500 year period, but for the previous 500 years the copyists would have been sloppy and made loads of mistakes. We don't have any actual evidence, of course, but trust us, it must have been so!"

I implore you, Wolfsbane (and JC and other believers who quote from these documents) to suspend your habit of Biblical quoting and listen to the lectures of these Yale Professors, and only then resume your quoting from these texts if you truly believe that all, or some, of these various writings are the exact words of a supernational being.

I implore you to gain a wee bit more knowledge of this subject, including acquainting yourself with the many scholars on both sides of the debate, before you start lecturing others about what they should or should not do.

Since you appear to hold Yale scholars in such high regard, I recommend you start with people like George Lindbeck, Miroslav Volf or Lamin Sanneh - all of whom happily quote the Bible as the Word of God.

gaynorvader

PDN wrote: »

...

Quite easily actually. Many of us believe that God guided and superintended the writers of Scripture so that what they wrote is indeed theopneustos, or "breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16).

....

Would you agree that you'd have to believe in the infallibility of the Pope (and therefore be a Catholic) in order to believe that the Bible has been guided by God as much of the editing down through the years has been done by the Vatican?

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

Not true. Some modern theological scholarship does indeed point to that. A large number of modern theological scholars disagree.

Which part particularly are you disagreeing with ? That the bible isn't a collection of barely related scripts ? That there haven't been edits and changes and many authors ?

Quite easily actually. Many of us believe that God guided and superintended the writers of Scripture so that what they wrote is indeed theopneustos, or "breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16).

Funny how there's so many different versions of the Bible then isn't it ? one would think that a divinely inspired text would be easily differentiated from something someone just threw togeather. Yet there are dozens of different versions of the Bible containing different canon.

The King James version for example was specifically designed to fit into the structure of the Church of England, books were rejected or accepted into the bible based on how well they suited the kind of structure that James wanted.

Some churches Bibles have as few as 50-ish books while others can have up to 80.

Perhaps PDN can explain to us which bible is the correct one, which books are divinely inspired and which ones are not and tell us which version of Christianity is the correct one using the correct book in the correct way.

Out of curiosity, when are you going to inform the other branches of Christianity that they are using non-divine books in their bibles ?

I'd start with the Ethiopian Church, their Bible has over 80 books.

PDN

gaynorvader wrote: »

Would you agree that you'd have to believe in the infallibility of the Pope (and therefore be a Catholic) in order to believe that the Bible has been guided by God as much of the editing down through the years has been done by the Vatican?

No, I would not agree, primarily because your statement is utterly false.

The Vatican in Rome was established during the reign of the Emperor Constantine (306-337 AD).

The Old Testament in our modern Bible translations is based on the Masoretic Text, which was transmitted through Judaism - nothing to do with the Vatican.

Our New Testament is based on ancient manuscripts, many of which are dated to before 300AD - so they were written before the Vatican even existed. Also, many of these manuscripts came from the Eastern Roman Empire (due to dry conditions being more conducive to preserving papyrus etc) so they come from communities of Christians that never came under the ecclesiastical control of Rome.

I'm afraid that the idea of the Vatican wholesale editing our Bible for us is more based on potboiler fiction such as The Davinci Code rather than on the available evidence. Using such fiction as a basis for one's beliefs would be similar to using Finding Nemo as a basis for understanding marine biology.

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

Which part particularly are you disagreeing with ? That the bible isn't a collection of barely related scripts ? That there haven't been edits and changes and many authors ?

If you bothered to read my post you would see points I've listed that I disagree with.

Funny how there's so many different versions of the Bible then isn't it ? one would think that a divinely inspired text would be easily differentiated from something someone just threw togeather. Yet there are dozens of different versions of the Bible containing different canon.

No, you wouldn't think any such thing - well, not if you were a reasonable person.

You are confusing two very separate issues:
1. The integrity of the text of the books of the Bible.
2. The process by which the canon of Scripture was determined.

There is nothing to stop groups of people, such as modern day Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses, choosing to add extra books of their own to biblical books and therefore possessing a different canon. That is possible irrespective of whether books are divinely inspired or not. So your argument, I'm afraid, is without merit.

The King James version for example was specifically designed to fit into the structure of the Church of England, books were rejected or accepted into the bible based on how well they suited the kind of structure that James wanted.

Dear me, now you are confusing the selection of the canon of Scripture with the translation of the Bible into English.

The King James Version, which for its day was a good attempt at translating the Bible into English, made no editorial decisions about accepting or rejecting individual books. It simply translated the same 80 books that had been in previous English translations.

The Apocryphal books were removed from the KJV in 1885 (that would hardly be to suit the structure King James wanted, as you claim, since Queen Victoria was the monarch of the day). They were removed to reflect the scholarly consensus that they had not formed any part of the Hebrew Scriptures which Jesus used.

Perhaps PDN can explain to us which bible is the correct one, which books are divinely inspired and which ones are not and tell us which version of Christianity is the correct one using the correct book in the correct way.

Actually the principle is quite simple.

Most Christians today accept the 39 books of the Old Testament which are recognised by Judaism. This is reasonable, given that the Old Testament is the Jewish Scriptures and our Old Testament should reflect the Scriptures that Jesus would have used and to which he referred.

The 27 Books of the New Testament are those which gradually came to be accepted by early Christians and which are deemed to have apostolic origin. Obviously the apocryphal books were not apostolic (being written before Jesus commissioned his apostles) and were not quoted as Scripture by New Testament writers.

Jerome's Vulgate translation into Latin (late 4th Century) did not acknowledge the Apocryphal books as Scripture. It was only much later that they were adopted into the Canon of the Roman Catholic Church. That process, while historically interesting, is rather irrelevant for those Christians who seek to use the Old Testament that Jesus used and the New testament that was left to us by the apostles.

Out of curiosity, when are you going to inform the other branches of Christianity that they are using non-divine books in their bibles ?

I'd start with the Ethiopian Church, their Bible has over 80 books.

If the Ethiopians choose to add a few extra books to their Bible then I've certainly no mandate to stop them. I might disagree with them, and I've had interesting dialogue with one or two of their leaders over the years, but I'm a tolerant kind of chap who has no compulsion to try to force others to agree with my views.

Zombrex

J C wrote: »

... but this isn't how the information is stored in DNA (or indeed in any other functional information storage system). It follows the rule of all functional information systems ... a specific complex arrangements of characters that is independently imposed.

You just changed the subject.

So are you admitting that you were wrong about the probability aspect?

monosharp

You are confusing two very separate issues:
1. The integrity of the text of the books of the Bible.
2. The process by which the canon of Scripture was determined.

I'm not confusing them at all. You claim the Bible was divinely inspired. If that was the case and assuming a divinely inspired text is superior to one that is not then it should be obvious which texts are divinely inspired and which are not.

This however is not the case at all. As already pointed out there are dozens of different versions of the bible. Different branches have different books, different orders etc.

They can't all be right so it follows that many versions of the bible contain simple man made stories which the practitioners of the branch of Christianity which use these stories falsely believing they are divinely inspired.

So unless you can point out to us which version of the Bible is the correct one and which versions are the wrong ones, it is correct to say that the Bible is full of errors, edits and man made stories since we don't know which is the correct one.

There is nothing to stop groups of people, such as modern day Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses, choosing to add extra books of their own to biblical books and therefore possessing a different canon. That is possible irrespective of whether books are divinely inspired or not. So your argument, I'm afraid, is without merit.

How can different versions of the bible, the Mormons vs the King James for example, both be correct, without error and be divinely inspired ?

The King James Version, which for its day was a good attempt at translating the Bible into English, made no editorial decisions about accepting or rejecting individual books. It simply translated the same 80 books that had been in previous English translations.

The Apocryphal books were removed from the KJV in 1885 (that would hardly be to suit the structure King James wanted, as you claim, since Queen Victoria was the monarch of the day). They were removed to reflect the scholarly consensus that they had not formed any part of the Hebrew Scriptures which Jesus used.

So before 1885 the Apocryphal books were divinely inspired and overnight, due to a man made decision they were recategorized as not divinely inspired ?

Thank you for proving my point.

Most Christians today accept the 39 books of the Old Testament which are recognised by Judaism. This is reasonable, given that the Old Testament is the Jewish Scriptures and our Old Testament should reflect the Scriptures that Jesus would have used and to which he referred.

Most Christians ? Funny.

I assume if I challenge you on 'most' you will explain to me that you meant most 'real' Christians. Would that be right ?

Orthodox Christians have over 50 books, most protestant churches 39 and a lot of different churches have differing numbers of books in-between.

So will you please explain to me which books are divinely inspired and which are not ? Surely you should let it be known to those poor Orthodox Christians that they have man made stories in their bible and that they should remove them.

If the Ethiopians choose to add a few extra books to their Bible then I've certainly no mandate to stop them. I might disagree with them, and I've had interesting dialogue with one or two of their leaders over the years, but I'm a tolerant kind of chap who has no compulsion to try to force others to agree with my views.

Which is not the point at all. A poster claimed that the bible is inconsistent and error ridden, that it was written by men.

Obviously you don't accept all versions of the bible as divinely inspired and true so you have to tell us which one is the right one. Once we know which one is the correct one then we can know which ones are the wrong ones and we can classify the incorrect parts of them as man made, error ridden and inconsistent.

You can't have it both ways PDN. You claim the Bible is without error, that it is divinely inspired and that the text has remained almost the same since it was first written. You now have to explain to us which bible, which books are divinely inspired, which are not. Which Christians are using 'wrong' versions of the bible ?

atmo

Hi PDN, you are correct in saying that ‘the Vatican’ didn’t alter the texts wholesale. However, various Church leaders and conclaves decided which books, epistles etc should be included in the Canon and which should not.

You obviously believe that the final version which has come down to us is, as you say, authored by men but inspired by God.
To use your own words: “Many of us believe that God guided and superintended the writers of Scripture so that what they wrote is indeed theopneustos, or "breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16)”.

So I can only ask:

How does God (who, if he exists at all, must have been around for at least 13,500,000,000 years before now) make so many absolutely basic scientific and moral ‘mistakes’ in his inspiring of the Bible writers?

Here are some examples:

The Bible claims that the Universe or ‘World’ (Earth and ‘heavens’) was created and populated by living creatures in 7 days ‘at the beginning’. However the majority of world religious leaders (and presumably most leading theologians too) now accept that the Earth is ‘only’ 4,500,000,000 years old, whereas the Universe (‘The Light’, the Word etc.. of the Bible) is (at least) 13,500,000,000 years old.

So how did God create Man and the Animals in the first 7 days (when the Earth did not exist), and where did he keep them from ‘the Beginning’ at 13,500,000,000 years ago until 4,500,000,000 years ago (or in fact much, much later when conditions existed in which they could survide)? Why do the books not even hint at this gap or delay?

Did God give the land of Canaan to his chosen people and tell them to wipe out the original inhabitants? This is what we call Genocide today.

Did God inspire his writers to tell us to stone our children to death if they disobey their parents?

Scholars have estimated that roughly 2,500,000 people are wiped out by God in the course of the Bible stories by combinations of Genocide, murder, plague, floods etc. (OK, let’s agree on a conservative estimate of only 10% of this total -250,000 humans)

Slaves are ordered to obey their masters so we must assume that God created and is happy with slavery.

If the self-confessed jealous God of the Bible did indeed inspire these stories and ensure their accuracy to the extent that we can take them literally, then he/it is a being of extremely low moral standards (by our standards of today) and for us to ‘follow’ the teachings of such a being is to make us (in so far as we do follow these scriptures) into very morally dubious and possibly dangerous neighbours and family members.

Most religious believers when asked: “are you willing to die for your religion?” will answer “Yes!”
Surely, in that case, these beliefs are stronger than, and will override all other secular beliefs we have – belief in human rights, freedom of speech, respect for other humans, the environment etc, if the two beliefs come into conflict (as they do every day all around the globe in all societies).
Also, someone who is willing to die for his/her religion is not so far away from being willing to kill for what is probably a mythological story.

For religious people, if it comes down to a divide or dichotomy between their ‘secular’ values (love of all humans who are equally good and ‘saved’ – modern ideas of human rights) and doing what God ‘tells’ me (judgementalism and division of humans into ‘saved’ and ‘damned’) then there is no contest: God wins.

How did God make the mistake of allowing multiple systems of belief to develop, each of which gives very differing pictures of how he/it wants human devotees/followers to behave?

Each of these systems of belief is as believable (or unbelievable) as the others – only an accident of birth has meant that you, PDN, have been inculcated into the Christian way of looking at God.
You are an unbeliever as far as 85% of the worlds population is concerned. I just go a little further (and also disagree with the last 15%).

So, there are only three possible interpretations to the Scriptures conundrum:
either

1. God inspired all these differing scriptures (Mormon, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, etc) and is having a bit of fun watching all these humans struggling with the subsequent confusion (and torturing and murdering millions over differences in interpretations into the bargain)

or

2. he inspired only one true story and allowed the others to develop as a kind of Great Earth-wide Experiment – consigning the ‘losers’ (85% of humanity, all innocents) to blind following, for endless generations, of the ‘wrong’ story. (a Good God?)

or

3. all the ‘scriptures’ are man-made and man-inspired (as were the stories of Zeus, Poseidon, Zoroaster etc..) and, otherwise intelligent humans have been so indoctrinated from early childhood that they just cannot let go of wholly implausible stories of very dubious moral value.


Over 97% of the scientists in the American Academy of Sciences (comprising many of the foremost scientists, in all fields, on this planet) do not believe in any sort of god. The figure for scientists in Europe is probably higher.

The least religious societies on this planet (Sweden, New Zealand, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Denmark . . . [the list carries on down the most developed societies on Earth]) correlate very closely to those in the top echelon of the “Human Development Index” of the UN (and all other indexes of health, wealth, lack of corruption, good governance, respect for the rule of law, fairness in decisions of Justice, care for the weaker members of society etc..) while those with the highest religious observances and belief systems (mostly in Africa, Middle East and India) are towards the bottom.

If these belief systems (and yours) were benign I would have no problem with them, but they are extremely damaging to all concerned – believers and unbelievers alike.

From a recovering former believer - now a humanist (what a relief!)

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

I'm not confusing them at all. You claim the Bible was divinely inspired. If that was the case and assuming a divinely inspired text is superior to one that is not then it should be obvious which texts are divinely inspired and which are not.

Not at all. The inability of certain men to distinguish between divinely inspired texts and uninspired texts tells us something about man's limited intellectual inability, but nothing at all about the nature of inspiration.

This however is not the case at all. As already pointed out there are dozens of different versions of the bible. Different branches have different books, different orders etc.

Some denominations have added extra books in. Once again that tells us something about the heart of man.

They can't all be right so it follows that many versions of the bible contain simple man made stories which the practitioners of the branch of Christianity which use these stories falsely believing they are divinely inspired.

There are all kinds of people out there who think that different sources are authoritative - some people even think Yale professors are authoritative. The fact that some people have got it wrong is to be expected.

So unless you can point out to us which version of the Bible is the correct one and which versions are the wrong ones, it is correct to say that the Bible is full of errors, edits and man made stories since we don't know which is the correct one.

Your logic really is quite abysmal.

Firstly, you misunderstand the position of those who reject the apocrypha. For example, most Protestant churches do not say that the apocrypha are full of errors or man-made stories. Rather they say that the books may well be edifying for private study, and may well be divinely inspired, but that they do not meet the criteria to be included in the Canon of Scripture.

Secondly, all this demonstrates is that some groups have faulty copies of the Bible, but that does not equate to saying the Bible is faulty. Christians believe that the Word of God, the Bible, is composed of the original manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments. The copies we hold in our hands are generally translations (except for the few who read Hebrew and Greek) which are based on the closest we can get to the original manuscripts. But, for most Christians, we happily accept that our translations are less than perfect. We believe that they contain everything necessary for our salvation, but we invest considerable resources into textual research to constantly improve our knowledsge and understanding of the original texts.

Here's a simple analogy. You might have a copy of the Beethoven's Ninth that contains a misprint accidentallycreating a horrendous discord. You might even be dumb enough to argue that your copy, with its misprint, is correct. But the fact that your copy contains a misprint does not therefore equate to saying "Beethoven's Ninth includes a horrible discordant note".

How can different versions of the bible, the Mormons vs the King James for example, both be correct, without error and be divinely inspired ?

Neither the Mormon Bible nor the King James Version are without error. Not quite sure what you think you're arguing against here?

So before 1885 the Apocryphal books were divinely inspired and overnight, due to a man made decision they were recategorized as not divinely inspired ?

No. Before 1885 the Apocryphal books were included in one particular translation of the Bible. Their inclusion did not make them inspired, nor did their exclusion make them uninspired. Generations of people used the KJV and some chose to read the apocryphal books and others chose to ignore them.

Most Christians ? Funny.

I assume if I challenge you on 'most' you will explain to me that you meant most 'real' Christians. Would that be right ?

No, I mean most Christians. I said that they accept the 39 books of the Old Testament, which Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans etc. all do. The Orthodox also include the apocryphal books, but that does not negate my statement that they accept all the 39 books that the Jews do.

Orthodox Christians have over 50 books, most protestant churches 39 and a lot of different churches have differing numbers of books in-between.

So will you please explain to me which books are divinely inspired and which are not ?

My own belief is that the 39 books are divinely inspired. The other books that the Orthodox folk have added may or may not be divinely inspired (I never called them "man made stories") but they don't meet the criteria of being Old Testament Scripture because they weren't part of the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus used, quoted, and referred to.

Surely you should let it be known to those poor Orthodox Christians

Stop your rather pathetic trolling.

I've already explained to you once that its entirely up to the Orthodox people which books they use or don't use.

We're not going to get very far in any discussion on these boards if everytime someone disagrees with anyone else in the world we get a troll asking, "Then why don't you go and let them know they're wrong?" We can have a reasonable discussion here, or you can continue to act like a tit. Please make your mind up.

Which is not the point at all. A poster claimed that the bible is inconsistent and error ridden, that it was written by men.

Actually it's perfectly the point since it was not written in response to that other poster. It was written in response to your peurile question about why I don't go and correct the Ethiopians. Please try to concentrate. There's no point asking me questions, then when I answer them, pretending that you think I'm answering someone else.

Obviously you don't accept all versions of the bible as divinely inspired and true so you have to tell us which one is the right one. Once we know which one is the correct one then we can know which ones are the wrong ones and we can classify the incorrect parts of them as man made, error ridden and inconsistent.

As I've stated numerous times in this forum, I don't believe that any translation of the Bible is without error. I believe that the original manuscripts (theologians refer to them as the 'original autographs) of the 66 core books (upon which the vast majority of Christians throughout history have agreed and do still agree) were "the right one". I also believe that, thanks to the work of textual critics, we have a good, although not perfect, idea of how those manuscripts originally read. Certainly, along with most Christians, I am convinced that what we know is sufficient for our salvatiuon and for us to live productive Christian lives.

Some Christians think that other books should be included as Scripture, but few if any deny the canonicity of our core of 66 books.

You can't have it both ways PDN. You claim the Bible is without error, that it is divinely inspired and that the text has remained almost the same since it was first written. You now have to explain to us which bible, which books are divinely inspired, which are not. Which Christians are using 'wrong' versions of the bible ?

No-one's trying to have it both ways, which you might realise if you either understood the subject better or actually listened to what other people say.

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

Not at all. The inability of certain men to distinguish between divinely inspired texts and uninspired texts tells us something about man's limited intellectual inability, but nothing at all about the nature of inspiration.

On the contrary, it tells use that divinely inspired texts and non-divinely inspired texts cannot be distinguished from each-other without historical knowledge.

If you handed a copy of The Silmarion (Tolkiens creation myth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainulindal%C3%AB) and the Bible to some group of people who had never heard of either and asked them to choose which one was divinely inspired do you think the bible would come out on top ?

What your admitting here is that there's nothing special about 'divinely' inspired text.

Some denominations have added extra books in. Once again that tells us something about the heart of man.

Agreed.

Secondly, all this demonstrates is that some groups have faulty copies of the Bible, but that does not equate to saying the Bible is faulty.

It does when no one can tell me which 'version' is the correct one.

Obviously there is only one correct version (of course I'm not counting translation issues/languages) so there are more incorrect versions than correct.

Most versions of the Bible are faulty and contains inconsistencies, errors and non-divinely inspired text is a correct statement.

Christians believe that the Word of God, the Bible, is composed of the original manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments.

Which Bible ? Which books ?

Here's a simple analogy. You might have a copy of the Beethoven's Ninth that contains a misprint accidentally creating a horrendous discord. You might even be dumb enough to argue that your copy, with its misprint, is correct. But the fact that your copy contains a misprint does not therefore equate to saying "Beethoven's Ninth includes a horrible discordant note".

An incorrect analogy you mean.

If you inserted a chorus from Stairway to Heaven or some other song into Beethoven's 9th then that would be a more accurate analogy.

My own belief is that the 39 books are divinely inspired. The other books that the Orthodox folk have added may or may not be divinely inspired (I never called them "man made stories") but they don't meet the criteria of being Old Testament Scripture because they weren't part of the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus used, quoted, and referred to.

So they are wrong according to you. i.e > Their version of the Bible contains non-divinely inspired text which was written by mere men.

I've already explained to you once that its entirely up to the Orthodox people which books they use or don't use.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the point.

You act like the Bible is one divinely inspired consistent error free book. For anyone who bothers to look into this it's obvious that it is not.

When you say 'The Bible is divinely inspired' you are simply been dishonest because you know that your version of the bible is not the only one.

So in future I would ask you to please attach the version of the Bible you believe to be the correct one when you are making such statements.

So what version do you use ? Just for future reference.

PDN

atmo wrote: »

Hi PDN, you are correct in saying that ‘the Vatican’ didn’t alter the texts wholesale. However, various Church leaders and conclaves decided which books, epistles etc should be included in the Canon and which should not.

No, you are mistaken. The early Christians meeting in many different congregations decided, in a very grassroots way, what books they would recognise as Scriptural or not. The Church Councils etc. simply ratified and made official what had already de facto occurred in the various churches.

The Bible claims that the Universe or ‘World’ (Earth and ‘heavens’) was created and populated by living creatures in 7 days ‘at the beginning’. However the majority of world religious leaders (and presumably most leading theologians too) now accept that the Earth is ‘only’ 4,500,000,000 years old, whereas the Universe (‘The Light’, the Word etc.. of the Bible) is (at least) 13,500,000,000 years old.

One particular interpretation, held by a minority of Christians, claims that the age of the earth is much younger than that proposed by most scientists. However, most religious leaders today follow the lead of Christian thinkers throughout the ages such as Augustine who believed that the world is much older, and that young earth creationists have failed to understand Scripture correctly.

We've had countless poor fools come into this forum who pretend the 7-day creation is the only legitimate interpretation of Genesis, and then declare that the Bible is therefore proved wrong. Please don't add to their number.

Did God give the land of Canaan to his chosen people and tell them to wipe out the original inhabitants? This is what we call Genocide today.

Yes He did. You and I might not like it, but that's what happened. Unfortunately the fact you don't like something in the Bible doesn't therefore prove the Bible wrong.

Did God inspire his writers to tell us to stone our children to death if they disobey their parents?

No, he didn't tell us to do any such thing. But he did give those instructions to the Israelites at a certain point in history, and He left us a record of that.

Scholars have estimated that roughly 2,500,000 people are wiped out by God in the course of the Bible stories by combinations of Genocide, murder, plague, floods etc. (OK, let’s agree on a conservative estimate of only 10% of this total -250,000 humans)

Yes, the Bible records many deaths. That does not mean it isn't true.

Slaves are ordered to obey their masters so we must assume that God created and is happy with slavery.

No, you'd need to be rather bad at logic to make such an assumption. The apostle Paul gave advice to slaves as to how they should act when they are in various circumstances - including slavery, or when they were being persecuted by the Romans. It does not follow that God was happy with their circumstances.

If the self-confessed jealous God of the Bible did indeed inspire these stories and ensure their accuracy to the extent that we can take them literally, then he/it is a being of extremely low moral standards (by our standards of today) and for us to ‘follow’ the teachings of such a being is to make us (in so far as we do follow these scriptures) into very morally dubious and possibly dangerous neighbours and family members.

Thank you for sharing that subjective opinion which has no bearing at all on the accuracy or otherwise of the Bible.

Most religious believers when asked: “are you willing to die for your religion?” will answer “Yes!”
Surely, in that case, these beliefs are stronger than, and will override all other secular beliefs we have – belief in human rights, freedom of speech, respect for other humans, the environment etc, if the two beliefs come into conflict (as they do every day all around the globe in all societies).

You are whitewashing secular beliefs. Secular beliefs include greed, perpetuating unjust divisions in society and a host of other evils.

Belief in human rights, freedom of speech, respect for other humans, the environment etc are, for millions of people, Christian values that are informed by our reading of the New Testament. This is what motivated people like Martin Luther King.

Also, someone who is willing to die for his/her religion is not so far away from being willing to kill for what is probably a mythological story.

Nonsense. I spend a good bit of time with Chinese Christians who literally face death for their beliefs. I have never once heard any of them express a desire to kill anyone else. The killing in China is being carried on by those who subscribe to a particular set of secular beliefs.

How did God make the mistake of allowing multiple systems of belief to develop, each of which gives very differing pictures of how he/it wants human devotees/followers to behave?

If you choose to believe something that is wrong, then the mistake is yours, not God's.

Each of these systems of belief is as believable (or unbelievable) as the others – only an accident of birth has meant that you, PDN, have been inculcated into the Christian way of looking at God.

Actually, by an accident of birth, I was inculcated into an atheist worldview. I made a choice as an adult to look at God in a different way.

You are an unbeliever as far as 85% of the worlds population is concerned. I just go a little further (and also disagree with the last 15%).

You want to assess truth by the popularity of a viewpoint?

So, there are only three possible interpretations to the Scriptures conundrum:
either

No, there's more than three.

So, without pointing out the errors in each leg of your false trichotomy, here's a fourth option:

4. God gave us a set of inspired Scriptures. Many humans reject these or substitute their own notions. God is not "having fun" as per your trollish mischaracterisation, but instructs his followers to spread the Word.

Over 97% of the scientists in the American Academy of Sciences (comprising many of the foremost scientists, in all fields, on this planet) do not believe in any sort of god. The figure for scientists in Europe is probably higher

Your faith in authority figures is touching, but could you link to your source?

The 1998 National Academy of Sciences survey asked specifically about a personal God (not, as you claim, "any sort of God"). 72.2 % were overtly atheistic, 20.8 % expressed doubt or were agnostic, and 7.0 % believed in a personal God.

If you know of a different survey, demonstrating your "over 97%" figure, then please post a link.

From a recovering former believer - now a humanist (what a relief!)

And my response is from a recovered former atheist - now a Christian and a humanist (a bigger relief!).

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

On the contrary, it tells use that divinely inspired texts and non-divinely inspired texts cannot be distinguished from each-other without historical knowledge.

I am aware from your posts that historical knowledge doesn't rank very high on your list of priorities, but there's no need to look down your nose at it.

The Christian religion is a historical faith, rooted in historical events.

However, I believe that God is able, through His Holy Spirit, to convince people who lack historical knowledge of the truth of the Scriptures.

If you handed a copy of The Silmarion (Tolkiens creation myth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainulindal%C3%AB) and the Bible to some group of people who had never heard of either and asked them to choose which one was divinely inspired do you think the bible would come out on top ?

I certainly think it would. I have encountered people (including Chinese intellectuals) who picked up the Bible with no prior knowledge of it other than being told it was a western fairy tale - and became convinced that it was true. I have never heard of a similar instance with The Silmarion.

What your admitting here is that there's nothing special about 'divinely' inspired text.

I've said nothing remotely like that. But hey, that hasn't stopped you falsely putting similar words in my mouth in the past!

So they are wrong according to you. i.e > Their version of the Bible contains non-divinely inspired text which was written by mere men.

Why do you keep doing this? I've expressly stated that is not what I said. I fail to see how I can discuss anything with you if you persist in this dishonesty?

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

I am aware from your posts that historical knowledge doesn't rank very high on your list of priorities, but there's no need to look down your nose at it.

1. It's nice to see that you haven't changed and continue to insult people as much as you like here.
2. You know I wasn't 'looking down my nose' at historical knowledge. simply stating without it people wouldn't know the difference between so called 'divinely' inspired text and something someone just wrote.

However, I believe that God is able, through His Holy Spirit, to convince people who lack historical knowledge of the truth of the Scriptures.

Which scriptures ? I know quite a few Mormons who consider their scriptures to be the truth and they believe they were convinced through the holy spirit by god.

I certainly think it would. I have encountered people (including Chinese intellectuals) who picked up the Bible with no prior knowledge of it other than being told it was a western fairy tale - and became convinced that it was true. I have never heard of a similar instance with The Silmarion.

No, the Silmarion doesn't pretend to be fact so generally people never get the chance to weigh it against the bible or other 'divine' books like the Koran, Mormon scriptures, Scientology and any other number of so called 'divinely inspired texts'.

I know many North Koreans who have rejected Christianity even though it has been forced down their throats since before they escaped from the North. Unfortunately I know more who have actually accepted it but thats besides the point.

I know many Chinese who converted to Islam because they became convinced it was true.

Why do you keep doing this? I've expressly stated that is not what I said. I fail to see how I can discuss anything with you if you persist in this dishonesty?

Because you continue to refer to this non-existent book called 'The Bible'. Your phrasing makes it appear that there is one consistent text across Christianity which there is not. There isn't one Bible, there are dozens. So unless you make it clear which Bible you are referring to you should not refer to it as 'The Bible'.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

I certainly think it would. I have encountered people (including Chinese intellectuals) who picked up the Bible with no prior knowledge of it other than being told it was a western fairy tale - and became convinced that it was true. I have never heard of a similar instance with The Silmarion.

There are Chinese "intellectuals" who don't know what the Bible is?

That seems a little implausible. Do you mean that they know lots of people in the West believe it to be true but that they have been raised to consider it a fairy tale? Or do they genuinely not know that anyone takes it seriously and believes it. If so these people seem rather too insulated to be considered intellectuals.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

There are Chinese "intellectuals" who don't know what the Bible is?

That seems a little implausible. Do you mean that they know lots of people in the West believe it to be true but that they have been raised to consider it a fairy tale? Or do they genuinely not know that anyone takes it seriously and believes it. If so these people seem rather too insulated to be considered intellectuals.

There were such intellectuals 25 years ago. Do you have any idea what the Cultural Revolution was like? Those who grew up at that time were taught that Christianity and the Bible was a fairy tale invented to oppress the Chinese people. This was accepted and believed by many who subsequently became engineers, doctors etc.

A good friend of mine was studying English literature at Kaifeng University. He had been handpicked and was being groomed to be a translator. He became puzzled by references to the Bible in Shakespeare and Dickens, and requested permission to read a copy of the Bible for himself. Eventually he was told that there was a copy in the University Library basement and he could check it out for one week.

He searched the basement and found the Bible in a box labelled "Western Pornographic Literature". It was the first time he had seen a Bible, he had never met a Christian, and all he knew was Mao's propaganda that Christianity was a western invention to oppress the masses, and that atheism was the truth. Within a few days he believed the Bible to be true and had become a Christian - all without meeting any other Christian.

This guy is not some ignorant peasant. He speaks several languages fluently, holds two doctorates, and is one of the smartest people I have ever met in my life.

Today, of course, due to the phenomenal growth of Christianity in China, you would need to be deaf and blind not to know what the Bible was.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

A good friend of mine was studying English literature at Kaifeng University. He had been handpicked and was being groomed to be a translator. He became puzzled by references to the Bible in Shakespeare and Dickens, and requested permission to read a copy of the Bible for himself. Eventually he was told that there was a copy in the University Library basement and he could check it out for one week.

He searched the basement and found the Bible in a box labelled "Western Pornographic Literature". It was the first time he had seen a Bible, he had never met a Christian, and all he knew was Mao's propaganda that Christianity was a western invention to oppress the masses, and that atheism was the truth. Within a few days he believed the Bible to be true and had become a Christian - all without meeting any other Christian.

This guy is not some ignorant peasant.

True, but by your own account by the stage he came to read the Bible he knew, through other Western influences, that the Bible was believed to be a factual story in the West. It would be difficult to have read Shakespeare and Dickens and not have reached that conclusion.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

True, but by your own account by the stage he came to read the Bible he knew, through other Western influences, that the Bible was believed to be a factual story in the West. It would be difficult to have read Shakespeare and Dickens and not have reached that conclusion.

Eh? So when Dickens uses a biblical phrase such as "the writing on the wall" - that makes it clear that the Bible was believed to be a factual story in the West?

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Eh? So when Dickens uses a biblical phrase such as "the writing on the wall" - that makes it clear that the Bible was believed to be a factual story in the West?

Well I think Dickens referred to the Bible, and Christianity, a bit more than that. But of course I don't know what exposure your friend had to Dickens or Shakespeare. Certainly both Dickens and Shakespeare have Christians carrying out Christian practice throughout their stories.

The point is that your example doesn't seem to be an example of a person sitting down to read the Bible believing that it is a fictional story and was written as one, and then concluding it is in fact real.

This example seems to be an example of a Chinese person curious to find out what is it that people in the West believed. Anyway, it was just a side point. I would be interested in someone who sat down to the Bible the way someone migth sit down to Star Wars (ie not pretext at all that anyone believes this stuff) and comes out of it thinking it is true. Just this doesn't seem to be it.

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

There were such intellectuals 25 years ago.

2010 - 25 = 1985

Before the Cultural Revolution religion was allowed (to varying extents).

Cultural Revolution 1966 - 1976, almost all religion was banned.

1979 Three-Self Patriotic Movement re-established. (Three-Self Patriotic Movement is a state sanctioned protestant organisation in China)
1980 China Christian Council was formed as an umbrella organisation for all protestant churches in China. Also published bibles.

So you are saying that 25 years ago, 6 years after state sanctioned Christianity was made legal, your intellectual still hadn't access to a bible except in a box in a basement ?

Do you have any idea what the Cultural Revolution was like? Those who grew up at that time were taught that Christianity and the Bible was a fairy tale invented to oppress the Chinese people.

No, they were taught that Christianity along with any other religion including Buddhism was a foreign influence, against communist ideals and therefore bad.

Your very good at putting your religion on the victim pedestal on its own when in fact it was only 1 of a group.

This guy is not some ignorant peasant. He speaks several languages fluently, holds two doctorates, and is one of the smartest people I have ever met in my life.

Oh well if he has two doctorates and is one of the smartest people you've ever met then he must be onto something. Hang on I'm going out now to steal a copy of the bible from the local hotel. :pac:

Today, of course, due to the phenomenal growth of Christianity in China, you would need to be deaf and blind not to know what the Bible was.

You would have had to be deaf and dumb 25 years ago too not to know what the bible was.

Morbert

J C wrote: »

... an increase in functional information can only be generated by intelligence ... the who/what/when/where are open scientific (and theological) debate ... but the Intelligent Design of life is a scientifically and mathematically established fact ... with the same certainty as the existence of Gravity.

Have you reset yourself? We have just established that molecular mechanisms do not have to be islands, and could have evolved via simpler autocatalytic mechanisms.

The deleterious effects of mutagenesis vastly outnumber the beneficial ones ... and even the very rare beneficial effects are due to a loss of functional information ...
... and that is why Evolutionists are personally just as wary of Mutagenic agents as the rest of us!!!
... and that is also why Mutagenesis cannot account for the vast quantities high quality functional tightly specified complex information present in all life.

Beneficial mutations are not necessarily a loss in information. Again, the paper I posted shows how an increase can emerge from random, unintelligent mutations.

Morbert

Danno wrote: »

I hope that with enough interest that this thread becomes a sticky.

HahahahahaHAhahaAHa!

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

2010 - 25 = 1985

Before the Cultural Revolution religion was allowed (to varying extents).

Cultural Revolution 1966 - 1976, almost all religion was banned.

1979 Three-Self Patriotic Movement re-established. (Three-Self Patriotic Movement is a state sanctioned protestant organisation in China)
1980 China Christian Council was formed as an umbrella organisation for all protestant churches in China. Also published bibles.

So you are saying that 25 years ago, 6 years after state sanctioned Christianity was made legal, your intellectual still hadn't access to a bible except in a box in a basement ?

It was in 1983 -so 27 years ago.

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is small in relation to China's population (even by 1993 its membership was only 7 million, or much less than 1% of the population). Also, membership, attendance or possession of a Bible is strictly prohibited to under 18s - so it would have been extremely unlikely for a university student in 1983 to have access to a Bible.

The notion that Christianity was legalised in the 1980s, or indeed Bibles being available, is Communist propaganda, often swallowed by westerners. The Three Self Patriotic Movement is a stooge operation, where 'clergy' are appointed and controlled by the Communist Party. Even in 1986, the Government restricted printing of Bibles to 60,000 a year (or one Bible per 20,000 people).

No, they were taught that Christianity along with any other religion including Buddhism was a foreign influence, against communist ideals and therefore bad.

Your very good at putting your religion on the victim pedestal on its own when in fact it was only 1 of a group.

I wasn't writing an essay on other religions. I was explaining to Wicknight (in the Christianity Forum) the policy of the Cultural Revolution concerning Christianity and the Bible.

If you want to discuss Buddhism then boards.ie has a Buddhist Forum for you.

You would have had to be deaf and dumb 25 years ago too not to know what the bible was

Untrue, but hey, you have your opinions and you don't want to listen to those who actually lived through Mao's reign of terror.

atmo

PDN wrote: »

We've had countless poor fools come into this forum who pretend the 7-day creation is the only legitimate interpretation of Genesis, and then declare that the Bible is therefore proved wrong. Please don't add to their number.

Well, PDN, I'm afraid you are right: There are countless poor fools in this forum who take the Bible literally. Silly me for quoting from Genesis!. Obviously anyone who quotes from the Bible is taking it literally (I'm sure you wouldn't do such a thing you intelligent believer you!)

Yes He did. You and I might not like it, but that's what happened. Unfortunately the fact you don't like something in the Bible doesn't therefore prove the Bible wrong.

Wow! You admit the being you worship carried out Genocide! What kind of a person are you to worship such an evil being?

No, he didn't tell us to do any such thing. But he did give those instructions to the Israelites at a certain point in history, and He left us a record of that.

So which instructions of God must we obey and which only refer to the ancients? And who is to decide when God was giving a precedent and when not? Another of his/it's little jokes? Why do Church leaders regularly refer to the Bible for precedents to decide on how we should act today?

Yes, the Bible records many deaths. That does not mean it isn't true.

You mean the record is true? (double negative)
Let's not be economical with the truth here. You mean "records many deaths at the hands of God"

No, you'd need to be rather bad at logic to make such an assumption (God created and is happy with slavery). The apostle Paul gave advice to slaves as to how they should act when they are in various circumstances - including slavery, or when they were being persecuted by the Romans. It does not follow that God was happy with their circumstances.

Oh, Silly me again! Sorry for my bad logic. I just assume that if the entity in complete control allows countless millions of humans to be enslaved from the earliest recorded history until the mid 19th Century and never prohibits slavery, or ever speaks out against it, or causes his scribes to speak against it, then he/it is not exactly unhappy with the situation - I'm wrong again!.

Thank you for sharing that subjective opinion which has no bearing at all on the accuracy or otherwise of the Bible.

My "subjective opinion" (God is a jealous being who orders mass killings and thus has an extremely low moral standard) is one which you have not rebuffed.

Actually, if you consider my opinion (that ordering mass killings is a very immoral action) to be "subjective" I worry even more and more about the moral standards of Believers.

Belief in human rights, freedom of speech, respect for other humans, the environment etc are, for millions of people, Christian values that are informed by our reading of the New Testament. This is what motivated people like Martin Luther King.

Christians have struggled for millenia against freedom of speech (Inquisitions, blasphemy laws, book censorship and burnings etc), respect for other humans (heretics, Moslems, Jews, witches, unbelievers, etc..) and all forms of equality (Gays, unmarried mothers, various 'sinners' etc...) and still struggle against the rising tide of human rights worldwide.


I asked: "How did God make the mistake of allowing multiple systems of belief to develop, each of which gives very differing pictures of how he/it wants human devotees/followers to behave?"
and you answered:

If you choose to believe something that is wrong, then the mistake is yours, not God's.

This is really callous. I glean more insights into your moral fibre, Mr (or Ms) believer at every turn. In other words, God has set up various differing belief systems and, presumably, decides who gets born into which system, and then condemns all those whom he has placed in the wrong belief system! Wow! This is a new depth in cruel, immoral arrogance!

No, there's more than three.
So, without pointing out the errors in each leg of your false trichotomy, here's a fourth option:
4. God gave us a set of inspired Scriptures. Many humans reject these or substitute their own notions. God is not "having fun" as per your trollish mischaracterisation, but instructs his followers to spread the Word.

Can you explain this further? Who is "us" to whom God gave inspired scriptures? Which scriptures are inspired? Which humans reject God's scriptures? (maybe it's the Christians who reject God's scriptures, which he gave, maybe to Mohammed? or some other Prophet? J Smith?)

Please do point out the "errors in each leg of my false trichotomy".

The 1998 National Academy of Sciences survey asked specifically about a personal God (not, as you claim, "any sort of God"). 72.2 % were overtly atheistic, 20.8 % expressed doubt or were agnostic, and 7.0 % believed in a personal God.

Ok, you win, PDN, I'll accept your figure: Only 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences don't believe in a personal God.

You see, for me this is all about which system can give humans a more caring, less corrupt, more educated, healthier and more creatively fulfilling life - the religious-dominated system or the secular system in which religion plays no public role and has no power over people.

Human history, facts and statistics tell us that those societies today which have low levels of religious observance score far higher on the Human Development Index than those which have high levels of religious observance. This is not just a paper exercise: Western secular states have much higher standards of equality, fairness, justice, education and looking after the weaker members of their societies than states where religion is stronger.

You still have not rebutted my statements on this point from my previous post.

And my response is from a recovered former atheist - now a Christian and a humanist (a bigger relief!).

Sorry, my believing friend - you cannot, by common English language definition, be both a Christian and a Humanist.

Cambridge English Dictionary definition: Humanism noun : "a belief system based on the principle that people's spiritual and emotional needs can be satisfied without following a god or religion"
Humanist noun : "a person who believes in humanism"

One day a dichotomy will arise and you will have to choose: Help your fellow man or follow your ancient 'book' full of low morals. I hope you choose for your fellow human (but, alas, I don't hold out a lot of hope considering your postings to date)

PDN

atmo wrote: »

Well, PDN, I'm afraid you are right: There are countless poor fools in this forum who take the Bible literally. Silly me for quoting from Genesis!. Obviously anyone who quotes from the Bible is taking it literally (I'm sure you wouldn't do such a thing you intelligent believer you!)

OK, I quite clearly stated that the poor fools were those who treated the Bible as if the 7-day of interpretation were the only option available, and then used that to argue that the Bible was wrong.

Before we go any further, and to ascertain whether you're really interested in discussion or not, did you genuninely not understand that or are you just acting the goat?

Wow! You admit the being you worship carried out Genocide! What kind of a person are you to worship such an evil being?

I'm also going to advise you to read the Forum Charter. We won't get far if you think you can call God 'evil' in the Christianity Forum.

Fanny Cradock

atmo wrote: »

Well, PDN, I'm afraid you are right: There are countless poor fools in this forum who take the Bible literally. Silly me for quoting from Genesis!. Obviously anyone who quotes from the Bible is taking it literally (I'm sure you wouldn't do such a thing you intelligent believer you!)

Perhaps you think we all believe in a 7-day creation account?

atmo wrote: »

Sorry, my believing friend - you cannot, by common English language definition, be both a Christian and a Humanist.

Cambridge English Dictionary definition: Humanism noun : "a belief system based on the principle that people's spiritual and emotional needs can be satisfied without following a god or religion"
Humanist noun : "a person who believes in humanism"

I think you can be a Christian and a humanist and hold to a common definition of the word humanist

atmo

PDN wrote: »

OK, I quite clearly stated that the poor fools were those who treated the Bible as if the 7-day of interpretation were the only option available, and then used that to argue that the Bible was wrong.

Before we go any further, and to ascertain whether you're really interested in discussion or not, did you genuninely not understand that or are you just acting the goat?

I'm also going to advise you to read the Forum Charter. We won't get far if you think you can call God 'evil' in the Christianity Forum.

Hey PDN, I see you are a moderator. Hence your warning to me that "we won't get far if I think I can call God 'evil'. I said that the being that ordered mass murder was evil. What other word would you suggest I use? Or should I just shut my mouth? More religious-inspired censorship?

I notice you are allowed, as a moderator, to refer to "poor fools" (obviously referring to me), accuse me of "acting the goat", refer to my "whitewashing", "nonsense", "bad logic", describe some of my writing as "trollish mischaracterisations" but I have to be careful what I write. I have not used insulting or bad language to any person on this forum, in fact your language has been much more insulting than mine.

Which part of the Forum Charter do you accuse me of breaching?

Do you have unilateral power to ban me from discussion on this forum or have I a right of appeal?

PDN

atmo wrote: »

Hey PDN, I see you are a moderator. Hence your warning to me that "we won't get far if I think I can call God 'evil'. I said that the being that ordered mass murder was evil. What other word would you suggest I use?

I suggest you use a word that doesn't contravene the Forum Charter, particularly the clause that states,

1. The purpose of this forum is to discuss Christian belief in general, and specific elements of it, between Christians and non-Christians alike. This forum has the additional purpose of being a point on Boards.ie where Christians may ask other Christians questions about their shared faith. In this regard, Christians should not have to defend their faith from overt or subtle attack

Calling God 'evil' is a breach of that Charter.

More religious-inspired censorship?

No, just a Charter that has been inspired by the large number of drive-by atheist trolls we get around here If you object to the Charter then feel free to take it to Feedback rather than indulging in backseat modding here.

I notice you are allowed, as a moderator, to refer to "poor fools" (obviously referring to me)

Please don't go getting all precious.

I specifically asked you NOT to add yourself to the rollcall of poor fools.

"acting the goat"

No, I asked you if you genuinely could not understand what I posted or whether you did understand and yet deliberately misrepresented my words, in which case you would certainly be acting the goat. That is a question to which I am still awaiting an answer.

Which part of the Forum Charter do you accuse me of breaching?

Already answered above. But you might be wise to reread the section about backseat modding.

Do you have unilateral power to ban me from discussion on this forum or have I a right of appeal?

Any moderator has the right to ban a poster if they judge that they have breached the Charter. There is a dispute resolution procedure if you feel you are treated unfairly. It begins by sending a PM to a moderator, not discussing it inthread.

Turtwig

Way OT, but is this the longest running thread in boards?

Fanny Cradock

Not sure about the answer to that. If you went to Feedback (?) somebody would probably be able to give you the lowdown on such matters.

Genghiz Cohen

Malty_T wrote: »

Way OT, but is this the longest running thread in boards?

Matthew 26:64 wrote:

"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied

Beat the Bad Beat thread in the poker forum by a few days.