"the only evidence that? these things happened comes from these witnesses."
Use your head, that IS evidence. When somebody performs a scientific experiment, more and more people test it until we can see that the results are the same. The same thing happened with the Bible. There are 66 BOOKS in the Bible. That's 66 DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS THAT IT'S TRUE. Why do you trust a scientific experiment when many scientists claim it's true, but you don't trust that the 66 books of the Bible are accurate?
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I want to introduce you to my friends Testable, Repeatable and Falsifiable.
Science isn't about listening to what someone might have said on the subject some time long ago.
There seems to be this idea that is universal across all fundie minds, the fact that something is written down is evidence that it's true. I guess that's why its so easy to convince them of nonsence, all you need is something that does not directly contradict what they already believe, written down or spoken in an authoratative sounding way.
So... the bible is evidence that the bible is true?
66 different accounts of what, exactly? Revelation describes something far different from Genesis. And endless geneologies of so & so begat so & so, who begat so & so don't really give an account of anything other than someone's family tree.
You forget that science is replicable. That's what makes them different; the Bible is made of 66 accounts of (inconsistent) stories that are physically implausible and impossible to test and verify. Experiments are made to be tried and retried.
Learn how science works.
Edit: Zabimaru beat me to it.
If I formed a cult to carry a message of hatred and death and got 66 members to join, would that make my cult's message any more reaonsble?
I see what you did there. If enough people make baseless contributions towards something, then it possesses some form of validity to you. Sounds like good logic to me...
Because those "66 different accounts" don't always agree with each other, and there's no way to decide which is correct? Because there's not way to decide if any of them are correct? A scientific experiment is not equivalent to a static ancient document.
When someone publishes a scientific paper in a journal, I can read it, evaluate the claims logically and in the light of other science I already know and decide whether it might be true. Also, that document lays out what was done so I may repeat the study/experiment for myself.
Can I do this with the bible? If I try to bring in outside evidence that contradicts what it says I'm told "you can only interpret scripture with other scripture" and "it's the inerrant word of God". If my evidence agreed with the bible it would be welcome. That's not how science works; all evidence for or against a claim is welcome.
"Why do you trust a scientific experiment when many scientists claim it's true, but you don't trust that the 66 books of the Bible are accurate?"
1) Scientific experiments match observable reality. Most of it I could observe for myself if I were so inclined and had access to the appropriate equipment. Your Bible neither matches what I've observed of reality nor can I view any of the events myself. There also appears to be zero evidence that any of the more outlandish events ever happened.
2) Your 66 books present no evidence of any kind. They rely on speculation, conjecture, guesswork, fantasy, wishful thinking, subjective experiences and anecdotal "evidence". To add to that, they often contradict one another on the most basic "facts" they present.
Scientists, on the other hand, carefully record their data, how they obtained their data, how to replicate the events that produced that data and they ensure that the data was obtained in the most objective, empirical manner possible. Given the proper resources anyone that wishes to do so can replicate the experiment and, if the hypothesis/theory is valid, will obtain the same results. The same cannot be said of your 66 books.
That's 66 DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS THAT IT'S TRUE.Why do you trust a scientific experiment when many scientists claim it's true, but you don't trust that the 66 books of the Bible are accurate?
But the books in the bible are not consistent with one another. The scientist almost always are.
We're not even talking all of the books having the same purpose. Some are exhortations to social justice (e.g. Amos, Micah); some are compilations of ancestral wisdom (Proverbs); some are, depending on your viewpoint, teachings, history, or propaganda (Genesis, Judges, Parapolimenon); etc.
Besides, think about what you're saying. Job is primarily an account of its own truth, before any of the other books were written? You may want to rethink this one...
That's some mighty powerful fail you have there.
When somebody performs a scientific experiment, more and more people test it until we can see that the results are the same.
So close and yet so far away.
Except each of those 66 accounts says something different from what the other 65 accounts say. They aren't 66 accounts of the same thing, they're 66 parts of a greater whole. Furthermore, several authors wrote multiple books.
66 books none of which agree with each other. Only 4 deal with Jesus, and if you take the other things that are mentioned going on at the time, there's a 100 year spread regarding when Jesus was born.
66 Varieties of Truth, all different!
Also, how many of these 66 books is actually an eye-witness account of anything? Tell me, for each of these 66 books:
- who wrote it
- when
- where and under what circumstances
- what evidence the author cites to back up his account
and then perhaps you might have a case.
So you equate the books of the bible with scientific papers...
O.K., as you seem to be aware that scientific theories usually have to be reproducable,
make the following experiment:
Take a couple of goats which have the same color of fur and have no spotted fur...
let them copulate in front of streaked rods that are made out of hazel and chestnut and are placed near the watering troughs
afterwards make a stratistical analysis of the number of ringstraked, speckled, and spotted lambs that are born of the female goats from thi group.
Compare this group to a control group that didn´t receive this "treatment" and determine, whether the groups are significantly different in their number of ringstraked, speckled, and spotted lambs.
According to genesis 30, they should be ;)
And then make another double blind study:
Take a number of people who are suffering from Lepra.
Divide them in 3 groups:
Experimental group 1 = These people are treated with modern medicine
Erperimental group 2 = These people are treated with gods cure for Lepra, acording to Leviticus 14
Conrol Group: These people receive only placebos
Make a statistical analysis about the course of disease in terms of things like number of people cured, number of people dying and so on.
Check whether there are siginificant differences between the 3 groups and especially, whether the course of disease in experimental group 2 shows more similarities to experimental group 2 or to the control group ;)
If the books in the bible are indeed comparable to scientific studies, you should be able to reproduce the 2 things I mentioned exactly as written in genesis /leviticus ;)
There are 66 BOOKS in the Bible. That's 66 DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS THAT IT'S TRUE.
Sorry, kid, that's not 66 accounts, that's one account of 66 accounts. Weakest link and all that. And the really important account is the one I can produce from repeating the experiment myself, which has thus far turned up completely negative.
"Why do you trust a scientific experiment when many scientists claim it's true, but you don't trust that the 66 books of the Bible are accurate?"
Because there are hundreds as many papers by scientists who "witnessed" their experiments confirming evolution, the age of the Earth, the formation of the solar system, the causes of disease, etc.
To disagree with Blackvoice (1st comment), we win on quality and quantity!
"That's 66 DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS THAT IT'S TRUE."
Apparently that includes "The Song of Solomon."
According to John, Jesus died on the first day of Passover. According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus died after that date (the last supper was a Passover sedar). According to the gospels, Judas hanged himself. According to Acts, he (apparently) died from a fall off a cliff. And let's not start a discussion about the last words Jesus spoke before he died.
In some cases, eye witness testimony is useful. However, when eye-witness testimony differs irreconcilably, some one is clearly telling the story incorrectly to some degree. It is entirely possible that all of the accounts are wrong to some degree, making them useless for a reconstruction of events.
In cases like this it is often helpful to refer to objective evidence. In the case of the gospel accounts, however, there is none. There are no records of the census described in the gospels, or of the slaughter of the innocents, to name two prominent examples. Treating the gospels with a healthy degree of skepticism is quite rational and reasonable, and only a fanatic or a fool would fail to see that.
66 accounts means it's true. THOUSANDS have believed the Earth was flat, then that it was smaller than its actual size.
They.
Were.
WRONG.
Think about it, if you've the capacity to without a Bible thumper to show you how!
The Bible cannot be trusted for a plethora of reasons, TJ. For one, each of those 66 accounts were written by different people living during different time periods, sometimes even centuries apart. Also, many stories in the Bible have been changed, omitted, or added over time. Also, there are many events in the Bible that cannot be cross-referenced for veracity with other non-biblical literary works circulating during this period (such as the birth and existence of Jesus Christ). Also, there's the possibility that some of the Bible's meaning was lost in translation from Hebrew to English.
The list goes on and on. Because of all this, it would simply be common sense to doubt the book.
"...and look at all the MILLIONS OF ACCOUNTS about SANTA CLAUS!! How do you explain that?!
I, for one, bow down to the mighty overlord of Santa Claus.
If a series of scientific experiments differed as much as the four gospels do regarding the life of Jesus, those experiments would be seen as faulty or inconclusive. The Bible is indeed 66 DIFFERENT accounts.
Scientists don't "claim it's true", they present the evidence that corroborates it and let others test it out for themselves. "Truth" is not a scientific concept.
The fact that there are parts of the bible that have been removed, parts which are not accepted by all churches, which are non canon to the bible is enough to make be doubt it's absolutely true. Added that even though these books are removed from canon they are still referenced to in later parts that are canon.
Still I can't trust something as a source of absolute truth when it has been edited by it's own believers. the bible has been edited by those that believe in it.
Because scientific experiments can be confirmed by being REPEATED. By humans. And they deal with the natural world.
Show us how to confirm any of the claims made by the buybull...without saying "read this other verse in the buybull", or "you just have to have faith".
Really? Another Bible expert who's never read it? Because if you've read it you can't come to that conclusion.
Unless you think Jesus wrote all of it, and every book is related directly to the same story and they all consistantly refer to each other, which you may very well think, having never read even half of it.
"The same thing happened with the Bible. "
No it didn't, you fucking moron. Exactly who did the testing, exactly what was tested (and how was it tested) and exactly what were the results?
ok, which of the two ways written in the Bible did Judas die ?
ooops
a main character in the story and the author mucks up his death.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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