Bacteria Amaze

[Guest shiloh357]

And once more: this is all just my opinion. These are my personal beliefs and I am not forcing them on anyone, nor would I presume to "teach" them to anyone. I am merely explaining why I have them at this moment.

I will admit, there is great doubt in me. However, this doubt is not in Jesus or in God, it's in the human writings about them.

If the above statements make me a "nonbeliever" in the eyes of Worthy Ministries, then I invite the moderators to change my account status accordingly. I would not mind, and in fact I think many people here would be satisfied with nothing less. The only privilege I ask is the ability to explain my beliefs when they are questioned.

The problem Lorax, in case you haven't noticed in your own words is that where Scripture is concerned, you have no truth to anchor to. You cannot put your faith in the Scriptures because you have, in your mind, reduced the Scriptures to "human writings, which means that you cannot accept the inspiration of Scripture. To you the Bible full of errors and is wholly unreliable.

You cannot, by evidence of your own testimony, in this thread put an ounce of faith in ANY promise made in the Scripture, as you cannot, in your mind, really know what is really true and what is not true.

And whether you accept it or not, your doubt is in the Father and Jesus. You cannot accept the Bible, and it is the only source we have by which we can know and understand them. You cannot put faith in God as all powerful or all knowing who cannot preserve His own words in the face of human error. You cannot put faith in Jesus for salvation because your position is that the Bible is riddled with error, so how do you know that salvation is real or that you even have it?

The Bible is a reflection of God, Himself. You cannot doubt the Bible but not doubt God. God, by His own testimony, magnifies His Word above His own Name, meaning that He places every ounce of His integrity in it. He cannot be separated from what He has said. So it is impossible to reject what is in the Bible without rejecting the God who put it there.

What is interesting is how you have not, at least it is not apparent in this thread, that you have taken any time to seriously investigate the claims you make against the Bible. Has it entered your mind that the difficulties you have with the Bible may be due to your rather shallow understanding of the Scriptures?

You are doing nothing but parroting same tired canards that every atheist and agnostic on this board has said at one time or another. You present it as some as if you've got the silver bullet that stymie any position, but you are not saying anything different than hosts of nonChristians have said over and over and they have been soundly answered and refuted as you have been.

Doesn't it bother you as one who professes to be a Christian that all of your views about the Bible are fundamentally the same as what is espoused by atheists and agnostics and other critics of the Bible? There is a major disconnect in what you profess to be and what you actually believe. Nothing you have said in this thread would lead anyone to believe that your profession to be Christian has any real, credible merit. That is something you need to examine because frankly, it is a life or death issue.

When you step out into eternity, that could be any day, you won't have another chance. You have this life to settle the account. God does not offer His grace indefinately and you need to decide if going down your current path is really worth risking your eternal future over.

[Guest shiloh357]

QUOTE (RunningGator @ Apr 12 2009, 10:48 PM)

never mind the 5000 plus manuscrits taht show us this is a false accusation you keep making. no matter how many times you say it, it is still false.

Could you give me a link or a name or something to go by here? There may be 5000 of those things, but I don't know where to find them.

Actually, there are 25,000 of them total if you include all of the extra-biblical quotations of the Bible from 2nd and 3rd centuries. The extra-biblical quotes are so numerous, even if we did not have the 5,000 actual manuscripts, we can still produce a complete NT just from extra-biblical writers alone. In fact, we have, and scholars have compared how the Bible was quoted by later authorities with the earlier Greek manuscripts and found them to be 100% accurate with respect to the historical and doctrinal matters the Bible addresses. The only "mistakes" ( called "variants")are spelling errors or ink smudges. Other than that the only differences are in word reversals. For instance a verse in one copy may say "Jesus Christ" and other copy may say "Christ, Jesus," but none of that affects doctrine or the issue of inerrancy/infallibility. There are some verses that do cause Greek scholars some difficulty, but they are obsure verses that do not address any main doctrine of Scripture and certainly do not provide any ammunition to the notion that the Bible was tampered with.

You can find information about this on several apologetics sites. A good one is John Ankerberg. He often features Norman Geisler, a top Christian apologist and theologian. They have all kinds of information debunking the myth that the Bible was tampered with down through the ages.

QUOTE

I have not said i was right, I have said GOD was right. GOD TELLS US THE BIBLE IS HIS WORD.

Again you assume the point you wish to prove - that the Bible is God's inerrant word. The message of the Bible was revealed and inspired by God, that is true. That we agree on. Where we disagree is how the Bible has been handled in the ages following.

Again, the problem with that assertion lies in the sheer number of ancient OT and New Testament manuscripts we have. We have at least 25,000 manuscript copies of the NT alone and some date as early 125 AD and as late as the early 3rd century. All of them are in agreement.

The circulation of tens of thousands of copies of manuscripts would make it IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to tamper with the Bible. There would have been no way for that kind of enterprise to get off the ground because any change would have been readily detected. The Bible is the most copied and printed book in all of history and that was true even before the printing press. There is no telling how many copies of the NT were being circulated in the anicient world. We know of some thousands, but there may have been many, many more that are lost to antiquity only compounding the problem for a few errant scribes to tamper with the text. It just would not and could not have happened.

It's amazing - you've yet to admit genocide is immoral. What's stopping you?

You are mislabeling what happened in the Bible as "genocide." Again, that is just another atheist canard you keep parroting. It is obvious you don't know what you are talking about.

But again, you blindly assume the Bible has not in any way been changed by its human purveyors. If humans changed it, that would not make God a liar.

The onus is on you to demonstrate that was changed. What manuscript evidence do you have that the Bible was changed? You are making claims and assertions you cannot support. If you cannot provide the evidence your assertion is wrong by default, and the Bible accuracy and infallibility are vindicated and remain unchallenged.

[nebula]

My doubts didn't arise from literary evidence - they arose from scientific evidence and from a sense of morality that I cannot ignore. That being said, your suggestion is excellent, and it's something I plan on doing. I cannot stress enough that I am not speaking with any theological authority whatsoever. I am speaking from the standpoint of a young guy who was raised to believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, but who is finding it impossible to do so. That's where I stand right now.

I've been confused and waffling over the Creation-Evolution situation as well. This I can understand.

My concern, though, in what I wrote is the rest of Scripture!

Interpreting passages one way or another is one thing, but claiming certain passages were not from God is quite another.

But yes, please research the innerency of the Bible.

[Jorge S]

My doubts didn't arise from literary evidence - they arose from scientific evidence and from a sense of morality that I cannot ignore. ... I am speaking from the standpoint of a young guy who was raised to believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, but who is finding it impossible to do so. That's where I stand right now.

The ground where you're standing now is not solid enough. There are problems with your ability to discern things. It is like a student who prepared for an exam by quickly memorizing chunks of material without paying attention to their meaning, then failed because he was asked questions that required interpretation rather than just reproduction of the information he held.

This can be seen in your shocking examples for 'bad design' in humans which do not stand to reason neither on biblical nor scientific grounds. If rooted in biblical creation you would a) have endeavoured to find meaning and function in those features created by a purposeful designer, b) differentiate disease from design, and c) understand that with regards to the singular origin of nature the present is not really the key to the past.

Take this experience also as proof against the fallacy that data alone can teach you anything to disprove the Bible. Data need to be interpreted in order to yield meaning and the presuppositions of the interpreter influence the conclusions.