Self-Contradictions of the Bible

[TheProcess]

Again, you're invoking spirituality as evidence that the Christian God exists, when the same spiritual feelings have been felt by Native Americans, Hindus, Muslims, and the like. "Feeling Jesus" is not evidence that he exists, because its purely a subjective and interprative response to spiritual experience.

Your claim is not true. As one who has done comparitive studies on these religions I can tell you that not one of them has anything resembling the spiritual experience of being indwelt by the creator of the universe. Native American religions as well as most Hindu sects use drugs and various physical stresses and exercizes to experience spiritual "travelling." Having any such experiences as these are completely foreign to Islam. In many, if not, most, Christians' experience a simple realization of sin and a confession of Jesus' Lordship was all it took to experince the reality of Christ's salvation.

I will quote something that I read on the BBC religion forums:

"I know what you mean in terms of the joy of fellowship with God. I used to be a born again Christian and had a real and genuine experience of fellowship with God. Since then i have left Christianity and express my spiritual fellowship in a completely different manner - indeed one in which the fundie community cast as diabolic. The joy is still there - indeed if anything its even stronger than before.

This is the trouble with all the fundamentalist fanaticisms we see in various religions around the world that is causing so much trouble at the moment. Your spiritual experience of God, while quite genuine, is interpreted as a legitimation of the rigid religious interpretation framework in which you first approached it. When this framework tells you that only you have access to the truth we get fanaticism..."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbreligion/F2213235?thread=802414

Edited July 25, 2006 by TheProcess

[TheProcess]

Personally speaking no atheist is ever going to convince me that the Bible is errant. I don't have to answer a long list of supposed contradictions to prove that my faith true. I know it's true because Jesus lives in me.

I will quote a Christian on this issue:

"The problem for the ARE [argument from religious experience] is that if religious experience is to constitute evidence for the existence of God (as opposed, say, to the 'voidness' of some versions of Buddhism), then what do we do about non-theistic religious experiences? Or what do we do about any religious experience that contradicts theism, or one's own brand of theism, at some point? Do we simply ignore them? On what rational basis? If we restrict our coverage (as I have been doing) to theistic religious experience, what prevents Vedantic Hindus from using their religious experience as evidence for the existence of Brahman? ...

But the question still remains whether theistic religious experience can be used as the basis of the ARE in the light of the fact that religious experience is so diverse, with much of it not theistic at all. I believe the answer is largely no. There is no rational way -- short, that is, of question-begging -- simply to rule out non-theistic religious experience and thus use religious experience as the basis of a proof of the God of theism."

Stephen T. Davis (1997) God, Reason and Theistic Proofs (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)

[TheProcess]

Upon thinking about it, one thing that I had forgotten is that the word of God is foolishness to those who do not believe, for they are spiritually dead. Unsaved ones do not have the Holy Spirit in them. You cant understand scripture without the Holy Spirit.

Protestants have lots of different interpretations of the Bible. I guess the Holy Spirit must be guiding them to understand the Bible in a million different ways...

[Arjuous]

Pick 1 so called contradiction at a time and we'll answer them one by one.

First of all GO GATORS!

Secondly, and more to the point...

John 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time."

Written before John by the way, Exodus 33:11 "And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend."

Language: Hebrew, Panyim meaning, "in the presence of." The claim assumes the English interpretation of being face to face - as in, "gazing into the face of..." The Hebrew language makes no such assumption.

Context: Verse 10, "And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door." Every man worshipped God at his tent door, but Moses went and stood int he presence of God. So "face to face" is in contrast to "at his tent door." Moses simply was in God's presence, with God in the same place, speaking with him person to Person.

According to John no one has EVER seen God.

The verse, beginning with Genesis 33:7 reads, "Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the "tent of meeting." Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to thier tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent."

So right now, the people watch Moses go inside his special tent where he meets with God.

"As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord, presumably(he'd have to be) inside, spoke with Moses."

It's fairly clear that the cloud is controlled by God, but not all of God, and merely is guarding the entrance, so to speak.

"Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face [or standing in the presence of God], as a man speaks with his friend."

There can be a rational explanation for this, even using scripture, in Exodus 33:21-25 where God is telling Moses to hide behind a rock until his glory passes, or something to that effect, which doesn't make sense in the omnipotent sense, and was most likely added in the framework of many of the other gods at the time. Nonetheless, I agree, not a perfect contradiction, so it can't be completely identified as contradictory, so its best to throw it out.

I think the most obvious contradictions are apparent in the Resurrection Story, perhaps we should turn out attention to that?

Edited July 25, 2006 by Arjuous

[Floatingaxe]

Again, you're invoking spirituality as evidence that the Christian God exists, when the same spiritual feelings have been felt by Native Americans, Hindus, Muslims, and the like. "Feeling Jesus" is not evidence that he exists, because its purely a subjective and interprative response to spiritual experience.

Your claim is not true. As one who has done comparitive studies on these religions I can tell you that not one of them has anything resembling the spiritual experience of being indwelt by the creator of the universe. Native American religions as well as most Hindu sects use drugs and various physical stresses and exercizes to experience spiritual "travelling." Having any such experiences as these are completely foreign to Islam. In many, if not, most, Christians' experience a simple realization of sin and a confession of Jesus' Lordship was all it took to experince the reality of Christ's salvation.

I will quote something that I read on the BBC religion forums:

"I know what you mean in terms of the joy of fellowship with God. I used to be a born again Christian and had a real and genuine experience of fellowship with God. Since then i have left Christianity and express my spiritual fellowship in a completely different manner - indeed one in which the fundie community cast as diabolic. The joy is still there - indeed if anything its even stronger than before.

This is the trouble with all the fundamentalist fanaticisms we see in various religions around the world that is causing so much trouble at the moment. Your spiritual experience of God, while quite genuine, is interpreted as a legitimation of the rigid religious interpretation framework in which you first approached it. When this framework tells you that only you have access to the truth we get fanaticism..."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbreligion/F2213235?thread=802414

Why all your quotes? why quote from someone who has become apostate? What merit is that?

[Arjuous]

Why all your quotes? why quote from someone who has become apostate? What merit is that?

You're asserting that apostates cannot have a valid opinion?

[TheProcess]

Why all your quotes?

I gave a couple of quotes that were relevant to the issue. This is a discussion forum!

why quote from someone who has become apostate? What merit is that?

Why should we dismiss the testimony of someone merely because they left Christianity?

[TheProcess]

With regard to Bible error, the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke seem inconsistent. Matthew seems to suggest that Joseph and Mary didn't originally live in Nazareth, but went and moved there.

Matthew

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, (in Judaea), in the days of Herod.

An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to flee into Egypt with his family, because Herod was looking for Jesus and wanted to kill him.

Joseph immediately takes Mary and Jesus to Egypt.

When Herod died, they wanted to return to Judaea, but they found another Herod (Archelaus) was there, and so they "came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth"

Luke

Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, (in Galilee).

Augustus Caesar required that everyone register for tax purposes, in the home town of a remote ancestor apparently.

Joseph was descended from David, and so he went to Bethlehem with Mary.

While they were there, Mary gave birth to Jesus.

They visited Jerusalem.

They returned to their own city Nazareth.

[billie]

I don't see where Matthew says anything about where Joseph and Mary lived before they went to Bethlehem.

[TheProcess]

I don't see where Matthew says anything about where Joseph and Mary lived before they went to Bethlehem.

But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:22-23 KJV)

This (fairly strongly) suggests that they didn't originally live in Nazareth, but went and moved there. So I would say that the birth narratives come off as inconsistent.