Need a Different Perspective
Recently an evolutionist asked me for scientific evidence for the Bible:Cornelius, can you provide any scientific evidence that shows that everything in the bible is inerrant, and is the 'word of God'? Can you even show, scientifically, that either one is "probable"?
This blog is about evolution, but it is worth exploring this question. It is a tricky question because not only is the Bible a long book, but it covers a wide range of topics. There is prophecy, poetry, drama, wisdom literature, history, laws, and creation, to name a few. And a great deal of this material is not something that we would think one subjects to scientific scrutiny.
For example, if your friend told you “I think she loves me,” would you ask for scientific evidence? The Bible is a revelation of God to man. It tells us that God loves us. No matter what you think or have been told, God loves you. He loves you so much that Jesus endured a terrible fate and died a gruesome death in order to save you. He is your savior. So the Bible is a story of love and forgiveness. It is a story of how God saves sinners.
Unfortunately there are those who never will accept this message.
I 'sort of' just commented on this at UD:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/could-the-eye-have-evolved-by-natural-selection-in-a-geological-blink/#comment-450489
"Cornelius, can you provide any scientific evidence that shows that everything in the bible is inerrant, and is the 'word of God'? Can you even show, scientifically, that either one is "probable"?"
ReplyDeleteExegesis of texts is an inductive science. History is an inductive science. Probability, in the sense of plausibility, has to do with frequencies of certain kinds of events and, therefore, their greater or lesser probability of occurrence given the conditions for the calculated frequencies.
History has to do with applying analogies to interpret texts and analogically-inferred frequencies (e.g., how often do writers lie pathologically, or do so collaboratively, etc) to come up with the least ad-hoc inferences about past events.
For any biblical historical claims to make sense, you have to first take the existence of non-relativistic morality seriously. This means that you think there are right and wrong (notice I said "right and wrong," not "good and evil") volitional actions that are thus for humans qua humans. This means (even many atheists admit it), until one can explain it otherwise, that you believe in a benevolent/sympathetic Designer of your volitional capacity (if you believe you have a volitional capacity). If you don't believe you have volitional capacity, then I don't believe you do either. And in that case, I have no reason to believe your words are intentionally-chosen to correspond to any conventionally-assigned meaning. And in that case, your words can be safely disregarded by me as having no known relevance to anything.
But if you do think you have volition and that you are designed to choose in non-relativistically "right" ways, then the bible at least makes sense in terms of its internal coherence. The only question then is are there any events that we know about that are significant corroborations (at least in the sense of minimizing ad-hoc explanations) of biblical historical claims? The answer is clearly yes. This doesn't prove the bible true, but it explains why people can't write it off without being quite arbitrary in their approach.
First, it's hard to explain the rapid growth of Christianity in Israel and the Roman empire and the willingness of converts to endure persecution and social animus for it unless something like the attested miracles actually occurred. For if the miracles didn't occur, it's hard to explain how gentiles, who already disregarded Judaism and already had a preferred life-style, would not see right through the scam of the evangelists and rightly disregard their warnings about accountability to the god of Israel.
Second, Gerald Aardsma has provided seeming corroboration of the biblical historical claims from Joseph through the Canaanite conquest, etc (http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/). If those correlations are merely coincidental, they are profoundly coincidental.
Of course, none of that proves that biblical history is true. Induction is always tentative. But it does render it non-superstitious if it's non-superstitious to posit a benevolent designer of the human volitional and rational capacity in the first place. But you can always posit an infinite set of ad-hoc hypotheses to get around benevolent teleology. Whatever floats your boat.
In short, biblical claims are only evidentially relevant if you believe or once believed in benevolent theism per se.
"In short, biblical claims are only evidentially relevant if you believe or once believed in benevolent theism per se"
DeleteOn that I don't quite agree with you or Cornelius. It might be true for revelatory or historical passages but it is not necessarily true for prophetic ones. Theres a stunning amount of prophecies either totally fulfilled or in the process of being fulfilled surrounding the state of Israel. Taken individually they may seem light until you start comparing them and they are very evidential regardless of whether a sceptic that has never studied them in a any depth blows them off.
Any readers on the fence, should simply seek out Christ for themselves, humbly and with all their heart.
ReplyDeleteAnd I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Luke 11:9
Incredible gracious of you Cornelius but if my discernment is right it will be met with equally great ungraciousness.
ReplyDeleteHopeful I am wrong
Where did the Bible come from?
ReplyDeleteThe pages and binding came from physical materials created by God and the content from the inspired word of God.
Delete"... and the content from the inspired word of God."
ReplyDeleteWhich language, translation, version, edition, interpretation, etc.?
Old testament originally Hebrew. New testament - Greek and Aramaic although there are some that think Hebrew as well
DeleteWhile on might struggle to prove the bible is the words of God and so free from error it SHOULD be easy to prove it isn't.
ReplyDeleteJust find error!
How hard could it be with a series of books written by different people, if not God, over periods of time.
surely the bible should be breeding with errors in geography, history, this and that.
It ain't.
There is no error and so evolution also is null and void.
Therefore evolution must prove itself on the evidence.
Since it claims to be more then mere evidence accumulation but to be a scientific investigation of nature then it must prove, or critics disprove, its a scientific thjeory.
How hard could this be for one side or the other.
Science is a real standard of rules and not a ordinary standard of investigation before conclusions are drawn and insisted on.
The Hebrews accepted the Bible as their authentic history. That means that they accepted as fact that all the and such happened, and that they were witnessed by the entire nation at a specific points in its history. If they did not take place, people would have probably asked why nobody heard about them until that point. If somebody told me that all American, including my Grandfather, were slaves in Canada, that an extraterrestrial took them out of Canada with all kinds of miraculous stuff in the year 1820, brought them to America, gave them a Constitution, and it was all written down, I for, one, would ask why my Grandfather never told me about it.
ReplyDeleteCH: "For example, if your friend told you “I think she loves me,” would you ask for scientific evidence? "
ReplyDeleteNo, I wouldn't normally ask for evidence. But on the other hand if the object of my friend's love was invisible and nobody had ever seen or heard her, I would definitely want to see some more tangible evidence of her existence.
Sorry doesn't work. CH is a Christian and Jesus was not invisible and plenty of people have heard about him
DeleteSherlock Holmes was not invisible and plenty of people have heard about him, so that proves he was real!
DeleteRight?
Elijah: "Sorry doesn't work. CH is a Christian and Jesus was not invisible and plenty of people have heard about him"
DeleteThe only non-faith evidence we have for Jesus is a rather questionable set of documents from almost 2000 years. Best we can tell the accounts of this person's life weren't written down for some 20-30 years after he purportedly live. And since then he hasn't shown up ever again (except in people's heads). Christians worship a deity who is essentially invisible, just like thousands of other deities.
Even if Jesus was real (it's possible perhaps), Joseph Smith and Ron Hubbard were real people too, but it doesn't make their claims trustworthy or true revelation either.
Still it is revealing to see CH's true fundamental colors show up. Of course his religion has nothing to do with his science. Right...
The historical record is clear. Jesus lived. You can choose to listen to His words or not. You're free to choose. Jesus said He IS the truth.
DeleteJD you don't know what you are talking about. ALmost all historians agree that Jesus was a historical figure. Further your argument is fallacious being circular. You merely exclude all witness testimony that agrees with what is said about Jesus as being faith evidence.
Delete"Still it is revealing to see CH's true fundamental colors show up. Of course his religion has nothing to do with his science. "
Yes of course and if a scientist expresses his atheism then we can discount everything he says based on his atheistic agenda.
Incidentally its amusing no end to see people who adhere to modern science claim that the invisibility of an entity renders the entity instantly suspect.
The non supernatural arguments is old tired and filled with hypocrisy. YOu all believe in invisible forces that shaped the universe we live in and the best scientific evidence we have indicates that the universe had a beginning that is invisible to us now with properties we can only imagine not see.
Furthermore you all gave up the high ground on anti supernatural arguments when your popularizers of atheism started talkingand preaching about multiverses which results in universes outside or beyond "super" what wecan see here in this version of nature.
As atheists you are filled with people on your side that appeal to the "super" beyond 'nature" our own universe who you embrace with open arms.
Total hypocrisy.
JDRick said: No, I wouldn't normally ask for evidence. But on the other hand if the object of my friend's love was invisible and nobody had ever seen or heard her, I would definitely want to see some more tangible evidence of her existence.
ReplyDeleteMany people HAVE seen and heard of GOD, especially circa 30-33 AD.
I don't need to have personally experienced the U.S civil war to know it happened despite the fact the only evidence is written testimony from those who did.
NV: "Many people HAVE seen and heard of GOD, especially circa 30-33 AD."
DeleteNo, what you have are accounts (written long after the fact) and not by any actual eyewitnesses who observed the events. And not a single source wrote about Jesus during the time he supposedly lived.
Contrast that to the civil war, where there are literally thousands and thousands of contemporaneous accounts of people who fought. We also have enormous amounts of physical artifacts that have survived, and of course photographs.
Not saying Jesus didn't live, but for somebody who supposedly turned the world upside down, it's very curious that nobody bothered to write anything about it when it was supposedly happening.
"No, what you have are accounts (written long after the fact) and not by any actual eyewitnesses who observed the events. And not a single source wrote about Jesus during the time he supposedly lived. "
DeleteRubbish.. That just rhetoric. even many secular scholars put some of the gospels being written in the first century while apostles would still have been alive as eye witness testimony
"
Contrast that to the civil war, where there are literally thousands and thousands of contemporaneous accounts of people who fought. We also have enormous amounts of physical artifacts that have survived, and of course photographs. "
Wow thats one of the silliest comparison's I've ever seen.You do know the civil war was a bit over 200 years ago as opposed to 2000 years ago for the early church right? and that photograph did not exist in Jesus time?
You have done almost no research on this -- just spouting rhetoric
Elijah2012
DeleteYou do know the civil war was a bit over 200 years ago
LOL! According to the genius here the US Civil War happened a bit before 1813.
(rolls eyes)
These are the same morons who demand to have their "understanding" of science taught in public schools. Yet they still wonder why they get laughed at.
Thanks SO MUCH T!!!
DeleteTyped that late at night and was thinking war of independence when I put down that time. You correction makes my counter much more powerful and your civil war argument so much more moronic.
I'll wait with bated breath for you to dodge that the comparison being made of events 200O years ago to 150 years ago (Even better than 200 years ago) isn't epicly silly, I know you are up to dancing on a pin to escape when facts nail you but thanks again for strengthening what I had written :)
Elijah2012
DeleteTyped that late at night and was thinking war of independence when I put down that time.
LOL! FAIL again there genius. The American War of Independence was 1775-1783.
The War of 1812 was a little over 200 years ago, but that's not either of the conflicts you named.
You home-schooled "literati" and your "facts" are too funny!
"LOL! FAIL again there genius. The American War of Independence was 1775-1783."
DeleteROFL. T You can't even add. That Is OVER 200 years
Thank you - in pointing out a mistake you show yourself to be even sillier than I thought. You quoted me yourself I said
"You do know the civil war was a bit OVER 200 years ago"
I said nothing about "little". You added that. So now you are claiming that the civil war was not over 200 years ago?
230 to be precise so yes a bit over 200. In denial?
Comedy gold. :)
Elijah2012
DeleteComedy gold.
Agreed. Watching a home-schooled ignoramus like you butcher both evolutionary theory and American history is comedy gold!
I still want to hear how malaria was caused by The Fall though. But I guess you're too embarrassed to elaborate.
National Velour
ReplyDeleteI don't need to have personally experienced the U.S civil war to know it happened despite the fact the only evidence is written testimony from those who did.
Written testimony is the only evidence? What about the thousands of photos we have of the carnage at places like Gettysburg and Antietam? What about the era warships that have been recovered like the CSA submarine H.L.Hunley and the Union ironclad USS Cairo?
Your understanding of history is on par with your understanding of evolutionary biology I see.
Sorry doesn't work. Without written testimony as context the pictures would give us no information of the nature of the war. what it was about or that it was even a civil war.
DeleteElijah2012
DeleteSorry doesn't work. Without written testimony as context the pictures would give us no information of the nature of the war. what it was about or that it was even a civil war.
LOL! So when you Fundies teach Noah's Ark in science class and Tower of Babel in Language class, you'll also teach there's no physical evidence for the US Civil War in History class.
Your students will make some fine cocktail waitresses and buss-boys.
"you'll also teach there's no physical evidence for the US Civil War in History class."
DeleteActually Thorton, there is stunning archeological evidence for many major events of the Bible. For instance:
Exodus Revealed - Startling Evidence For The Hebrew Exodus From Egypt - documentary video
http://vimeo.com/39498729
Jim and Penny Caldwell - Mountain of God [2009]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPn_pKQt0s
Steve Schrader - Historical Reliability of the Bible - video (extra-biblical proof of exodus plagues at 22:30 minute mark)
http://vimeo.com/15742096
The egyptian papyrus of the ten plagues - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNtLesHEJLg
Jericho Unearthed - Bible Confirmed Once Again - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-cmdl4Cqdo
The following video is downright eye-opening with its archeological evidence for authenticity of the Bible:
The Physical Ashen Remains Of Sodom and Gomorrah - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwTVFk1HK3Y
Humanpast.net
DeleteExcerpt: Worldwide, we know that the period of 14,000 to 13,000 years ago, which coincides with the peak of abundant monsoonal rains over India, was marked by violent oceanic flooding - in fact, the first of the three great episodes of global superfloods that dominated the meltdown of the Ice Age. The flooding was fed not merely by rain but by the cataclysmic synchronous collapse of large ice-masses on several different continents and by gigantic inundations of meltwater pouring down river systems into the oceans. (124)
What happened, at around 13,000 years ago, was that the long period of uninterrupted warming that the world had just passed through (and that had greatly intensified, according to some studies, between 15,000 years ago and 13,000 years ago) was instantly brought to a halt - all at once, everywhere - by a global cold event known to palaeo climatologists as the 'Younger Dryas' or 'Dryas III'. In many ways mysterious and unexplained, this was an almost unbelievably fast climatic reversion - from conditions that are calculated to have been warmer and wetter than today's 13,000 years ago, to conditions that were colder and drier than those at the Last Glacial Maximum, not much more than a thousand years later. From that moment, around 12,800 years ago, it was as though an enchantment of ice had gripped the earth. In many areas that had been approaching terminal meltdown full glacial conditions were restored with breathtaking rapidity and all the gains that had been made since the LGM were simply stripped away…(124)
A great, sudden extinction took place on the planet, perhaps as recently as 11,500 years ago (usually attributed to the end of that last ice age), in which hundreds of mammal and plant species disappeared from the face of the earth, driven into deep caverns and charred muck piles the world over. Modern science, with all its powers and prejudices, has been unable to adequately explain this event. (83)
http://humanpast.net/environment/environment11k.htm
The following video is very interesting for it shows a geological formation that is now known to have been formed by a catastrophic flood, yet Charles Darwin himself had 'predicted' the geological formation was formed 'gradually':
DeleteWhere Darwin Went Wrong - geology video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3darzVqzV2o
Arch Bonnema - Petrified Noah's Ark Remains - video
http://vimeo.com/23641811
This following video lecture, at around the 6:00 minute mark, finds that the first 'advanced' human civilization, (with the oldest archeological evidence of metallurgy, agriculture, wine making, etc...), flourished near, or at, the Ankara area,,,(The Ankara area is called Anatolia in the video)
Tracing your Ancestors through History - Paul James-Griffiths
http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/video/1
Ankara
Excerpt: Centrally located in Anatolia, Ankara is an important commercial and industrial city.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankara
Though, because of his Young Earth Biblical view, Paul James-Griffiths did not give the dating of the area, the dating of the first 'advanced' human civilization, around that area, is 12,000 years before the present:
Stone Age Temple May Be Birthplace of Civilization
Excerpt: The elaborate temple at Gobelki Tepe in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, is staggeringly ancient: 11,500 years old, from a time just before humans learned to farm grains and domesticate animals. According to the German archaeologist in charge of excavations at the site, it might be the birthplace of agriculture, of organized religion — of civilization itself.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/gobeklitepe/index
This following video, and article, are very interesting for they talk about the scientific evidence for a 'genetic Adam' and a 'genetic Eve', and how the evidence relates to Noah's flood:
DeleteDoes human genetic evidence support Noah's flood? - Fazale Rana - video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4116168
Book Review; Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man:
Excerpt: The Bible claims that there was a genetic bottleneck at the Genesis flood. Whereas all females can trace their ancestry back to Eve (through the three wives of Noah's sons), all males trace their Y-chromosomes through Noah (through his three sons). This predicted discrepancy for molecular dates of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data is actually seen in the scientific literature.
http://www.godandscience.org/newsletters/2005-09.html
Persian History and The Old Testament - Dr Mark Woolmer - video
http://vimeo.com/426015
Egyptian Chronology and the Old Testament - Dr Mark Woolmer - video
http://vimeo.com/410567
Shrine Discovery in Judah May Confirm, Clarify Biblical Descriptions - May 2012
Excerpt: "This is the first time that archaeologists uncovered a fortified city in Judah from the time of King David," Garfinkel said in a press release.,, "For the first time in history we have actual objects from the time of David, which can be related to monuments described in the Bible," the press release, provided by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, states.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/shrine-discovery-in-judah-may-confirm-clarify-biblical-descriptions-74613/
Isaiah 53 and the Dead Sea Scrolls - verified prophecy before the birth of Christ
http://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/dead-sea-scrolls-2.htm
"In Extraordinary ways, modern archaeology has affirmed the historical core of the Old and New testaments - corroborating key points of the stories of Israel's patriarchs, the Exodus, the Davidic monarchy, and the life and times of Jesus."
Jeffery Sheler - 'Is The Bible True', U.S. News and World Report, Oct. 25th, 1999, pg.52
This is a gem of a quote from a Bible skeptic who thought it unfair to use the Bible as a guide in archeology since,,,::
‘he knew immediately that, proceeding in this way (using the Bible as a guide), “she would certainly find that building”
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/materialism-vs-science-in-archaeology-and-the-difference-it-makes/
Outside the bible historical evidence for Jesus is listed on the following site:
Deletehttp://www.uncommondescent.com/atheism/on-a-case-study-of-the-willful-closed-mindedness-produced-by-the-selective-hyperskepticism-of-the-new-atheist-mindset/
The Turin Shroud - Comparing Image And Photographic Negative - interactive webpage
(Of note: The finding of a photographic negative image on the Shroud is still as much a mystery today as when it was first discovered by Secondo Pia in 1898.)
http://www.shroud.com/shrdface.htm
Shroud Of Turin - Photographic Negative - 3D Hologram - The Lamb - video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5664213/
Shroud of Turin - Carbon 14 test proves false (with Raymond Rogers, lead chemist from the STURP project) - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxDdx6vxthE
Discovery Channel - Unwrapping The Shroud of Turin New Evidence - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyiZtagxX8
The following is the main peer reviewed paper which has refuted the 1989 Carbon Dating:
Why The Carbon 14 Samples Are Invalid, Raymond Rogers
per: Thermochimica Acta (Volume 425 pages 189-194, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California)
Excerpt: Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow–brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud. The fact that vanillin can not be detected in the lignin on shroud fibers, Dead Sea scrolls linen, and other very old linens indicates that the shroud is quite old. A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggests that the shroud is between 1300- and 3000-years old. Even allowing for errors in the measurements and assumptions about storage conditions, the cloth is unlikely to be as young as 840 years.
http://www.ntskeptics.org/issues/shroud/shroudold.htm
Thorton, I could easily explain away the evidence for the civil war just as some atheists try to explain away the abundant evidence for Christ....but we would both be wrong.
DeleteThose photos you speak about are just staged productions...the alleged people who witnessed the civil war were made up, etc etc etc. You see, just as it would be illogical to deny the reality of the civil war, it is just as illogical to deny the reality of Jesus Christ.
National Velour
DeleteThorton, I could easily explain away the evidence for the civil war just as some atheists try to explain away the abundant evidence for Christ
You said the the only evidence for the US Civil War is written testimony. My point is just that's laughably, comically, hilariously wrong.
Cornelius said:
ReplyDelete"This blog is about evolution..."
This blog is only "about evolution" in that this blog is just another religiously motivated attack on evolution, evolutionists, the theory of evolution, so-called "Darwinists", reality, science, and science supporters. The posts by Cornelius and the comments in any thread by him and the other god pushers are vivid proof of my contention.
Look at the questions I asked in the OP and in my comments and look at the responses by the god pushers. All there is by Cornelius in the OP and in the comments by the godbots is evasion, ignorance, preaching, proselytizing, and BS.
In a recent OP Cornelius said:
"The theory of evolution would then, rather than be mandated to be a fact, lie exposed to the light of science which shows it to be so improbable."
Well, Cornelius and you other god pushers, your religious fairy tales lie exposed to the light of science and sanity which shows them to be impossible and that's why you bash science and sanity. The so-called "God" you believe in, worship, and promote is IMPOSSIBLE. You zombies constantly nitpick every detail about evolution and the ToE but you NEVER apply even the slightest scrutiny to your insane religious beliefs. You devote yourselves to what's printed in various versions of a fairy tale book (all with the title 'The Bible') that has been cobbled together, variously translated, modified, re-modified, variously interpreted, re-re-modified, re-variously-interpreted, etc., over and over again, yet you claim that the bible is the 'word of God'. Can't "God" get it right the first time, or the second time, or the third time, etc.? Who or what is your so-called "God" yhwh, an inept, impotent, illiterate bumpkin?
And since you're attacking science because of your religious beliefs, let's see you come up with scientific evidence that supports your religious beliefs. How about starting with evidence of a talking snake, evidence of a man living inside of a fish for days, evidence of dead zombie saints and jesus walking around, evidence that jesus ever existed, and evidence of goats/sheep having striped/spotted offspring simply because they mated while looking at striped sticks?
"evidence that jesus ever existed"
DeleteDawkins Owned By Lennox: Admits Jesus Existed (O8:37 mark) - video
http://youtu.be/lbLRE_SIMMU
“And you realize that 99.9% of scholars across the world will acknowledge that Jesus is an historical person. They may not say that Jesus is the Son of God, but they will say there was an historical figure named Jesus of Nazareth. But Tom [Harpur] has very grave doubts about this, so he claims. Now that floored me right there. Because, we have copious evidence for Jesus’ existence. If you don’t like the gospels, go to the Roman historian, Tacitus, who talks about the great fire of Rome and how Nero got blamed for it. To save himself, he blames the Christians. This Roman historian says that they are named for a Christus, who was crucified by one of our governors, Pontius Pilate. What more do you need? That quote alone would establish the historicity of Jesus. Suetonius mentions Christ in connection with the riot of those for or against Jesus across the Tiber. Pliny, the younger, Governor of Asia Minor, says that these Christians get up on Sunday morning and sing hymns to Christ as to a God. The Jewish rabbinic traditions mention Jesus of Nazareth in their own language. Whatmore do we need of witnesses? Josephus mentions Jesus twice.
I want to point out that Christian faith is based upon fact and not on fiction. The problem nowadays is that so many people are trying to turn fact into fiction.” Dr. Paul Maier (recently retired Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University) quoted from the 100 Huntley Street telecast on March 30/04
In the following video, the very liberal Bible scholar/critic Bart Ehrman tells an atheist that 'no serious Bible historian doubts that Jesus existed':
Even Bart Ehrman admits Jesus Existed - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=WUQMJR2BP1w
Lecture - Dr Peter Williams - Things Which Ought To Be Better Known About The Resurrection Of Jesus - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbBVBUeHXZ4
J. Warner Wallace Lectures on the Evidence for Christianity - video
Description: Cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace, and author of Cold-Case Christianity, presented this lecture via Skype at Reasonable Faith Belfast on Monday, 3rd December 2012. He talks about the nature of evidence, possibility and reason, the chain of custody for the New Testament documents, and much more. The lecture is about an hour (with great visuals), followed by about 30 minutes of Q&A.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiYQzOypD9o
Accuracy Of The Bible - Feeding 5000 - video
http://www.metacafe.com/w/6745194
Moreover Thewholetruth: Since science cannot be grounded in the atheistic/materialistic worldview, it is actually the atheist who is "attacking science because of your religious beliefs"
DeleteThe Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013
Excerpt: So far, so good. But the human brain can do much more than this. It can perform calculus, hypothesize metaphysics, compose music—even develop a theory of evolution. None of these higher capacities has any evident survival value, certainly not hundreds of thousands of years ago when the chief aim of mental life was to avoid getting eaten. Could our brain have developed and sustained such nonadaptive abilities by the trial and error of natural selection, as neo-Darwinism insists? It’s possible, but the odds, Nagel says, are “vanishingly small.” If Nagel is right, the materialist is in a pickle. The conscious brain that is able to come up with neo-Darwinism as a universal explanation simultaneously makes neo-Darwinism, as a universal explanation, exceedingly unlikely.,,,
,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3
Well like I said to C I knew his graciousness would be met with monumental ungraciousness
Delete"Well, Cornelius and you other god pushers, your religious fairy tales lie exposed to the light of science and sanity which shows them to be impossible and that's why you bash science and sanity. The so-called "God" you believe in, worship, and promote is IMPOSSIBLE."
DeleteSorry TWH that boat has sailed on you. You gave up the moral right to make that argument stick against religion. Your side now believes in the endless possibilities of infinite universes with almost anything happening even guaranteed to happen in infinite time. You have multiverses popping out of nowhere beyond any universe we see, can verify or touch, scientists like Krauss claiming even the laws of the universe can change from universe to universe and you routinely appeal to a causeless processless infinite base for all things just like Theist do.
The sole difference between you and us now is one thing and one thing only - We believe in an intelligent cause for the universe and you don't. everything else in the definition of God is there in your own position. From eternity to omnipotence
YOu can no longer whine and complain about our miracles. You can no longer scoff with any authority at our appeals to the supernatural. Your new atheism embraces the supernatural idea of universes beyond our univeses whole heartedly to escape the implications of fine tuning but the implications have risen up and bit them in the rear.
You just haven't gotten the memo.
The old days of claiming that the supernatural shows Christianity to be loopy are over. You appeal to it left and right over and over again one moment to suit yur purposes and then try and continue as if you never did the next.
Won't work anymore to the extent it ever did. IF you can make claims of men appearing whole out of nothing in some universes (Krauss) or potentially dragons popping into existence out of colliders you gave up any right to claim anything in religion is impossible.
shucks if everything pops out of nothing you guys believe more in the supernatural than we do.
Elijah2012 March 24, 2013 at 4:58 AM
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Sorry TWH that boat has sailed on you. You gave up the moral right to make that argument stick against religion. Your side now believes in the endless possibilities of infinite universes with almost anything happening even guaranteed to happen in infinite time. You have multiverses popping out of nowhere beyond any universe we see, can verify or touch, scientists like Krauss claiming even the laws of the universe can change from universe to universe and you routinely appeal to a causeless processless infinite base for all things just like Theist do.
To the person with a hammer everything looks like a nail. Since Christianity deals only with absolute truths so must everyone else.
Multiverse theories are essentially conjectures. There is no way to test them now, there may never be. They are a speculative solution to some problems in cosmology, nothing more. Belief in them is not required of scientists or atheists. I suspect most think they are intriguing proposals but not much more.
And whatever they are, they make no difference to the well-known inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible or the inherent problems of the concept of a tri-omni God.
SPed you are far from the first person that claims the Bible is riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. Its an old atheist fabrication. Its standard atheistic rhetoric that i have seen and myself dismantled many times. From the silly PI is wrong to the so called discrepancies of the Gospels on the resurrection morning. Every single one is based on not doing a lick of research, not bothering to understand the original language or refusing to look at context.
DeleteA series of epics fails and I have debated that issue over decades.
" They are a speculative solution to some problems in cosmology, nothing more. Belief in them is not required of scientists or atheists. I suspect most think they are intriguing proposals but not much more."
Yeah and one of those "problems in cosmology" is the fine tuning of the present universe. faced with the option of one universe finely tuned and multiple universes we both know many atheist today select the meta physics of multiple universes and we also both know why. The fine tuning of the universe is something they KNOW is so incredibly compelling to intelligent people they feel they must select the other option.
Besides it doesn't matter a bird's feather if you call it conjecture. The undeniable fact is that your side is FINE and DANDY with people believing in that while castigating every theist for believing in God. So you are lenient to toward meta physics as long as the meta physics isn't your own meta physics
Finally the whole response is just hand waving. Multiverse are not the only time or place new atheists appeal to the supernatural. They do so with creation of the universe out of nothing and even with an eternal cosmos since even an infinite regression of universes itself requires a noncaused, nonrational eternal entity.
No matter where you turn no matter what the dance atheism still ends up relying on supernatural concepts. You just don't want to admit it to anyone or you don't want to admit it yourself
That hammeer fits the nail quite well.
As Ian said:
Delete"To the person with a hammer everything looks like a nail. Since Christianity deals only with absolute truths so must everyone else.
Multiverse theories are essentially conjectures. There is no way to test them now, there may never be. They are a speculative solution to some problems in cosmology, nothing more. Belief in them is not required of scientists or atheists. I suspect most think they are intriguing proposals but not much more.
And whatever they are, they make no difference to the well-known inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible or the inherent problems of the concept of a tri-omni God."
elijah, the bible is garbage and your chosen, so-called god, yhwh-jesus-holy-ghost, is impossible. You need mental help.
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ReplyDeleteCornelius, can you provide any scientific evidence that shows that everything in the bible is inerrant, and is the 'word of God'? Can you even show, scientifically, that either one is "probable"?
ReplyDeleteAnyone who believes that the Bible is infallible is committing idolatry in my opinion. And I speak as a Christian. The Bible is a research tool (there are others), a partially arbitrary amalgamation of books written in several languages by different authors who lived at different times and never intended their work to be bound together in the first place.
As to whether there is evidence that the Bible contains words of God, your wish is about to come true. Evidence exists that some of the metaphorical messages in parts of the Bible are descriptions of major scientific secrets, secrets that will shake the foundation of the world, so to speak. The evidence clearly points to a non-human intelligence, presumably God. For example, there are passages in the books of Zechariah and Revelation that explain how the brain works. Read Secrets of the Holy Grail for more, if you're interested.
Suddenly, the future is not what it used to be. ahahaha...
The bible talks of divine things. Divine things by their nature are outside our materialistic universe and therefore outside the bounds of science. For example, Jesus said 'I am the vine and you are the branches..' This is divinely true, but nothing that could be studied scientifically because the source of life lies outside of the material world.
ReplyDeleteThere has been nothing but evasive blithering (as usual) from you god pushers, and none of you have provided a scientific response to my questions:
ReplyDelete"...can you provide any scientific evidence that shows that everything in the bible is inerrant, and is the 'word of God'? Can you even show, scientifically, that either one is "probable"?"
Truthy:
ReplyDeleteThere has been nothing but evasive blithering (as usual) from you god pushers, and none of you have provided a scientific response to my questions
Nobody owes you shit, jackass. Who in the hell are you?
Hey louis, thanks for posting a link to your blog. I came across this comment of yours there:
ReplyDelete"I not only believe in extraterrestrial aliens, I believe they are here on earth now and they've been here for a long time. Does not the Bible teach us that there were many gods (Elohim) who came to earth because they thought we were hot? And does not the historical and archaeological record teach us that powerful immortal beings used to live among us and we used to worship them as deities?
If those in academia choose to dismiss these accounts as religious myths, it's only because they have something to hide."
Tell me louis, how can the aliens that are here now be recognized? Do they have pointy heads and three eyes, or do they look just like humans? Do you know any aliens personally? Are you an alien? If so, which planet are you from?
Do you believe that Stonehenge, all the ancient pyramids, and other structures were designed and built by aliens?
What do you think of ghosts, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, demons, the abominable snowman, Godzilla, Alien and Predator, crop circles, human and animal sacrifices to "Gods", Darth Vader, jesus riding dinosaurs, reincarnation, black holes, hallucinogenic drugs, and leprechauns?
And what exactly do you mean by "because they thought we were hot"?
Truthy, do I sound like I'm your bitch?
Deleteahahaha... AHAHAHAHA... ahahahaha...