Evidence for and against the Bible

Cool thread, Amuk, gonna have to read through it when I'm not so pressed for time and state my case then, too

For now, I'll just say that nothing in the Bible has been disproven, though many people have tried. People try to go after the folks who wrote it, because they can't disprove the historical accurateness in the Word. For example, the case that Luke was a babbling idiot. Yeah, his Greek sucked, but beyond that, show me one thing he said that you can prove to be false.

Originally posted by marg6043


These books of the bible beginning is Jewish folklore and me being non Jewish I have no reason to accept them as the word of my creator.

Can anybody deny that the books of Genesis are the accounts of the Jewish historical accounts and myths?

I absolutely can not. They are just that, Jewish...those that came out of the flood were clean but sin again became rampant and God chose a People He could call his own......why? Heck I don't know, but with Christ came salvation for all mankind.

Originally posted by edsinger
The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1 :1).

How was that the begining if God was already there? Wouldnt the begining start with the creation of God?

The atheist has always maintained that there was no beginning.

I thought an atheist only maintained that there was no God? For the record I disagree with them on this.

The Humanist Manifesto says, "Matter is self-existing and not created," and that is a concise statement of the atheist's belief.

I really dont see how this proves or disproves the Bible. The Humanist Manifesto is merely another set of Dogma and has nothing to do with science as far as I know. Disproving it in NO MANNER proves the Bible. Lets try to stay on one subject at a time.

The way we decide whether the atheist is correct or not is to see what science has discovered about this question.

We are not trying to prove the athiest correct. Even if wrong (and I think he is) it DOES NOT PROVE THE BIBLE.

Ultimately, where must all the galaxies have been? At a point! At the beginning! At what scientists call a singularity!

Now we are talking.

If we know the creation has a beginning, we are faced with another logical question_was the creation caused or was it not caused?
The Bible states, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Not only does the Bible maintain that there was a cause_a creation_but it also tells us what the cause was. It was God.

What caused God?

The atheist tells us that "matter is self-existing and not created." If matter had a beginning and yet was uncaused, one must logically maintain that something would have had to come into existence out of nothing. From empty space with no force, no matter, no energy, and no intelligence, matter would have to become existent. Even if this could happen by some strange new process unknown to science today, there is a logical problem.

In order for matter to come out of nothing, all of our scientific laws dealing with the conservation of matter/energy would have to be wrong, invalidating all of chemistry. All of our laws of conservation of angular momentum would have to be wrong, invalidating all of physics. All of our laws of conservation of electric charge would have to be wrong, invalidating all of electronics and demanding that your TV set not work!! Your television set may not work, but that is not the reason! In order to believe matter is uncaused, one has to discard known laws and principles of science. No reasonable person is going to do this simply to maintain a personal atheistic position.

Couldnt this prove that God could not come from nothing also?

The atheist's assertion that matter is eternal is wrong.

So eternial life is BS?

The basic thrust of the anthropic principle is that chance is simply not a valid mechanism to explain the atom or life. If chance is not valid, we are constrained to reject Huxley's claim and to realize that we are the product of an intelligent God.

Is it more logical to think that an all knowing all powerful being spring from nothiness? And that being just happened to look like me?



[edit on 19-2-2005 by Amuk]

Israel was influence by three major cultures, the Egyptian, Canaanite, and Mesopotamia, this cultures add to the historical make over of Israel, One problem while all these civilizations were polytheistic, the later writers of the bible were monotheistic.

One of the reasons of the bible historical value is that it combined the tales of various civilizations that surrounded touched the Israelis during their journey to the promise land. But account of individual historical facts of each of these civilizations are remarkably closed to the ones in the bible, with a difference Names and times have been manipulated.

Now all these facts are what give me the reason to believe the bible as a historical book mix with myth and lore, rather than the world of God, when prior to Moses it was more than one God.

Originally posted by edsinger
[
AMUK , quick question........

Believe it or not I think there is something "out there"

but heres a quick question

If Intelegent design was PROVED

how does that in its self prove the Bible?

Originally posted by Amuk

Originally posted by edsinger
The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1 :1).

How was that the begining if God was already there? Wouldnt the begining start with the creation of God?

Ah you hit the nail on the head......God is not created!

GOD IS..........as Christ said

Rev 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."


Rev 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Rev 22:14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.
Rev 22:15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
Rev 22:16 "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."



That question you ask is one we have all asked at one time, time therefore must have a beginning and yet GOD created time, that is a concept you understand yet God is not limited by this, see the post about dimensions.


That is a Gnostic view that Christ was a created being and yet,


John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 He was with God in the beginning.
John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.


This pretty much explains it, but you said scientific proof........if I only could oblige ...

Originally posted by junglejake
Cool thread, Amuk, gonna have to read through it when I'm not so pressed for time and state my case then, too

For now, I'll just say that nothing in the Bible has been disproven, though many people have tried

I havent seen a good case from either side.

I am hoping to here from them on this one

Originally posted by Amuk

Originally posted by edsinger
[
AMUK , quick question........

Believe it or not I think there is something "out there"

but heres a quick question

If Intelligent design was PROVED

how does that in its self prove the Bible?

Ah my friend you raise a good point and as you well know it does not prove God at all, it just shows that "it" exists and then you must find out how and who........

I follow that path in a sense and when I seek I find Christ.....

Originally posted by edsinger
Ah you hit the nail on the head......God is not created!

GOD IS..........as Christ said

But did not your ENTIRE previous post claim this was impossible? For something to come from nothing, or for anything to be eternial?


Why is it impossible for them but proof of yours at the same time?

Originally posted by edsinger
That question you ask is one we have all asked at one time, time therefore must have a beginning and yet GOD created time, that is a concept you understand yet God is not limited by this, see the post about dimensions.

The scientests, Hawkins, etc; say the same thing about the universe. That time started with the big bang, as did all matter.

How is this proven wrong and your version proven right?

This is going to turn into another preaching at people thread! That's why I havent been posting as much.....

" want to start a thread to give everyone a chance to give their best evidence for and against the Bible. I would love to see this be a good debate on the factualness of the Bible so if your arguement is "the Bible is true because it says so" or "the Bible is false because God doesnt exist" then dont bother posting.
What I am looking for is proof or disproof of things like the flood, 6000 year old universe, people or events in the Bible, etc.
I would love to here the best arguements from both sides "



Well, i always start at the very beginning of whatever it is i am strudying. IN this case it would be the Phoenician Language, from which came the Hewbrew language. The phoenicians were excellent sailors, traveling the world over. They may have been the prototype for the stories of Atlantis as well, diffucult to say.

Anyway, Lets take a few sayings; jury rigged, scuttlebutt, 3 sheets to the wind, fit to be tied, etc. I could list over a hundred, all of which come from the world of sailing. The reason they become part of everyday language is they are spread all over the world by the sailors in the ports, and are spread inland by merchants and traders and consumers.

The Phoenician language was no different. It was spread the world over, as were the stories, the fables, and the language itself. Hebrew is derived directly from Phoenician, almost exactly. It is no wonder that the stories about Noah, Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, Eden, etc are borrowed from cultures all over the world. They came "prepackaged" with the language.

As to the Message the Bible conveys, i am all for it. But to say the Bible is literally true, that a world wide flood occured 4500 years ago, that Eden was 6000 years ago, etc, cannot be justified.

Originally posted by AmukI havent seen a good case from either side. I am hoping to here from them on this one

I disagree. I gave you the starting block of the Bible. Monotheism, where one God created everything. Where that one God was the first to be revered, where for 1,546 years, hundreds of generations and dozens of new nations later from his first human creation, it was only one God being talked about. Yet there is no archaeological evidence 5,765 years since that supposed day one in support of one God civilizations older than polythesitic societies. The evidence we have against that one God existence is also damning to the writers pressing forth their early days. Such that circumcision was supposedly given to Abraham circa 4200 years ago while he was wondering around Canaan, while we have a 4300 year old stele from the tomb of Ankhmahor in Egypt depicting circumcision. That tells us that Abraham's one God did not institute this practice.

Facts are stubborn things, and what we have so far as facts do not corroborate the purpose of The Bible, which is to recount the origins of man as coming from one God and his attention to a lone people. Not withstanding this, the book itself is proven wrong by what we do know to be correct, such as these few:

Genesis tells us that the layers from top to bottom are: water; firmament; water where the latter was separated into water and land; Specifically let the waters under the heaven be gathered together…and called the dry land earth.

Scientific proof against: the seas and dry land are supposed to be the bottom layer, we know that there is no bottom as we are surrounded by firmament. This fact cannot be overlooked, for if the creation story is to bea factual representation, then it should have established a firmament around the earth not just above it.

Genesis: God created every living thing and Noah managed to fit two of every kind into a boat 500x83x50ft or a just slightly longer than a soccer field; as wide as the width of a hockey rink and as high as 4 WTC stories.

Scientific proof against: The 2001 discovery in Egypt uncovered a dinosaur estimated at 100 feet tall, just two of those alone would take up an entire one-fifth of the boat. These animals had to have existed after God waved his magic wand and created all beasts, therefore we know that this ark would not hold two or seven of "every living thing of all flesh."

Genesis: The confusion of tongues so that man will be restrained from doing what they set out to do and not understand each other’s tongues.

Historical proof against: This did not stop ancient civilizations from understanding each other, nor stop the progression man doing what we set out to do.




[edit on 2/19/05 by SomewhereinBetween]

In one of the posts I did recently, I mathematicall concluded that the water needed to create a flood described in the bible would be impossible to obtain.

I am sure you saw the thread. Do you disagree with it? Does anyone disagree with it. If so, can anyone explain as to how I was wrong?

Originally posted by toolmaker
Hebrew is derived directly from Phoenician, almost exactly. It is no wonder that the stories about Noah, Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, Eden, etc are borrowed from cultures all over the world. They came "prepackaged" with the language.

But could not the reverse be true? That other cultures knew about them because they were true? I fail to see how this disproves the Bible.

As to the Message the Bible conveys, i am all for it. But to say the Bible is literally true, that a world wide flood occurred 4500 years ago, that Eden was 6000 years ago, etc, cannot be justified.

You got me there. I would like to here from the other side on this one.


SomewhereinBetween

I disagree about the monotheism part for the simple reason that the earlier books of the Bible often mention other "Gods" so even they did not claim to worship only one. Why would they need a commandment against it then?


You bring up some good points with the others though, I don't see how a literal belief in the Bible can be backed by ANY geology or astronomy

But if you agree that Genesis was mainly metaphoric which a growing number of Christians do then you are back to square one

[edit on 19-2-2005 by Amuk]

Originally posted by Seapeople
In one of the posts I did recently, I mathematicall concluded that the water needed to create a flood described in the bible would be impossible to obtain.

I am sure you saw the thread. Do you disagree with it? Does anyone disagree with it. If so, can anyone explain as to how I was wrong?

I cannot disagree but maybe some others would care to try.

I always wondered where the water went? The Ice caps arent large enough to hold it all, are they?

Water vapor - It never rained before the flood, the plants got their water from the morning dew.

More water in atmosphere = less radiation through = longer life as the aging process is believed to begin by the breakdown of the cells due to radiation exposure......ever wonder how folks lived 500+ years?

Originally posted by edsinger
Water vapor - It never rained before the flood, the plants got their water from the morning dew.

I am not sure that what that was an answer too, are you saying there was enough water in the atmosphire to cover the entire planet ?

But the the question remains where did the water go?

Ed I notiuced you have posted on this thread but still did not answer the questions I raised about your earlier post about God and Creation, did you forget? Or not have an answer?

The bibles a great book. I wish I could say that i have read the whole thing, but I cant. Although I do know most of the stories. Let me try to add to this thread.

God didnt have a beginning. God created time and the ability to have a beginning. God wasnt created because he is the creator. If God was created then he would not be God.

Genesis. I don't believe its 100& true and should be taken as a literal translation. I do think however that it is accurate. Think about it. Let there be light is the big bang since I would imagine it would be the brightest thing that there ever was. Then there are the 7 days it took God to create everything. It looks to me like it goes in perfectly with the big bang and evolution. I think that it is what happened but that it did not go into spacific detail because the people back then would not have understood it. Thats where all this doubt comes from. All these atheists think that science can prove that God didnt create everything and that we're all here by accident and the universe just started for no reason.

The flood. I believe the flood story is was taken from the gilgamesh thing and just added morels and biblical stuff to it. Which was probably true with some other stories.

The bible codes. I think that the bible codes are true. I mean they have found so many accurate historical events in those codes. Only problem is that other then prooving a divine or intelligent being created the bible is that theyre pretty much useless unless we can find out things that will happen. Since it is way to complex for any1 to have created back then its obvious some intelligent thing made it. I believe that is God.

Visions of Mary. I believe in the visions of Mary. Fatima, Guata Lupe, and Medjagorje all had visions of Mary and unexplainable miracles all happened there. To me that is proof enough.