Biblical Historicity

[Emyunoxious]

Because most of my debates end up on this topic anyway, I'd like to make a topic about the historical events depicted in the Bible, or rather, the complete lack of support given to the Bible by history.

Here are some things I think, feel free to choose any of them to respond to.

• Jesus never existed.
• The Jews were never enslaved in Egypt, or lived in Egypt at all.
• Likewise, the Ten Plagues never happened, and all of Exodus never happened.
• The Deluge (Great Flood) was an exaggeration of a real flood in the Euphrates River. Tragic, but not world-wide, or even region-wide.
• Finally, all of Genesis is a fabrication.

Please cite your sources when talking about historical references. Other Biblical events are, of course, welcome to the discussion, but those are the ones I feel most comfortable discussing.

Have at it.

 

[SaShman]

Jesus never existed.

The main counter argument to this idea amongst historians has been the existence of non-christian sources detailing Jesus; namely work by Tacitus (Roman historian from the 1st century). Tacitus wrote Annals which gives mention to Nero's persecution of Christians as well as the execution of Christ.

The important thing to mention is that Annals is estimated to have been written around the same period as the new testament (before Christianity could become widespread) and well before Christianity was adopted by the Roman empire. Additionally the passage doesn't exactly paint a positive light on Christianity. Therefore, there is little reason to dismiss it as christian propaganda.

I couldn't find an English translation of the passage online; but here's the wikipedia article (It's something at least).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ

As for my thoughts on the bible in general, I think it is an important piece of literature in understanding the origins of western culture. But I think it should be read with a grain of salt like all historical propaganda.

 

[Davey Gaga]

[*]Likewise, the Ten Plagues never happened, and all of Exodus never happened.

While I'm not the best at religious debates, I can offer some enlightenment on this particular point.

In one of my biology lectures, a certain microbe (whose name escapes me but if you're desperate to find out, I'm sure I'll come across it during my revision for the upcoming exams) was thought to be the cause of "the death of the first-born". The justification for this was that the first-born of the family was always treated better in those days, given more food, larger portions etc. The first-born, having the larger portion, consumed a larger dose of the microbes present on the food (lamb or something?) and was presumably a larger infective dose than that given to the rest of the family. Your body can deal with X amount but not Y amount, first-born was given Y amount, first-born dies.

There were various other scientific explanations for the rest of the plagues as well. I'll need to see if I can find an article for it.

It is, of course, all speculatory. Much like the rest of the Bible.

 

[Emyunoxious]

The main counter argument to this idea amongst historians has been the existence of non-christian sources detailing Jesus; namely work by Tacitus (Roman historian from the 1st century). Tacitus wrote Annals which gives mention to Nero's persecution of Christians as well as the execution of Christ.

The important thing to mention is that Annals is estimated to have been written around the same period as the new testament (before Christianity could become widespread) and well before Christianity was adopted by the Roman empire. Additionally the passage doesn't exactly paint a positive light on Christianity. Therefore, there is little reason to dismiss it as christian propaganda.

The thing about Tacitus is that Christians really shouldn't use him as support for their claims, because he doesn't support their claims in any way. See, something interesting happens when you try to look for any reference Tacitus makes to an actual, historical Jesus: You can't find one. He doesn't reference the execution of Christ, all he references is the existence of Christians.

Something else interesting is that, in that no later apologist uses Tacitus' writings as independent corroboration, until much later. This might mean that that it was added in by a later source, or it was confused with another book, which I'll talk about in a minute.

Richard Carrier writes:

"...we are enormously lucky to have Tacitus--only two unrelated Christian monasteries had any interest in preserving his Annals, for example, and neither of them preserved the whole thing, but each less than half of it, and by sheer luck alone, they each preserved a different half. And yet we still have large gaps in it. One of those gaps is the removal of the years 29, 30, and 31 (precisely, the latter part of 29, all of 30, and the earlier part of 31), which is probably the deliberate excision of Christian scribes who were embarrassed by the lack of any mention of Jesus or Gospel events in those years (the years Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection were widely believed at the time to have occurred). There is otherwise no known explanation for why those three years were removed. The other large gap is the material between the two halves that neither institution preserved. And yet another is the end of the second half, which scribes also chose not to preserve (or lost through negligent care of the manuscript, etc.)."

Christians often cite Tacitus as historical evidence for Jesus, and I cannot understand why.

This is the passage cited:

"But neither the aid of man, nor the liberality of the prince, nor the propitiations of the gods succeeded in destroying the belief that the fire had been purposely lit. In order to put an end to this rumor, therefore, Nero laid the blame on and visited with severe punishment those men, hateful for their crimes, whom the people called Christians. He from whom the name was derived, Christus, was put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. But the pernicious superstition, checked for a moment, broke out again, not only in Judea, the native land of the monstrosity, but also in Rome, to which all conceivable horrors and abominations flow from every side, and find supporters. First, therefore, those were arrested who openly confessed; then, on their information, a great number, who were not so much convicted of the fire as of hatred of the human race. Ridicule was passed on them as they died; so that, clothed in skins of beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or committed to the flames, and when the sun had gone down they were burned to light up the night. Nero had lent his garden for this spectacle, and gave games in the Circus, mixing with the people in the dress of a charioteer or standing in the chariot. Hence there was a strong sympathy for them, though they might have been guilty enough to deserve the severest punishment, on the ground that they were sacrificed, not to the general good, but to the cruelty of one man."

However, there are serious problems with using this passage as independent corroboration of Jesus:

Jeffery Jay Lowder states:

"There is no good reason to believe that Tacitus conducted independent research concerning the historicity of Jesus. The context of the reference was simply to explain the origin of the term "Christians," which was in turn made in the context of documenting Nero's vices..."

It is not just people like me, "Christ-mythicists", who deny that Tacitus provides independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus. Christian scholars do the same thing. For example, France writes, Annals XV.44 "cannot carry alone the weight of the role of 'independent testimony' with which it has often been invested." E.P. Sanders notes, "Roman sources that mention [Jesus] are all dependent on Christian reports." And William Lane Craig states that Tacitus' statement is "no doubt dependent on Christian tradition."

So it may simply be that Tacitus was relying on oral tradition, and not on any historical research for his reference to Jesus. Tacitus himself tells us about the value of such traditions:

"...everything gets exaggerated is typical for any story" and "all the greatest events are obscure--while some people accept whatever they hear as beyond doubt, others twist the truth into its opposite, and both errors grow over subsequent generations."

As weak as the Tacitus claim is, it remains a possibility that even this weak bit of apparent corroboration is a later interpolation.

Some of these problems are summarized by Gordon Stein:

"While we know from the way in which the above is written that Tacitus did not claim to have firsthand knowledge of the origins of Christianity, we can see that he is repeating a story which was then commonly believed, namely that the founder of Christianity, one Christus, had been put to death under Tiberius. There are a number of serious difficulties which must be answered before this passage can be accepted as genuine. There is no other historical proof that Nero persecuted the Christians at all. There certainly were not multitudes of Christians in Rome at that date (circa 60 A.D.). In fact, the term "Christian" was not in common use in the first century. We know Nero was indifferent to various religions in his city, and, since he almost definitely did not start the fire in Rome, he did not need any group to be his scapegoat. Tacitus does not use the name Jesus, and writes as if the reader would know the name Pontius Pilate, two things which show that Tacitus was not working from official records or writing for non-Christian audiences, both of which we would expect him to have done if the passage were genuine.

Perhaps most damning to the authenticity of this passage is the fact that it is present almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (died in 403 A.D.), where it is mixed in with obviously false tales. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that Sulpicius could have copied this passage from Tacitus, as none of his contemporaries mention the passage. This means that it was probably not in the Tacitus manuscripts at that date. It is much more likely, then, that copyists working in the Dark Ages from the only existing manuscript of the Chronicle, simply copied the passage from Sulpicius into the manuscript of Tacitus which they were reproducing."

Supporting Stein's claim is that, as with the Testimonium, there is no provenance for the passage: No early Christian writer uses Tacitus' passage in their apologetics, even when discussing Christian persecution by Nero:

Tertullian (ca. 155–230)
Lactantius (ca. 240 - ca. 320)
Sulpicius Severus (c. 360 – 425)
Eusebius (ca. 275 – 339)
Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430)

However, the key point here is that Tacitus did in fact write a thorough history of the purported times of Jesus and his ministry, and while this work is lost to us, Tacitus never makes any cross reference to it during his discussion of christians and Nero nor at any other point in his surviving works.

 

[der Astronom]

I should like to bring up a small issue, but it's important: whenever you see something written in the bible (okay, or anywhere for that matter), and you see something else written in the bible that is in direct contradiction with what you saw before, that's not historical accuracy; that's ambiguity, and it tells us nothing. Because even if one of those events in the bible happens to match with history, you couldn't have known that without other resources. What most likely happened was that someone wrote something in the bible with the intention of preserving history, and someone else probably wrote a different part of the bible, but did not intend to preserve history. So you end up with statements in the bible that become invalidated because it can't say anything with any amount of consistency, and that doesn't preserve history in any way.

 

[Rydrum2112]

The bible isn't a history or science book, and it was not intended to be that way. Therefore its not going to be accurate when used for either.

Keep in mind that the bible was written way AFTER (we are talking multiple generations here) the events that supposed to have taken place would've.

 

[Emyunoxious]

The bible isn't a history or science book, and it was not intended to be that way. Therefore its not going to be accurate when used for either.

Keep in mind that the bible was written way AFTER (we are talking multiple generations here) the events that supposed to have taken place would've.

You can't really say how it was intended to be taken, can you? We can only say how it has been taken, and this video should demonstrate adequately that it has been taken as a history book and a science book.

The fact is that just because you're intelligent enough to realize that the bible isn't historical, doesn't mean that influential people of considerably less intellectual prowess realize that.

It's very important to make them realize this unless you want to go back to living in the dark ages.

 

[Roland_Deschain]

The fact is that just because you're intelligent enough to realize that the bible isn't historical, doesn't mean that influential people of considerably less intellectual prowess realize that.
It's very important to make them realize this unless you want to go back to living in the dark ages.



Ok I was following you with almost everything you have said and I do believe most everything you have said, I am very augnostic when it comes to religion.

However.... this line is a little selfish in my opinion, I dont deny anyone who is religious the freedom to treat this book however they want, or go to church or praise there faiths for something they believe in.

And about going back to the dark ages....well at this point thats damn near impossible, and honestly is being religious such a bad thing? In general the way it teaches one to act (for the most part) is the description of a good person. You shall not murder, lie, steal, all very good things to be raised into. I was raised going to church by parents who were not really that religious themselves, now I honestly believe it shaped me into a more morally strong individual because of it...even though Im not religious.

I just dont think we should ever start attacking people who are religious because I see no problem with people praising god and treating it as if it is part of their own history. I guess you cant really argue with faith...because thats all it is....faith. Some have it some don't, and I will not be the one to tell them that they are wrong because who is to say I am right, to each his own.

The bible was written by men and it has been translated WAY to many times for me personally to take seriously or as history. >My personal opinion<

 

[Stoic Hero]

So you consider yourself intellectually superior because you think the Bible's claims are false, Emyunoxious?

Hah. The fact of the matter is, none of you here can prove or disprove the Bible. Nothing in the Bible, short of miracles, contradicts ANYTHING science says is true. You don't KNOW if there was a flood, you don't KNOW if Jesus existed or not.

You are resigned to think inside the box and believe what everyone else tells you. That miracles can't exist, gods are a figment of the imagination of crazy people, and there is no greater truth.

To entertain the idea that God might really exist would be detrimental to your way of life, and you might really have to answer for how you act, so you toss the idea out the window.

If you consider yourself intellectually superior because you don't have anything to believe, therefore nothing fooling you, you are sorely mistaken. You are fooling yourself, and that is what is truly sad.

 

[der Astronom]

And about going back to the dark ages....well at this point thats damn near impossible, and honestly is being religious such a bad thing? In general the way it teaches one to act (for the most part) is the description of a good person. You shall not murder, lie, steal, all very good things to be raised into. I was raised going to church by parents who were not really that religious themselves, now I honestly believe it shaped me into a more morally strong individual because of it...even though Im not religious.

That's only true if you have the moral consciousness to ignore all the other verses about treating women like shit, slavery and all the other verses that are violent and don't make sense. And if you can do all that, please also explain where your judgment to decide which verses to take out of context comes from. I know you said you weren't raised by particularly religious parents, so that's where your judgment probably came from, but that's not true of the people who are religious and claim that the bible has moral values in it without realizing that their bible also contains equally as immoral values in it as well.

I just dont think we should ever start attacking people who are religious because I see no problem with people praising god and treating it as if it is part of their own history. I guess you cant really argue with faith...because thats all it is....faith. Some have it some don't, and I will not be the one to tell them that they are wrong because who is to say I am right, to each his own.

I agree that we shouldn't attack people based on what they believe, but at the same time, it is their beliefs that can cause people harm, and I don't think it's wrong to point that out. So basically, I don't attack people; I attack ideas.

So you consider yourself intellectually superior because you think the Bible's claims are false, Emyunoxious?

Hah. The fact of the matter is, none of you here can prove or disprove the Bible. Nothing in the Bible, short of miracles, contradicts ANYTHING science says is true. You don't KNOW if there was a flood, you don't KNOW if Jesus existed or not.

No actually, the reason why you can't prove or disprove anything in the bible is much simpler than that. It's because it's not falsifiable. You cannot provide me any criteria under which the bible fails, either because people refuse to or because they can just pigeonhole the verses into something else or twist it if it fails to hold any truth at all. If you don't make any special pleading cases for the stuff that is miracles, and take into account the various passages described by different writers don't add up, there are contradictions. And if you take into account the scientific impossibility of a flood, and all the miracles Jesus supposedly performed according to the bible not being supported by other evidence, the flood probably didn't happen, or it was a local one, or Jesus was probably just some guy; not a guy who made miracles happen.

You are resigned to think inside the box and believe what everyone else tells you. That miracles can't exist, gods are a figment of the imagination of crazy people, and there is no greater truth.

Actually, there are probably more people who believe there are no contradictions in the bible, or that there's no inconsistency in believing a supernatural being like god exists. That we happen to require evidence for miracles, or that we don't find god's existence convincing because we choose to use a consistent criteria for judging what is true and what is not, not any different from science is not something a lot of people care to do.

To entertain the idea that God might really exist would be detrimental to your way of life, and you might really have to answer for how you act, so you toss the idea out the window.

Actually, if you entertain the idea that god might exist, and you want to convince anyone of a more rational persuasion, then you're going to have to prove it. The proof is on the people who assert that god exists; not the people who believe he doesn't because they take it as a default position.

And if you're somehow implying that atheists don't have to be responsible just because they don't believe in god, think again; lots of atheists live without god, but they are still responsible people who care about the world and the people they live with. How do you explain that?

If you consider yourself intellectually superior because you don't have anything to believe, therefore nothing fooling you, you are sorely mistaken. You are fooling yourself, and that is what is truly sad.

I happen to believe myself intellectually more superior than anyone else who hasn't given this enough thought to see or understand why atheists have such criticisms against the bible and religion in general. If you can't agree, at least you can find out why most atheists don't see the bible as a moral compass at all, or why they don't need god to be moral, or why they attack beliefs that seem ridiculous, or even ridiculing those beliefs themselves. And what's actually sad is people coming on here out of their ignorance and thinking they're making a point--well guess what, I've seen it already, and I've seen it way too many times. People coming on here and claiming to know how atheists (or certain atheists I suppose) think, and acting like that has to do with anything we're talking about doesn't further the discussion about whether or not the bible is historical or not; it's just a red herring.

 

[Stoic Hero]

No actually, the reason why you can't prove or disprove anything in the bible is much simpler than that. It's because it's not falsifiable. You cannot provide me any criteria under which the bible fails, either because people refuse to or because they can just pigeonhole the verses into something else or twist it if it fails to hold any truth at all. If you don't make any special pleading cases for the stuff that is miracles, and take into account the various passages described by different writers don't add up, there are contradictions. And if you take into account the scientific impossibility of a flood, and all the miracles Jesus supposedly performed according to the bible not being supported by other evidence, the flood probably didn't happen, or it was a local one, or Jesus was probably just some guy; not a guy who made miracles happen.

You say a lot, with very little substance. You still haven't provided a reason not to believe in what the Bible says. You mention contradictions, but I haven't met one single historical source that was completely without flaws. And the fact that the Bible has stayed intact for over 2000 years is a testament to its validity. I don't see how a flood is scientifically impossible. Improbable, yes, but certainly within the laws of science. The Bible is over 2000 years old. Show me any other ancient text that has other viable sources? You can't possibly expect all the evidence to survive this long. The Bible is a special case, due to the fact that it was deemed so important to recreate. You have no more evidence to suggest that there was no flood, or Jesus wasn't the Son of God, than any of the Christians who say there was a flood, or Jesus was God. You're citing from your own wisdom, your own collection of knowledge, and frankly I don't see how I can believe a man who talks like he was there but isn't old enough to be my father.

Actually, there are probably more people who believe there are no contradictions in the bible, or that there's no inconsistency in believing a supernatural being like god exists. That we happen to require evidence for miracles, or that we don't find god's existence convincing because we choose to use a consistent criteria for judging what is true and what is not, not any different from science is not something a lot of people care to do.

You see, because you limit yourself to thinking inside the box, you eliminate any possibility of supernatural. Science is great, but science, at best, cannot provide the "why" things happen, it can only provide the "how." So, how was the world created? Big Bang? Great. But that means nothing without the "why" and science cannot answer that. And even with our vast knowledge of science and how the world works, we've yet to find the answer to how we were created, let alone the "why."

Actually, if you entertain the idea that god might exist, and you want to convince anyone of a more rational persuasion, then you're going to have to prove it. The proof is on the people who assert that god exists; not the people who believe he doesn't because they take it as a default position.

Prove to me air exists. I can't see it, I can't touch it, smell it, taste it, etc. It has absolutely no bearing on any of my senses, and all that we have to rely on is "evidence" suggesting it exists. It makes sense, right? We have to have something to breathe. Molecular oxygen is essential for cellular respiration in all aerobic organisms. Oxygen is used as an electron acceptor in mitochondria to generate chemical energy. But, to this day, you CANNOT prove it exists. We have insurmountable evidence suggesting it exists, but you can't prove it. Well, look around you. Look everything that was designed from day 1. You can see evidence of a creator in everything in life. But there is no proof for one, despite all the evidence staring you in the face.

And if you're somehow implying that atheists don't have to be responsible just because they don't believe in god, think again; lots of atheists live without god, but they are still responsible people who care about the world and the people they live with. How do you explain that?

Haha. You're mixing something up here. I never said atheists "can't" be responsible, I just said they have no reason to be. There are many atheists that live "good" lives, but has any atheist led a perfect life? According to the Bible, without payment for your sins, Christ, you can't make it to heaven. Unless you're perfect. It's in our nature to be both good and bad. That's why you see hardened criminals that love their daughters, or good, honest people who one day flip shit and shoot up a school.

I happen to believe myself intellectually more superior than anyone else who hasn't given this enough thought to see or understand why atheists have such criticisms against the bible and religion in general. If you can't agree, at least you can find out why most atheists don't see the bible as a moral compass at all, or why they don't need god to be moral, or why they attack beliefs that seem ridiculous, or even ridiculing those beliefs themselves. And what's actually sad is people coming on here out of their ignorance and thinking they're making a point--well guess what, I've seen it already, and I've seen it way too many times. People coming on here and claiming to know how atheists (or certain atheists I suppose) think, and acting like that has to do with anything we're talking about doesn't further the discussion about whether or not the bible is historical or not; it's just a red herring.

You don't need God to be moral, you need God to be perfect. Morality was etched into you at birth, but so was evil. We're all doomed if we don't have some kind of salvation. This is all assuming heaven/hell exist. If not, it doesn't matter anyway. I choose to assume they do because without them it makes no sense whatsoever to be a good person, save for the obvious ramifications.


Anyway, as for the topic, here's some reading materials:

http://www.forumterrace.com/Questions/Historically.html
http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/690-is-the-bible-historically-accurate

And anyway, the whole question is a lot more complex than just "is it accurate?" Some of what's in the Bible is obviously allegory, as Jesus himself taught in parables. The Bible is not 100% historically accurate through and through, but then, it doesn't try to be.

It's interesting to note, though, that no archeological find to this day contradicts anything that the Bible says, and only confirms the truth of it.

 

[der Astronom]

You say a lot, with very little substance. You still haven't provided a reason not to believe in what the Bible says. You mention contradictions, but I haven't met one single historical source that was completely without flaws. And the fact that the Bible has stayed intact for over 2000 years is a testament to its validity. I don't see how a flood is scientifically impossible. Improbable, yes, but certainly within the laws of science. The Bible is over 2000 years old. Show me any other ancient text that has other viable sources? You can't possibly expect all the evidence to survive this long. The Bible is a special case, due to the fact that it was deemed so important to recreate. You have no more evidence to suggest that there was no flood, or Jesus wasn't the Son of God, than any of the Christians who say there was a flood, or Jesus was God. You're citing from your own wisdom, your own collection of knowledge, and frankly I don't see how I can believe a man who talks like he was there but isn't old enough to be my father.

Actually, there's no reason to believe anything is true unless there's evidence. The bible just isn't an exception. If you take a look at some of the accounts about Jesus, there are contradictions about whether or not the dead rose, how many angels there were when he supposedly rose, and a few other details. Furthermore, the writers who wrote their accounts about Jesus lived hundreds of years after he supposedly died, and all those attempts at finding that ark and other biblical artifacts are massive fail. They're either fakes or they're not described as they should be in the bible.

The fact that people happen to believe it is not any indication of truth whatsoever. If that were true, then that would mean we should believe the Earth was flat just because lots of people believed it at one point. It's actually a common fallacy called appeal to populace.

A global flood is impossible. The physics don't support it. There's not enough water. Models that try to explain it are flawed because the required energy is missing, or because other things happen besides the flood which should not happen. There's no evidence that a global flood happened. If it were a scientific hypothesis, it's effectively been disproven.

Once again, if you are asserting there is a global flood in lack of evidence, it is your job to support your statement. The default position is that there is no global flood, but as I have already explained, it's scientifically unfeasible. So if you're still going to assert that it did exist, you'd better have a pretty good reason for it.

If your only claim for the bible's validity is because everybody believes it, and because you can't find any contradictions, and because you don't know of any other ancient books that match history (and by the way, I happen to think none of them do; the bible isn't a special exception like you claim it is), your argument fails. If you think they reduplicated the book because it was true, that might actually explain the contradictions and all the errors; when things get reduplicated, people change things, either intentionally or not. It would actually explain why the things written in the bible stray from the truth, and if it were actually written from things that did happen, it's no longer relevant.

And just because no one was there to see the tree fall doesn't mean you can't tell if it did, or how. Saying that nobody was there so we should give up trying to figure out what happened is ignorant, particularly when we have the means to find out how it did.

You see, because you limit yourself to thinking inside the box, you eliminate any possibility of supernatural. Science is great, but science, at best, cannot provide the "why" things happen, it can only provide the "how." So, how was the world created? Big Bang? Great. But that means nothing without the "why" and science cannot answer that. And even with our vast knowledge of science and how the world works, we've yet to find the answer to how we were created, let alone the "why."

I have no reason to believe the supernatural exists. There's no evidence of it. Any supernatural event, when placed under controlled conditions to prevent cheating has as far as I'm concerned, always failed. Pretending something exists just so that you can reach a certain conclusion isn't thinking outside the box. That's just people making fallacious assumptions. It's logically inconsistent and doesn't tell us anything useful or necessarily true.

You have assumed that there is a greater purpose behind why things happen, but there's really no reason for that assumption; something can be the way it is quite simply for no reason at all--if you assert that there must be a greater reasoning for why things are the way they are other than how they work, as discovered through science, you will have to provide your assertion with evidence. Besides which, not being able to answer "why" doesn't in any way disprove a scientific theory. The evidence is still there, and so long as "why" doesn't affect the evidence, there's no reason not to accept it.

Prove to me air exists. I can't see it, I can't touch it, smell it, taste it, etc. It has absolutely no bearing on any of my senses, and all that we have to rely on is "evidence" suggesting it exists. It makes sense, right? We have to have something to breathe. Molecular oxygen is essential for cellular respiration in all aerobic organisms. Oxygen is used as an electron acceptor in mitochondria to generate chemical energy. But, to this day, you CANNOT prove it exists. We have insurmountable evidence suggesting it exists, but you can't prove it. Well, look around you. Look everything that was designed from day 1. You can see evidence of a creator in everything in life. But there is no proof for one, despite all the evidence staring you in the face.

Is that the support for your assertion that god exists? Because if it is, I suggest you get a better argument. "Look and see" is a subjective argument at best; it explains nothing. Just because something appears to be designed (and you haven't even stated under which criteria you consider something to be designed) doesn't mean it is; that's just a combination of wishful thinking and faith. You haven't explained how you know something is designed, and whether or not this observation can be tested under controlled conditions. Furthermore, there's plenty of evidence that suggests that we weren't designed; it ranges from useless artifacts of organs and structures that are shared by common ancestors (like a designer would have any reason to leave them there) to different species with characteristics so similar that any singular person who designed something like that would have no reason to do so because it would be redundant.

Haha. You're mixing something up here. I never said atheists "can't" be responsible, I just said they have no reason to be. There are many atheists that live "good" lives, but has any atheist led a perfect life? According to the Bible, without payment for your sins, Christ, you can't make it to heaven. Unless you're perfect. It's in our nature to be both good and bad. That's why you see hardened criminals that love their daughters, or good, honest people who one day flip shit and shoot up a school.

And you know what, having no reason to be moral is certainly better than having to be moral because someone said so. And if Christians are only moral because god told them to, they haven't given it much thought, and I wouldn't be surprised if they can't even properly think about situations that are morally complicated. But it is often the case that atheists are moral for their own personal reasons. I agree it's not a property of atheism because you can be an atheist without being moral, but you'd have to be incredibly ignorant or intellectually lazy if you don't realize that you're living in a world you have to share with other people, and because there's no guarantee of an afterlife (at least if you're an atheist), you'd better try to get along, or you're not going to enjoy it. And that means you'd have to care about morality.

I've already covered this topic in different threads before, but I think it's worth recapping anyways; that someone can cleanse you of your sins just by praying is just a scapegoat for escaping responsibility. You might harm other people, but if you're only thinking of going to heaven, you're probably only interested in scapegoating Jesus instead of seriously making up with the people you harmed. And for someone who cares about living in the now, I find that morally objectionable. I can't find any religious reason why you'd have to make up with the people you harmed. But if you care about the people you're sharing the world with, then there's a good reason for taking responsibility. The fact is, praying to god doesn't necessarily make you a good person. There are people who commit crimes and pray to Jesus, but they still end up in jail. And I don't care if they pray to Jesus or not; the fact is, they harmed someone or caused trouble for society, and they deserve to be locked up in jail.

You don't need God to be moral, you need God to be perfect. Morality was etched into you at birth, but so was evil. We're all doomed if we don't have some kind of salvation. This is all assuming heaven/hell exist. If not, it doesn't matter anyway. I choose to assume they do because without them it makes no sense whatsoever to be a good person, save for the obvious ramifications.

Actually, I don't think any sense of good or evil comes with people at birth; it's learned, primarily from your parents. Which is why I find religious indoctrination to be one of the most objectionable things that parents can do to their children. And what you're alluding to is Pascal's Wager. Obviously, you haven't given it much thought: what if you're wrong, and another religion happens to be true? Then you're just as screwed. So what made you decide that your religion has more evidence over any other religion? And by the way, I happen to think all religions are equally as bullshit as they are not bullshit. All of them are based on faith. Not a single one of them offers anything based on reality that can be traced from evidence and be consistent with either science or history.

Anyway, as for the topic, here's some reading materials:

http://www.forumterrace.com/Questions/Historically.html
http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/690-is-the-bible-historically-accurate

Well I just skimmed some of those articles, and what that demonstrates to me is cherry picking. Avoiding having statements regarding the existence of god being picked on is just precisely because it's not falsifiable; nobody wants to provide a criteria under which the existence of god can be tested, either because they're afraid it will fail, or because nobody can agree on what god actually is (and if you don't know what you're testing, you can't test it). The article is just picking out the parts that just happen to be based on history while ignoring the sections that don't; I hope people don't use this as a justification for saying the bible is historically accurate, because if such a huge claim regarding the existence of god or the flood or any other scientific inaccuracy cannot accurately be determined, then it might as well not say anything useful about history or support it. In fact, it's the other way around; we're using external historical sources to determine whether or not it's historically accurate; not using the bible to see if other things in history are true.

And anyway, the whole question is a lot more complex than just "is it accurate?" Some of what's in the Bible is obviously allegory, as Jesus himself taught in parables. The Bible is not 100% historically accurate through and through, but then, it doesn't try to be.

It's interesting to note, though, that no archeological find to this day contradicts anything that the Bible says, and only confirms the truth of it.

Actually, they do. Either they're fakes or they just don't support the Old Testament. All the ruins around Egypt don't support the bible's statement about the Kingdom of David and Solomon disappearing without a trace, or the numerous claims about the supposed Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat don't demonstrate that there actually was an ark.

 

[Rydrum2112]

The fact is that just because you're intelligent enough to realize that the bible isn't historical, doesn't mean that influential people of considerably less intellectual prowess realize that.

You are right about that part, other people will interpret it as such but I guess thats mildly different than the point of the thread right? (or am I just splitting hairs?)

Stoic and others- may I make a request? Could we all keep our responses shorter and more focused (2/3 points) because it is arduous to go through all the long posts and point out every time we disagree. Plus when it comes time to respond people ignore 90% of the post and only respond where they have good rebuttals.

Stoic "You say a lot, with very little substance. You still haven't provided a reason not to believe in what the Bible says."

Well the bible says Jesus was born from a virgin, and that is impossible. It says that god created water before the planets & stars which is impossible because the hydrogen & oxygen that makeup water are created from dead stars.

You see, because you limit yourself to thinking inside the box, you eliminate any possibility of supernatural.

First of all this is a completely BOGUS statement, if something happens in the physical world it is by definition not supernatural. Also the ones who are limited inside the box are the people who just say "it happened because of supernatural reasons" while those who think outside the box actually investigate how/what happened.

The last thing I will touch on is this:

Prove to me air exists. I can't see it, I can't touch it, smell it, taste it, etc. It has absolutely no bearing on any of my senses, and all that we have to rely on is "evidence" suggesting it exists... But, to this day, you CANNOT prove it exists. We have insurmountable evidence suggesting it exists, but you can't prove it.

Actually you can prove air exists- all you need to do is go to a vacuum chamber where there is no air and see what happens, (no air resistance to gravity & things that need air to live die). So that is proof. Also you can clearly feel air (wind?).


Side note-

Well, look around you. Look everything that was designed from day 1. You can see evidence of a creator in everything in life. But there is no proof for one, despite all the evidence staring you in the face

This is intelligent design, it is not being debated in this thread and it has already been shown to be bull. There is no evidence for design.

 

[coffeecup]

There are a lot of problems with just taking the Bible literally since it's inherently flawed in being an unreliable account of what was originally written or observed many years ago. Many books in the Bible were orally transmitted for many generations before being written down (even the origin of some of the books is a big ?). Then again, there were multiple excisions (of passages and entire books) and translations then re-translations that has eventually led to the Bible we see today. I find it very difficult to take such a dubiously recorded artifact to be used literally line-by-line beginning to end. That's quite a stretch.

Additionally, I see that a good majority don't even see the Bible as required to be taken on a literal basis. Many books can be readily seen from a more thematic or literary perspective. If you've read some of the stories in the bible, I doubt that the author's original intent was to have the reader take his account literally. Sometimes it may be exaggeration or inserting fiction in order to elaborate a certain point. But it's hard to tell exactly what the intent was unless you can revive a dead person(s) (assuming you know who he/she/they were in the first place).

So what am I trying to say here? You can argue about the factual aspects of many of the biblical accounts; however, many will simply disregard such arguments stating that the Bible was never to be taken literally. And when you argue against this viewpoint, then it becomes much more difficult to argue against such a flexible position.

And if you do end up fighting about a literal fact, well even then things like the Virgin birth and Jesus' resurrection cannot be "conclusively" disproved with just historical accounts, extrapolating scientific principles to the past, or some archaeological evidence. The inherent nature of an extraordinary Biblical account includes the work of God. So even if things like the "virgin birth" are scientifically impossible, that doesn't influence Christian advocates to abandon their position on the immaculate conception (or other similarly "great" occurrences).

Due to the dubious nature of old historical accounts and the headbutt between scientific theory against God-like divine providence, it's hard to expect this to come to a clean resolution.

Just a little something to keep in mind while discussing this with one another.

 

[der Astronom]

I actually don't mind if people want to interpret the bible in their own ways. What I have a problem with is people subjecting the bible to their own interpretation, and either saying their interpretation is the only one, and everyone else's is wrong, or proceeding to use the bible as evidence for something, even though they've already conceded that the bible is interpretive, and not factual. And if you're going to take that position, you're not going to convince anyone that god exists; at least certainly not with the bible. You cannot use unfalsifiable claims as evidence of anything; they hold no explanatory power, interpretive, ambiguous literature holds no explanatory power, and cannot say anything necessarily true about reality.

So really, read the bible however you want. Just know that if you do make your own interpretation of it, you're not convincing anyone of its historical or scientific accuracy.

 

[Drachnon]

Haha. You're mixing something up here. I never said atheists "can't" be responsible, I just said they have no reason to be. There are many atheists that live "good" lives, but has any atheist led a perfect life? According to the Bible, without payment for your sins, Christ, you can't make it to heaven. Unless you're perfect. It's in our nature to be both good and bad. That's why you see hardened criminals that love their daughters, or good, honest people who one day flip shit and shoot up a school.

I hope you understand that the concept of sins and repenting for them to go into heaven only mean anything if you accept the bible as true? Its like an advertisement where the product is something that makes everyone people sick and the only way to not be sick is also owning it. Then they go on acting like having everyone own the product would solve it ignoring the much easier solution that if the product didn't exists there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Now you asked if any atheist ever had a perfect life. What would qualify as perfect? I'd have things such as love, a sense of fulfillment, being a contribution to society and perhaps even wealth. Under those criteria I'd say there have been numerous atheist with a perfect life.
If you want to argue that without the whole religion thing you can't live a perfect live then I'd like to make the preemptive counter argument that by requiring to worship or even believing in a god disqualifies any christian and even jesus himself from having lived a perfect live.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

I actually don't mind if people want to interpret the bible in their own ways. What I have a problem with is people subjecting the bible to their own interpretation, and either saying their interpretation is the only one, and everyone else's is wrong, or proceeding to use the bible as evidence for something, even though they've already conceded that the bible is interpretive, and not factual. And if you're going to take that position, you're not going to convince anyone that god exists; at least certainly not with the bible. You cannot use unfalsifiable claims as evidence of anything; they hold no explanatory power, interpretive, ambiguous literature holds no explanatory power, and cannot say anything necessarily true about reality.

So really, read the bible however you want. Just know that if you do make your own interpretation of it, you're not convincing anyone of its historical or scientific accuracy.

The Bible, among other holy texts, are a prime source of historical knowledge before recorded history.
The accuracy is subject to interpretation, no doubt. Even the religious intrigue behind it alone has many denominations.
But the fact remains that besides artifacts, the holy texts are prime things to go on. Historically.

 

[der Astronom]

The Bible, among other holy texts, are a prime source of historical knowledge before recorded history.
The accuracy is subject to interpretation, no doubt. Even the religious intrigue behind it alone has many denominations.
But the fact remains that besides artifacts, the holy texts are prime things to go on. Historically.

If it has any historical accuracy, then why is it people can't decide what it's actually trying to say? If something is made to be so unclear that people don't understand exactly what it's trying to say, I could hardly call that historically accurate in any sense. There's absolutely no reason why we have to consider the bible to be a prime source of historical knowledge (gee, why not the historical texts about Greek mythology, Norse mythology, or any other ancient holy text), and if you think there's a good reason for it, please explain it.

Just because something is considered holy or sacred is not a reason why it has to be historically accurate.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

If it has any historical accuracy, then why is it people can't decide what it's actually trying to say? If something is made to be so unclear that people don't understand exactly what it's trying to say, I could hardly call that historically accurate in any sense. There's absolutely no reason why we have to consider the bible to be a prime source of historical knowledge (gee, why not the historical texts about Greek mythology, Norse mythology, or any other ancient holy text), and if you think there's a good reason for it, please explain it.

Just because something is considered holy or sacred is not a reason why it has to be historically accurate.

There is no proof of cities like Sodom and Gomorrah, or an exodus throughout Egypt, but it all happened so long ago, it makes one wonder why there would be any proof.
Whether the plagues happened in Egypt or an angel coming out the sky and burning cities to ash is truly a personal speculation, but an exodus or once existing cities nonetheless gives good measure in the idea that recorded history didn't just spring up out of nowhere and that Jews have in fact been persecuted throughout history and somehow became a nation.

 

[der Astronom]

There is no proof of cities like Sodom and Gomorrah, or an exodus throughout Egypt, but it all happened so long ago, it makes one wonder why there would be any proof.

No, you've just decided there isn't any evidence of stuff that happened so long ago, despite the fact that there is, and we've been able to discover things that happened billions of years even before the events in the bible happened.

Whether or not you think there's any evidence for anything is not relevant. Whether or not the evidence exists is.

Whether the plagues happened in Egypt or an angel coming out the sky and burning cities to ash is truly a personal speculation, but an exodus or once existing cities nonetheless gives good measure in the idea that recorded history didn't just spring up out of nowhere and that Jews have in fact been persecuted throughout history and somehow became a nation.

That's a non sequitur. Just because the bible can offer a fairytale story that involves the Jews doesn't mean it has anything to say about how Jews actually became a nation, and just because people choose to believe the stories about the Jews in the bible and choose to persecute Jews based off of it doesn't mean any of it as told by the bible actually happened.

And by the way, anyone who persecutes Jews based off of what some book tells them without bothering to find out if any of it is credible or not is being blatantly ignorant.

The whole notion of deciding what to take from the bible as being true and what shouldn't be true is simply just cherry picking as I alluded to earlier. You would have to explain why or how you know that some of the things from the bible are historically accurate, and why other things (existence of god, Jesus miracles, and other acts of god) aren't historically accurate, and why that doesn't in any way mean the bible isn't historically accurate. Because there are better written historical accounts in general that don't talk about irrelevant stuff that didn't happen; the author(s) don't dwell on it for too long, or it's rather obvious when they're doing it, and they're usually much more consistent. And if someone can produce such a work, why is there any reason to believe that the bible, which consists of none of these traits, contains any historical accuracy?