Part 3
Email Debate with Ed (anon)
Part 3
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Am
I to understand that one must have some higher credentials in
order to read and understand the Bible? To comprehend
God's only literary work to date? To garner the knowledge
so essential to "his" children for their everlasting
salvation?
By
your criticism of the scripture, you imply a certain level of
knowledge, I am simply asking what that is.
Forgive
me for being direct, but I detected a certain condescending tone
to your email that seems to declare that you feel I have not the
right to question what the bible says if I'm no expert in the
matter; that your education somehow trumps mine into a state of
being invalid. This is not at all the case. My criticism
is simple honesty on my part in questioning the validity of the
supernatural and non-logical claims within it. What you
describe as criticism, I describe as honest questioning.
For
those who choose to make claims, as you do, it is incumbent on
you to have a level of expertise in such matters.
Sir,
I am not the one that claims without evidence that there is an
invisible, supernatural being called god. I am not the one
that will try to defend the attributes of this god as defined
in the bible and by those that believe he/she/it actually exists
without said evidence. You are correct in that it is
incumbent on the individual making the claim to supply a level
of expertise in such matters. However, it is also incumbent
on the claimant to produce the evidence necessary to substantiate
a claim, and extraordinary claims such as yours regarding the
existence of a supernatural, invisible entity you call "god"
requires extraordinary evidence.
My
"claims" are simply that the only source material
for your god myth, the bible, does not make sense to me after
some 40 years of studying it and associated texts, and that the
"claims" of those who say it's all true have failed
to produce any real, tangible evidence in support of their "claims".
How much of an expert do I need to be to make those claims? Are
they unbelievable claims? Do they require you
to stretch your ability to perceive reality for me to make such claims?
Of course not. They simply call into question the validity
of the original claims, made by the religious, that what they
profess is true. I'm not alone either. It doesn't
make sense to over 2/3's of the world's population according to
statistics, or those 2/3's+ of the population would be Christians,
now wouldn't they? As a matter of fact, the remaining 1/3
mostly don't understand it either; they simply take it on 'faith'
that's it's true.
Of
course, being one who has such expertise, I recognize that you
do not, simply based your criticisms. In other words, if you were
at least learned in these areas, you would not make certain criticisms.
Well
now, aren't you god's gift to scriptural interpretation, being
an expert and all? I am SO lucky that you have decided to engage
in this conversation I never wanted in the first place.
Let's see, if I were at least learned in these areas, I would
not make these criticisms. Is that right? So then
you dismiss anyone who questions the veracity of the bible as
unlearned outright, based on the fact that you consider yourself
an expert. Yet you, a supposedly learned man of some degree,
continue to embrace the idea that there's an invisible, supernatural
entity you like to call "god" without any proof of it.
I
tell you again, you are wasting your time trying to prove it to
me in this manner. If you truly think you have proof, I
suggest you announce it to the world. As a matter of fact,
you might want to start by going on the air live on the Infidel
Guy show. I know Reginald would love to have you on, and
the rest of us could learn SO much from your intelligent, expert
discourse on these matters. That way you could reach many
thousands of us atheists all at once and show us all simultaneously
just how learned in these matters you are, and how wrong we are.
All it takes is one email or phone call to set the interview up,
and I'd be more than happy to arrange it for you, if for some
reason you can't seem to manage it yourself.
How
about this? Quite plainly, it can be interpreted any way
one wants and, over the centuries, has, in order to promote war
and death on scales unequivocal to any other cause?
This
is yet another indication that you have given much thought to
your criticism. I could interpret your statement as a whole-hearted
endorsement of the bible and I think you would object. Why? Because
despite 'my interpretation', your statement has a particular meaning
and purpose that can only be interpreted correctly, one way......the
way you actually intended your statement to be taken.
I
notice you do not dispute the claim. Moreover, I wonder
how you can look at my statement and come to the conclusion
that it indicates a whole-hearted endorsement of the bible
by me, unless you somehow think I'm FOR war and death. Still,
if you can buy into the god-myth, I suppose you can buy into nearly
any whim your mind conceives, even to the point of hoisting
it so high in your own mind that it rises from a simple musing
to some undeniable, fundamental truth to you.
But
in NO WAY can you show me that there is a THIRD NIGHT to be found
between Friday evening and Sunday morning by showing me examples
of other texts that don't show it either. Either Jesus means
what is written or it has not been properly translated or it cannot
be understood by any common person, leaving the interpretations
to men who CLAIM knowledge and power over other, lesser men who
cannot understand it.
Again,
if you were at all familiar with the language of that day, AND
the Phrases of the time, you would understand what was said in
the Hebrew language of Jonah, and that Christ was "Quoting"
that scripture. And just so that you know, Christ and Jonah were
both in their positions exactly that same amount of time.
First,
Jesus did not "quote" the scripture; he made a comparison
to the story of Jonah. Your claim that I must be familiar
with the languages of ancient Greek and Hebrew in order to properly
perceive the meaning of Jesus' quote concerning 3 days and 3 nights
is in simple error thus: The text has been translated from those
ancient languages to reflect an equivalent
meaning in my own language: English. So, if it means something
other than "three days AND THREE NIGHTS", it should
have been translated into what it really means. It's that
simple.
You
have two choices at this juncture.
1. The
bible has not been accurately translated, revealing that nothing
in it can be read and understood by the common man with any amount
of believability, because he will have no way of ascertaining
if the part he is reading has been accurately translated or not.
It may mean what it says or it may not. It is a totally
ambiguous script, possibly, potentially and probably full of errors
through faulty translation.
If
this is true, he must rely on the interpretations of men like
you, who claim to know the true meaning. Unfortunately,
there are thousands of men like you, all learned, all with degrees
in bible study, all claiming to have the TRUE knowledge, all claiming
different things with regard to the TRUE meaning. From you
and the thousands like you who engage in this, we have some 2000
sects of Christianity that cannot agree on what the text of the
bible truly means. How shall the common man determine
which of you and the sects to choose for a true and correct interpretation?
What is the standard by which to measure this quality with any
accuracy? You all vehemently defend your own interpretations
equally in that regard as the single truth in the matter, leaving
the rest of us disbelieving all of you equally.
An
expert in a field of of scientific study agrees
with the other experts in his field of study through a thorough
examination and experimentation of the properties and characteristics
of that field that is common and available to them all.
One who comes along and claims something different has the burden
of proof to prove the others wrong by proving that he is right.
Others can then duplicate the proof to verify or disprove the
claim and come to a collective conclusion regarding the matter.
How do you do that as an expert in the field of apologetics?
Why is there so much disagreement between theistic "experts"
regarding what, exactly, the text of the bible means?
OR
2.
The bible HAS been accurately translated, revealing that
it cannot be logically reconciled, given our present knowledge
of the workings of the physical universe we actually live in. It
can make sense only to a simple-minded man who does not have the
critical thinking skills and knowledge that reveals it to be out
of touch with modern language, history, cosmology and physics.
If
it came from a god as a text for the salvation of the common man,
certainly a GOD would have provided a way for the common man to
understand it.
God
has made a way for the common man to understand it. First and
foremost, it was actually written to the common man of Hebrew
and Koine Greek. Second, it is up to us to study that culture
and its language so that we may understand exactly what is meant.
So
far, you haven't shown how god has made a way for the common
man to understand it. You just say it like that has
meaning in and of itself. It doesn't.
First,
the common man of Hebrew and Greek didn't have access to these
'sacred' texts, other than through his local religious leader,
who guarded the local manuscript which had been painstakingly
copied (as printing presses and other types of mass production
techniques had not been invented yet). This religious leader spoon-fed
the common man then just as the common man is spoon-fed
the text today by preachers and 'experts' like yourself, placing
their necessary 'spin' on it to reconcile the differences that
have always been apparent.
According
to the bible, even in Jesus' day, there was much debate over the
meaning of the religious texts. One famous story has Jesus
as a young teen in the temple engaged in such activity with the
elders. So, there is no evidence that it made much more
sense to the 'experts', let alone the 'common man', in
their own time than it does now.
In
your opinion, the common man must move beyond his commonality
and study ancient Greek and Hebrew to truly understand the text.
That moves him from 'common man' to something much more.
You've alluded more than once that I am not properly equipped
to do so, as I am not an expert with a theistic degree, as you
are. You want to have your cake and eat it too: I, a
common man, haven't the theistic education and degree to properly
understand it, according to you, yet the common man CAN understand
it, again according to you. Make up your mind! I do
hope that all of your thought processes are not similarly flawed.
You
and thousands of similar 'experts' like you cannot seem to agree
with any certainty with each other on the true meanings, indicating
that there are none that can be readily discerned.
We have only your word, as we have the word of your fellow experts
that do not agree with you. The only truth revealed thus
far is that it is not universally understood by the 'experts'
in your field of study. As you cannot agree with each other,
we must accept that you are all just guessing. Perhaps one
'sect' of you has it right, or has part of it right, while another
has another part of it right. But that is something we have
no way of discerning one way or the other and, in fact, it's entirely
possible that all of you are wrong. There is simply no way
for us to know, given the fact that you don't all agree with each
other and never have over the course of thousands of years.
Add to that the evidence of the never ending factional multi-splitting
of sects, one from another, and we see that there is nothing at
all universal about the texts or the thousands of interpreted
opinions on it's meaning. Rather than getting closer to
a unified conclusion with study, it continues to come apart at
the seams, and the faithful with it.
Again,
you have not provided anything to show that the 'common man' of
this or any other age could make sense of the religious texts
that you 'claim' to be able to make sense of. Please do
not fail to notice that you are the one making claims, not I.
I merely question your claims and ask you to prove them in a way
that makes sense, not only to me, but to your fellow experts and
the faithful, so that all can agree universally on the matter
and settle it. In that regard, your simple 'opinion' while
it may have a degree of learning behind it and while many from
your particular seminary may agree with you, is still no more
than an 'opinion'. It cannot move into the realm of 'fact'
until all your contemporaries have tested it and agree with you
on the matter. That they do not yet agree shows that it
is little more than apologetic conjecture on your part.
Though I understand that you have elevated it in your own mind
to something much more, that doesn't make it so.
I
have studied the Bible for some 40 years in churches, schools
and on my own. I have read it many times, as well as it's
history from many sources. While I do not fluently speak,
read or write ancient Greek or Hebrew, I have read much by those
that do. This much I understand: It does not make sense
on any level, unless one applies a wholly biased view of it as
a text that has no errors going into it, then thinks up ways to
get around the obvious inconsistencies a cursory or thorough examination
reveals. This practice is called apologetics, and contains
a hundred times more text that tries to explain away all of it
than the original text of the bible uses to supposedly reveal
the nature of God to us.
As
a matter of fact, I studied apologetics under Dr. Norman Geisler,
who is probably the greatest apologist of our time. He teaches
at Southern Evangelical Seminary and is the founder and president.
The courses are all graduate level courses and they even offer
a Doctor of Ministry with a concentration in Apologetics.
I
very much enjoyed reading this account of "the greatest apologist
of our time" getting his ass handed to him in a debate.
If he's the best you guys have to offer, it's no wonder the number
of Christians in the world is declining. If you think that
I'm impressed that you studied under a man who started his own
school to turn out theistic apologists lined up to his particular
way of thinking and interpreting the texts, I'm sorry to
have to disappoint you. If he was so convincing that ALL
the experts in his field agreed with him, it would be more impressive.
It still wouldn't convince me that there's an invisible, undetectable
entity out there that's deeply concerned with my sex life, but
at least it would be a start towards some common ground on which
to discuss the issues.
As
to your degree from this seminary, you'll forgive me if I'm not
impressed by a degree in a field that stresses the importance
of believing supernatural claims without evidence and teaches
one how to get around the thousands of problems with the text
of the bible (apologetics) in order to get the 'common man' to
continue to believe a fairy tale that has no basis in fact.
If
it could be discerned with any certainty, there wouldn't be over
2000 sects of Christianity today, all claiming to have properly
discerned what that book says, and all disagreeing with each other
over it at the same time. For you to be yet another in a
long list who claims this ability to understand it better than
other men shows that you are just one more in the list, nothing
more.
I
am not interested in all the sects. I am only interested in what
the evidence suggests. The question is this, After an objective
review of the evidence, which view is most reasonable? Christian
Theism or Atheism/Agnositicism?
Perhaps
you should be more interested in all the sects. After all,
it's because no one, not even you, can determine with any formal
authority that can be agreed upon by all the 'experts' in your
field the true meanings of the text that there are all these sects
to begin with. If all could agree on what it means, there
would be no reason for all the different sects, now would there?
After
an objective review of the evidence, the most reasonable view
to me is Atheism/Agnosticism. That's as plain to me as your
opposite view is to you. I base mine on the simple fact
that we don't KNOW. It hasn't been PROVEN. It is a
QUESTIONABLE claim without evidence. I therefore hold it
in the same realm as other fictitious
characters that have not been proven to me. I consider them
all to be without merit at this time. If any of them should
be proven to me, I will have to accept them. However, I
assure you, the proof will be tangible proof, not apologetic hand-waving,
nor arguments from authority, nor fallacious
logic games or semantics.
Do
you believe in absolute truth? Well, the more you attempt to deny
it, the more it will clobber you. It is impossible to deny it,
without confirming it. because you believe your denial of absolute
truth, is, after all, absolutely true.
As
I said, fallacious
logic problems and semantics have no bearing on whether or
not there is a real, actual, supernatural entity you refer
to as 'god'. Absolute truth, as a philosophical mind
exercise, has no bearing at all on the matter.
What's next? How many angels can dance on the head of a
pin? Can god make something so big he can't lift it?
The next statement is true: The last statement was false?
Please, step out of the mystical and mysterious dark muck of superstition
and ignorance and into the realm of the real world if you would
like to 'show' me something to make your case. Speculative
mind calisthenics
prove nothing, except that you have no real proof.
What
about the fundamental law of science. The law of first causes.
Every event has a cause. Everything that had a beginning, must
have had a cause. The universe had a beginning. But you say it
came to be without a cause. That is a violation of the most fundamental
of all scientific laws. Oh, it caused itself. Right! Not a plausible
view either. Only one explanation, something other than the universe
caused it. What? Who?
How
about, "WE DON'T KNOW"? Still, there are MANY
possible, plausible theories, your god being but one of them.
Further, I will go so far as to speculate that there will be even
more possible and probable theories proposed as mankind progresses
toward an answer. Just as the other physical world things
which were unexplainable and attributed to the mystery of god's
hand in the past were eventually explained by the physical properties
of the real universe we live in, so this may (and probably
will) eventually be explained as well, entirely by physical
properties and attributes - no god(s) required.
You
may continue to defend it at your leisure, but you should be aware
that it is probably a waste of your time.
If
it is worth believing, it is worth defending. If it is not worth
believing, it is not worth defending. And if it is worth defending,
it is worth defending excellently.
I
mean that it is probably a waste of your time to attempt to defend
it in a way to try to convince me that it has any bearing on reality,
unless you have some real evidence that a supernatural entity
actually exists. As no one has ever had any yet, I doubt
you will either. If you had, you would already have presented
it but, so far, I see you have only the apologist's tool bag of
misdirection, illogical logic, arguments from authority and the
other standard equipment of the ill informed. It works great
on the non-thinking masses, for the most part, but you will not
get much mileage out of me with them. I've been around this
block quite a number of times already.
The
lines of evidence that suppport Theism are staggering.
Only
to you and those who believe, as you do, without real evidence.
To the rest of us, your evidence is laughable or downright non-existent,
just like your god.
The
evidence to support Christianity in particular, make it the most
plausible of all views.
Only
to you and those who believe, as you do, without real evidence.
To the rest of us, it sounds utterly ridiculous. I'd venture
to say it sounds just as ridiculous as a similar statement to
support any belief system other than Christianity probably sounds
to you.
Its
scientific and historical confirmations are specific, documented,
and beyond question.
Only
to you and those who believe, as you do, without real evidence.
If your statement were true, EVERYONE on the planet would believe
it, but that's not the case. If your statement were true,
there would not be some 2000 sects of Christianity that cannot
agree with each other on what it means. If your statement
were true, we would not even be having this discussion.
Any
specific scientific and historical claims, even those that have
been documented and confirmed beyond question, do not address
the supernatural claims central to the issue. And they mean
nothing towards the supernatural claim that there is an entity
you call 'god'. For example, it's not enough to confirm
that Egypt exists as a real place and did so at the time the Old
Testament was being written. That says nothing about the
existence of god(s). You must show that a stick can become
a serpent and eat another stick that has become a serpent, and
that the only way to achieve such a thing is through the implicit
intervention of said god(s).
I
continue
to wish you and yours all the best, and
I sincerely
hope you will find the guts to set up an interview on The Infidel
Guy. I think it would be very educational and entertaining
to hear your views live and on the fly. In addition, you
seem to want to discuss the philosophical arguments, which is
Reggie's strong suit. Why don't you email or call him and
tell him that Buck suggested you be on the show? I'm sure
we'd all love to have you on as a guest. Who knows?
You might even make sense to someone! Of course, I understand
if you're too timid for a live debate on the air, but you do,
after all, have a theistic degree in apologetics and should be
able to defend your position without falling on your face too
much, so why not give it a shot?
Buck
Alright Buckster,
say you argue from logic. One simple question.
If there is
a God that created the universe, is it not logical to conclude
that such a God would have no problem performing the miracles
recorded in scripture?
Starting
with that big, huge "IF", sure. But why
posit that god in the first place? (I see we'll tackle
that with your next paragraph).
First
though, let's talk about these 'miracles'. Do you have
any proof that such miracles actually occurred? No, of
course you don't.
So,
"IF" there is a god, that god "could" perform
the miracles we don't know happened anyway. Similarly,
"IF" there's a giant, invisible, all-powerful poodle
circling the Earth, it "could" suspend the laws of
physics to make weird things happen from time to time here on
the planet.
Of
course, in BOTH cases we have exactly the same amount of evidence:
None. We can detect neither of these supernatural entities
and we have no documented proof of supernatural events that
could only have been caused by these unproven entities.
Therefore,
there is no logical, rational reason to posit either of them.
POINT: Which
is more illogical......to posit that something came from nothing
without a cause or to honestly ask, if the universe had a beginning,
what was its cause? It must have been caused by something outside
of and greater than itself. THAT IT LOGIC 101 my friend.
Did
you not read my response to you? I never said something
came from nothing without a cause. However, I will entertain
your question once again.
If
the universe had a beginning (and I will agree that it did),
what was it's cause?
Answer:
We don't KNOW. I don't KNOW. You don't KNOW.
We think, we guess, we suspect, we theorize, we postulate possibilities.
You guess:God. I guess: An endless series of expanding
and collapsing universes. Someone else guesses: (fill
in the blank). Still, they are guesses.
Now
to the LOGIC part: Since we don't KNOW, there is simply
no LOGICAL reason to INSIST that an undefinable thing that
falls outside the physical attributes of the universe did it
with some sort of magic, creating something from nothing as
a more logical possibility than any other proposition.
If
you want to believe it, fine, but it is not logical at all,
given the FACTS we DO have about the universe. First,
the FACT that we have yet to discover anything that does not
have natural attributes. As god is, by definition, SUPERnatural,
god falls outside the realm of PROBABLE possibilities.
In other words, while god remains on the list of possible causes,
other theories proposed based on the natural attributes and
mechanics of the universe we live in are much more plausible.
Just
as there was a time in history when lightning was not understood,
god was posited as the sole cause of it and reasons were even
given for his use of it, mostly as a tool of his wrath with
humans for some indiscretion. Now however, we understand
the mechanics of lightning as natural and caused by the attributes
of our physical universe. We now understand that lightning
is occurring at all times on the planet, not just when god might
be pissed. We now understand why it strikes trees and
tall buildings more than it does tulips and mice. We've
learned a lot about lightning over the centuries, to the point
where most humans with even a small amount of education in science
do not automatically think, "God is mad about something!"
and run off to pray and offer sacrifices to make it stop.
Just
because we don't KNOW today, does not mean we won't KNOW tomorrow.
And given the history of scientific knowledge, it's entirely
likely that the explanation forthcoming will be purely
naturalistic, NOT supernatural.
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