Muddled Thinking

The muddled thinking of Christians who attempt to defend 
the vicious god of the Bible. From the Errancy discussion 
list, April 29, 1997:

Izz
Such a Lord, who murders innocent babies, is not 
good. God is not good. Of course, the story is a 
myth, it  never really happened. That is besides the 
point. God, as described in the Bible, makes Hitler 
look saintly.  Unfortunately, Hitler was real, but, 
thank God, God isn't. Still, how can you Christians 
worship a God who murders babies? Don't you
people have any morals? Its  bad enough you believe 
in God; what's worse, you are blind to his evil nature. 
You people worship an imaginary baby-killer.

Paul writes:
If this life were all of existance, you might have a point; however
Christians believe that we are primarily "spiritual" creatures made 
in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). This life is not all that matters. 
How cruel it would have been to preserve all of those babies of 
hard-hearted idolaters to mature and become like their parents 
only to lose their souls in eternity; but a loving and merciful God 
now has in his care the souls of those innocent children.

TILL
According to this logic, God should see that the children and babies 
of all sinful people are killed before "the age of accountability" so 
that this loving and merciful God could have in his care the souls 
of "these innocent children"? What made the Amalekite children so 
special that God wanted to "preserve" them any more than the 
children of other idolatrous people? We know from archaeological 
discoveries that Aztecs and Incas were idolatrous nations, who 
even  sacrificed children to their gods. Why didn't Yahweh 
"preserve"  their  children so that they wouldn't have grown up 
to be like their  "hard-hearted" idolatrous parents?

This "explanation" of the many Yahwistic massacres recorded in 
the OT is simply a last-ditch effort to explain a problem that is 
completely incompatible with both the biblical inerrancy doctrine 
and  the claim that God is loving and merciful. If for some reason 
the Amalekites, Midianites, Canaanites, etc. had to be ethnically 
exterminated, there was no reason at all to massacre the children 
and infants too. Why couldn't they have been brought back as 
captives, adopted into Hebrew families, and reared in the way 
that  Hebrew children were? That way, they would not have grown 
up to  be "hard-hearted" idolaters, any more than the Israelites 
themselves  were at times hard-hearted idolaters (but that's 
another story). I'd like to hear Paul's "explanation" of this.

Farrell Till

Impossible for God to Lie?

The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, Spring 1992:

by Farrell Till

"God cannot lie. For this reason alone, we know that whatever he personally has communicated to mankind is true." This is how Editor Tom Fishbeck introduced a pro-inerrancy comment in the April 1991 issue of Bible Answers Newsletters (p. 3). It was a familiar bibliolatry tactic. A Bible passage is quoted and then supported with the claim that God cannot lie. The claim is often "proven" by citing Hebrews 6:18, which says that it is impossible for God to lie, or Titus 1:2, which says that God can not lie.

Aside from the obvious circular reasoning taking place here, the tactic is flawed by contradictory statements in the Bible about a much ballyhooed aspect of God's nature. If it is truly impossible for God to lie, then bibliolaters are going to have to explain some confusing Bible passages.

Scientific Foreknowledge In The Bible?

A Christian, Walt Jr., makes some unwarranted claims concerning scientific foreknowledge in the Bible. Farrell Till sets him straight. From the Errancy Discussion list, April 7, 1997:

WALT JR

Though science has proven the earth is round, nowhere does the Bible teach that the earth is flat. In fact, Job 26:7 says, God "suspends the earth over nothing", and Isaiah 40:22 says God "sits enthroned above the circle of the earth." The passages about the four corners of the earth is clearly figurative language that the Bible uses. As a person who is constantly talking about figurative language and metaphor, Campbell's approach to biblical interpretation makes no sense.

TILL

First of all, the earth doesn't hang on nothing. It is held in orbit by the gravitational attraction of the sun, but Job 26:7 also says that God stretches out the North over empty space. What does this mean? For years, apologists argued that there was a vast empty space in which no stars were located, and that this space was directly north with reference to the earth. This empty space has been disproven, and so we don't hear biblicists looking for "scientific foreknowledge" in the Bible referring to this anymore. As a child, however, I was taught that this was a good prooftext to use in confounding atheists. Verse 9 in this chapter says that God "encloses the face of his throne and spreads his cloud upon it." So why haven't our space explorations located God's throne? It must be up there somewhere above the clouds. Verse 11 says that the "pillars of heaven tremble." Where are these "pillars of heaven"? Why haven't they been found? Verse 12 says that God "stirs up the sea with his power," which should be considered with verse 8 that says God "binds up the waters in his thick clouds." In these verses, we have clear evidence that the Hebrews believed in a god of the gaps. He was the explanation for everything that couldn't be understood.

God Can't Be Tempted?

The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, 1995 January/February:

by Farrell Till

Proponents of the perfect-harmony theory have another problem on their hands. If we are to believe James 1:13, God cannot be tempted: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone." Yet if we are to believe other biblical passages, God can indeed be tempted.

To establish this, let's first notice that (according to the inerrant word of God) Jesus was God: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn. 1:1). The 14th verse of this passage states that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Obviously, John meant for us to understand that Jesus was the "Word" who was with God in the beginning and was himself God. Therefore, if Jesus was God and if God cannot be tempted, then Jesus could not have been tempted.

This, however, is not what the Bible teaches. After Jesus was baptized, he "was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" (Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:1-2). There is no need to discuss the particulars of this incident in the life of Jesus, because his temptation is a story that all Sunday school students have heard many times. In anticipation of possible inerrantist quibbles, however, we should notice that the gospel accounts of this story do not say that the devil tried to tempt Jesus and failed; they plainly say that the devil tempted Jesus: "Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan" (Mark 1:12-13).

The writer of the Hebrew epistle certainly agreed that Jesus had been tempted: "For in that He Himself [Jesus] has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted" (2:18). In fact, the Hebrew writer didn't just say that Jesus had been tempted but that he had been thoroughly tempted: "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are" (5:14-15).

So Jesus was God, God cannot be tempted, but Jesus was tempted in all points as we are. In the face of flagrant contradictions like this, inerrantists persist in proclaiming the Bible perfectly harmonious from cover to cover.

Go figure!

Does Anyone See Any Problem Here?

Exodus 20:5,You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, (NIV)

Yet,

Ezekiel 18:20 ,The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them. (NIV)

Children Of A Stupid God

In the following video Pat Condell, in his inimitable fashion, describes the "loving" god of the Bible:

Children of a stupid God

If God Wants Something From Me...

If God wants something from me, he would tell me. He wouldn't leave someone else to do this, as if an infinite being were short on time. And he would certainly not leave fallible, sinful humans to deliver an endless plethora of confused and contradictory messages. God would deliver the message himself, directly, to each and every one of us, and with such clarity as the most brilliant being in the universe could accomplish. ~ Richard Carrier 

Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (1)

The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, 1996 January/February:

by Farrell Till

Just a superficial reading of Dr. Ross's article about the application of probabilities to biblical prophecy fulfillment is enough to see that it is just another attempt to shore up a discredited apologetic argument. Biblical inerrantists have repeatedly tried to prove the divine origin of the Bible through various prophecy-fulfillment claims, but the truth is that no one has ever been able to verify a single example of biblical prophecy fulfillment. I have read many such attempts, and Dr. Ross's effort differs only in that it is, in my opinion, not nearly as good as some I have seen.

What is really ludicrous about Dr. Ross's article is his arbitrary probability figures. They are reminiscent of the ridiculous probability arguments that creationists bandy about to "prove" that life could not have happened without divine creation. Before anyone can determine the probability of any event, he must know all of the factors that would be involved in the occurrence of the event, and this is where the absurdities begin in most creationist and prophecy-fulfillment probability arguments. No one knows how many factors would be involved in the formation of life, and nobody knows how many factors would be involved in the occurrence of a specific event years in the future. Yet biblicists constantly yak about how the probability of such-and-such happening would be one in so many millions or billions or trillions. It's all too ridiculous to deserve serious comment, but because so many fundamentalists use such arguments to impress the gullible, we, unfortunately, have to comment on their "arguments" from time to time.

In order to prove--and I mean *prove*, not just surmise--prophecy fulfillment, one would have to establish four things: (1) the claimant of a prophecy fulfillment is properly interpreting whatever text he is basing his claim on, (2) the prophecy was made *before* and not after the event that allegedly fulfills the prophecy, (3) the prophecy was made not just *before* an event but far enough in advance of it to make educated guesswork impossible, and (4) the event that allegedly fulfilled the prophecy did in fact happen. When Dr. Ross's claims of prophecy fulfillment are examined in terms of these four characteristics of valid prophecy, we will see that none of his alleged prophecy fulfillments can pass muster.

Characteristics of Truth

1. Truth isn't determined by how much you want to believe something.
2. Truth isn't determined by how long you've believed something.
3. Truth isn't determined by how many people believe something.
4. Truth is entirely independent of it's source.
5. Truth isn't determined by geography--what is true in India is true in    America.
6. Truth is always consistent.
7. Truth is still the truth even when you stop believing it.
8. Truth may make you angry or disappoint you.
9. You may not be able to determine what the truth is.
10.There is no safe substitute for truth.

The Wisdom of the World

The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, 1995 March/April:

by Farrell Till

Have you ever thought about the implications of Adam's and Eve's sin? They ate of the tree of knowledge (Gen.3:6), an act that opened their eyes (v:7), and so God drove them from the Garden of Eden, because "the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil" (v:22). In other words, their sin was the acquisition of knowledge. It was a sin so great that the petulant Yahweh not only banished them from the garden but pronounced an everlasting curse on them and all their descendants.

The condemnation of knowledge implied in this story established a policy that was generally--but not always-- followed by the other biblical writers. That policy was to discourage and even sometimes to condemn the acquisition of knowledge. Perhaps no single biblical writer ridiculed knowledge any more than the apostle Paul, who is considered by many scholars to be the real founder of Christianity. His strongest denunciation of knowledge was made in his first letter to the Corinthian church: 

Looking For The Truth About The Bible

"The interest I have in believing a thing is not proof of the existence of that thing." Voltaire

"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be." Albert Einstein

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

If you haven't already guessed, the "it" in the blog title is the Bible. I named this blog after the 1926 classic by Joseph Wheless, Is It God's Word?, and I'm afraid most Christians have not done a real investigation into the answer to this question.

I was indoctrinated from an early age and always just accepted that the answer was yes, and as I got older I only looked for evidence to confirm what I already believed. Uncritical acceptance of the Bible as the verbally inspired word of God was strongly encouraged, and I accepted it as true doing a nominal rather than an actual investigation of the claim. Any of this sound familiar?