A Good Question...

                 A Good Question But Not A Good Answer Part One
                                              by Farrell Till

A reply to:Good Question ...

by Glenn Miller

The archived source of this historic written encounter between Farrell Till and inerrantist Glenn Miller did not have all of the links live, sorry. Till had a total of seven replies to Miller. Each can be downloaded in a link at the end of each reply.(kwh)

The barbaric nature of the Hebrew god Yahweh has led many former believers to reject their faith in the Bible. In "God Is Pro-Life?" I examined several biblical examples of Yahwistic barbarism that should convince reasonable people that the God-Is-Prolife slogan of anti-abortionists is biblically unsustainable, because the Old Testament is full of claims that Yahweh many times either sent destruction upon children, infants, and unborn babies himself or else ordered others to annihilate them. The barbarism of the god Yahweh, however, extended beyond the massacre of children and unborn babies to include efforts to exterminate entire tribes and nations. The Old Testament depiction of this deity should be enough to turn any morally sensitive person away from the notion that he is a loving, merciful god, but, unfortunately, it isn't. Diehard Bible believers seem determined to make all sorts of excuses to "explain" why Yahweh's commands to kill Canaanites, Midianites, Amalekites, and other non-Hebraic people were morally right.

Raised On The Third Day In Accordance With The Scriptures?

This is another post from the Errancy Discussion list from June 14, 1997. After Magill, our Christian apologist, committed the logical fallacy of begging the question (i.e., in a debate, when one assumes that what he is arguing for is true without putting forth any evidence for it), Farrell Till, then gives an example of real argumentation:

MAGILL
Magill- Yes, would anyone want to have assurance and peace of
everlasting life in Christ Jesus? It's such a terrible thing to have
one's eternal destiny settled. It's such a horrific thing to know you
are going to live forever in a perfect body that will never again be
subject to corruption and mortality with all its hurts and pains. It's
such a tramatic experience to give one's life over to Jesus Christ
and have the shed blood of His sacrafice be personally applied to
my sin and atone for the penalty that I rightly deserve yet will never
receive because Christ has bore the penalty for me in my place.

"For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is everlasting life
IN Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:23)

TILL
As usual Magill engages in question begging with no attempt at all
to offer reasonable supporting evidence for the questions he begs.
As I said in a posting yesterday, I don't intend to dignify postings
like this with responses. However, I will urge Magill again to make
a serious effort to debate logically. I'll even help get him started.

Long-time subscribers will recall that when he came onto the list, we
were discussing Jesus's prediction that he would be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth and the contexts of what the
gospels  claimed about the length of his burial. Magill sent a posting
that accused us of stupidity and said something to the effect that
we need to study what the OT says about the Messiah's resurrection
on the third day.

In response to this, I challenged Magill to cite the OT scriptures that
refer to or in any way imply that the Messiah would die and be resurrected
on the third day. Magill, of course, was unable to supply the OT
references, because they simply don't exist. I pointed out that NT
writers clearly indicated in the following scriptures that the OT had

predicted a third-day resurrection of the Messiah:

Luke 24:45 Then he [Jesus] opened their minds to understand the
scriptures,
46 and he said to them, "Thus IT IS WRITTEN, that the Messiah is
to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day....

I Corinthians 15:3 For I handed on to you as of first importance
what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in 
accordance with the scriptures,
4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SCRIPTURES....

Now here are two NT writers who clearly said that the OT said that
the Christ would rise from the dead on the third day. If skeptics are
as ignorant as Magill claims we are, then why doesn't he produce
the OT scriptures that Luke and Paul were referring to? That would
really expose our ignorance. Magill, however, hasn't produced these
scriptures for the simple reason that they do not exist. Anyway, I 
have  presented this challenge to him again, so let's wait and see 
if he can produce the OT scriptures that made a third-day 
resurrection claim.

Farrell Till

Logical Fallacies

Farrell Till takes a biblical inerrantist to school on the subject of logical fallacies. From the Errancy discussion list, June 14, 1997:
MAGILL
Your response my dear was indeed quick but your brain nevertheless is
slow to listen and quick to judge as all fool's brains are!

TILL
Oh, well, why not have a little fun and analyze the logical fallacies in
Magill's posting?

MAGILL
"THE FOOL HAS SAID IN HIS HEART THERE IS NO GOD!" (Psalm 53:1)

TILL
This is an appeal to authority, tradition, and popular belief. It carries no more force of argument than would a Mormon's quotation of the Book of Mormon or a Muslim's quotation of the Qur'an. We have pointed this out many times to Magill, but he persists in thinking that he can settle any issue by just quoting a scripture or two.

MAGILL
By God's very definition of non-believers you are a fool! He said it not me!

TILL
This begs the question of God's involvement in the writing of the Bible.
Until Magill has established beyond reasonable doubt that God inspired the
writing of the Bible, his scripture quotations prove no more than a Mormon's
quotation of the Book of Mormon or a Muslim's quotation of the Qur'an? I
don't suppose Magill is ever going to learn this basic logical fallacy.

MAGILL
He can say it because He is God and you are not!

TILL
This is an appeal to both authority and fear. It also begs the question of
God's existence. Magill needs to establish beyond reasonable doubt that a
god exists, and then he can talk to us about what God has the right to do.

MAGILL
This is the first lesson in true humility.

TILL
This is a fallacy of unproven assertion. Magill should accept the burden of
proof and try to establish that the assertion is true.

MAGILL
If you cannot accept it your heart is hard and your brain is on recess not
to mention the fact that your spirit and soul are dead!

TILL
In this we have an ad hominem attack and the begging of a question that
Magill needs to prove. Is there a spirit or soul? What is the evidence
that such exists?

More important, does Magill expect anyone to take him seriously when he
sends the list sophomoric postings like this one? If he will make serious
attempts to state and support arguments, I will gladly respond to him, but
stuff like this doesn't deserve to be dignified with responses. Thus, he
will hear no more from me until he posts a serious argument or else makes a
serious attempt to rebut an argument.

Farrell Till

Beliefs--Be Careful

An excerpt from an internet debate I recently read:
 

Christian:

"when people are on the outside, they aren't going to understand it. Being on the inside, I just can't explain it. God's love is something you have to experience firsthand." 

 

Skeptic: 

I was a Christian until age 21. Therefore, I was on the inside, and I do understand it. When you think God loves you, it feels great. When you think you're going to heaven, it feels great. When you think you won the lottery, it feels great. The belief can make you feel great, independent of whether [the] belief is true or not.       

 

People love to believe in gods. That fact makes it prudent to carefully vet one's beliefs to try to make sure they are in line with the evidence, rather than being in line with what we want to believe.

Quoting The Bible

The inimitable Farrell Till, not allowing a Christian to get by with merely quoting the Bible to prove that the resurrection of Jesus is true (amazing that they would even try that).

From the Errancy discussion list, February, 1998:

Christian: 

You are coming from the viewpoint that the Bible is errant; I am coming from the viewpoint that it is from God and therefore accurate. If you do not want me to use what the Bible says in order to discuss the Bible, then I see no point in being here. You were just asking about spiritual/resurrected bodies. If you don't believe in the Bible, why even discuss it? If you want to discuss the Bible among yourselves with no opposing viewpoint, please tell me why the group is looking for Christians to be involved? To what purpose? 

TILL 

You have a strange way of thinking. Of course, I understand  that you think that the Bible is accurate, but I won't allow  you to use this assumption to settle any issue that's being  debated. I would have to be crazier than a loon to permit that. Don't you think I know that the NT clearly teaches that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and that there will be a final resurrection of all the dead? The issue is not whether the NT teaches these things, because clearly it does. The issue is whether the NT is correct in making these claims. I have no objection to you or anyone else quoting scripture as long as it is quoted simply to show what the NT says, but I have serious objections to your apparent belief that the mere citation of a scripture should be sufficient to settle an issue. If you are going to quote 1 Corinthians 15 as proof that there will be a final resurrection, then you have the obligation to present arguments that will show there are good reasons to believe that what this text says is true. You say that you have no objections to debating the errancy of the Book of Mormon, but if a Mormon were on the list to debate this issue, you surely would not stand still for allowing him simply to quote the Book of Mormon as proof of its own accuracy, would you? 

Farrell Till

The "Witnesses-To-A-Car-Wreck" Quibble

A discussion between a Christian (TUFLY) and Farrell Till concerning the 
alleged evidences for Christianity from the Yahoo group, errancyn, from 
July 10-15, 1999:

TUFLY
Hi guys!
I don't claim to know much, but I do know that if ten people see an
accident in the street, you will hear ten different accounts about how it
happened. This simple fact, which you would be foolish to argue, points
to the authenticity and the fact that not only did Jesus rise from the dead,
but that the separate accounts are merely different perpectives on the
same incident. If we were to have two or more exactly matching eye-
witness accounts, that my friend, would be highly suspect.

TILL
First of all, you are committing the fallacy of false analogy by using
this worn-out example of different people who witness an automobile
accident. Witnesses to automobile accidents are not verbally inspired
by an omniscient, omnipotent deity as they write their accounts of
the incident. If they were, then we could reasonably expect agreement
in what they say. Another point of false analogy is that automobile
accidents are common occurrences and are known to happen. There are
probably few people who have never seen either an automobile accident
or the aftereffects of one.

Resurrections from the dead, however, are an entirely different matter.
There has never been a verifiable case of someone who died and
returned tolife, so there is a world of difference in testimony to an
ordinary, everyday event and testimony to an extraordinary event, the
likes of which has never been known to happen. Second, if the witnesses
to an automobile [accident] are inconsistent in various major points,
then their testimony becomes worthless as evidence of what happened.
If one witness indicated that the accident had happened at night but
another that it had happened after sunrise, if one witness indicated that
she was alone at the scene when the accident occurred but another
indicated that there were two people there and another indicated that
there were several on the scene, and if one witness said that a policeman
arrived on the scene quickly but another said that two policemen arrived
on the scene, and if one witness said that the accident happened in
Podunk but another witness said that it happened in Hicktown, and if
the police didn't even have the firsthand testimony of those who had
allegedly seen the accident but only the testimony of three or four
different people who said that so-and-so had said that she had seen
this or that, what kind of investigators or jury considering the evidence
to try to determine the facts in the case could make a reliable
determination of what had happened?

Is there anyone in this group that can offer reasonable evidence for
the resurrection without regurgitating hackneyed arguments that have
been answered hundreds of time? Is Tufly so naive that he thought we
had never before heard this witnesses-to-a-car-wreck quibble.

TUFLY
The bible is reasonable evidence, as a matter of fact, there are far
more ancient writings of it than anything else including authors like
Plato, etc.. Why do you believe that Plato wrote anything? Perhaps I
say he was an illiterate who had a vivid imagination and his best friend
wrote down his wonderings? Well, that would put me in your camp, and
I do not prefer to be there.

TILL
It isn't a matter of how many "ancient writings" of the Bible may exist or
whether Plato wrote anything. The issue is whether everything said in all
of those ancient writings is true. Just because Plato may have written
something, for example, would not make what he said true, even if it
had been copied a million times. The same is true of biblical writings
and any other documents. Your argument seems to be this: Ancient
biblical writings were copied several times; therefore, everything these
writings say must be historically true. Do you know what non sequitur
means?

Now do you have any evidence to offer in support of the NT resurrection
claim besides false analogies.

TUFLY
IF we cannot use the ancient writings and their near perfect copies over
the millenia, then what may we of faith use?

TILL
Near perfect copies? You've been reading too much apologetic
propaganda. What may you of faith use? Just look at what you're
asking? Faith or belief is something that a person should have as a
result of having examined reasonable evidence to justify the faith.
If there is no reasonableevidence to justify the basic tenets of
Christianity--and there isn't--the intellectually honest person will
not believe those tenets.

TUFLY
The testemony of the Holy Spirit definately will not hold water with
you.

TILL
Well, don't look now, but you are begging the question of whether the
"Holy Spirit" (1) exists, and (2) has given any "testimony" to anything.

TUFLY
Suppose I told you that you would gain an "inner" knowledge and a
vastly deeper understanding of the scriptures when you accept Jesus
Christ into your heart?

TILL
In other words, you are telling me that if I will believe first, then I will
believe the scriptures. Suppose I told you that you would gain an "inner"
knowledge and a vastly deeper understanding of the Qur'an when you
accept Allah into your heart?

TUFLY
I think you would laugh,

TILL
You're right, just as you would laugh (at least inwardly) if a Muslim
told you that you would gain an "inner" knowledge and a vastly deeper
understanding of the Qur'an if you would just accept Allah into your
heart. Don't you ever bother to critically examine such tripe as this
before you try to pass it off as "evidence"?

TUFLY
however you cannot possibly understand what the scriptures say untill
you do so.

TILL
And that's exactly what is wrong with you. You cannot possibly
understand the Qur'an until you "do so."

TUFLY
To the likes of you, unfortunately, the scriptures are a meaningless
prattle.

TILL
To the likes of you, unfortunately, the Qur'an is a meaningless prattle.

TUFLY
Proverbs 14:6 reminds me of you.

TILL
Sura 4:106-109 reminds me of you.

TUFLY
I highly suggest you read 1Cor 1:18, and if you can manage read on
through verse 23.

TILL
No need to. I know what it says without even looking. The fact
that you think that an ancient document that glorifies stupidity should
be recommended reading speaks volumes about your own stupidity.

Now do you have any arguments that you want to post in favor of your
inerrancy beliefs? If so, post them. If not, why don't you go peddle your
question-begging nonsense somewhere else? You'll probably find a
reception for it on just about any Christian list.

Farrell Till

Trained Theological "Reasoning"

"The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian -- like a doctor of divinity."
  ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, from "Superstition" (1898)