A Question For Readers Of This Blog

The following question is directed to anyone who may be reading this. I ask for an answer as well as an explanation of your answer to this question. Thank you in advance for your participation. I hope that your answers and explanations will help start a lively and rewarding discussion of this important issue:

The Bible teaches that its God is all knowing, all powerful, all loving and compassionate, complete and perfect, therefore having no needs, as well as being sovereign. However, the Bible also teaches that its God will send the majority of people to its eternal hell to suffer forever (Matt 7:13-14). Do you agree that these two teachings contradict each other? Please explain.

The Absence Of Convincing Evidence For An Historical Jesus Christ

An excellent discussion on the absence of any unbiased, disinterested, 
contemporary historical evidence for Jesus Christ. Why wouldn't  the 
god of the Bible, if he is the true God, have providentially provided such 
considering the extreme, eternal consequences for unbelief? From the 
Errancyn Discussion list, 7-21-98:

Till

If the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth is so

overwhelming, why can't you produce records and references that were 

left by disinterested contemporary parties?

KENT

Obviously Mr. Till, any writing which mentions Jesus Christ you would

consider either a "biased writing" or in error. Luke was a Greek doctor

writing an account of Jesus' life and the early church for a Greek

(Theophilus)... but oops! He mentions Jesus... he's a biased religious

writer. Don't you see the fallacy of your position?

TILL

Do you deny that Luke was a proponent of Christianity? After all, he

alleged in the book of Acts that he was a companion of the apostle Paul on

his missionary journeys. That hardly sounds like a disinterested, unbiased

spokesman. So, no, I don't see the fallacy of my position. Why don't you

find records from contemporaries who hated and despised Jesus, just as we

can find contemporary references to Thomas Paine that were made 

by people who disliked him? That kind of evidence would be convincing, 

but, alas, there is no such evidence, and so you can do nothing but cry and 

accuse me of fallacious reasoning.

Is Jesus A Counterfeit?

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1994 / May-June:

By Farrell Till 
In the Till-Dobbs Debate, fundamentalist preacher and editor Buster Dobbs asserted  that the Book of Mormon is an obvious counterfeit and then proceeded to parrot the trite old argument that says the existence of a counterfeit proves the existence of the real thing. A counterfeit dollar, for example, can exist only because real or authentic dollars exist. To Dobbs, needless to say, the Bible is the "real" inspired book that the Book of Mormon counterfeited.

The argument is absurd, of course, because entirely theoretical objects can be conceptualized and made without proving the existence of real or authentic specimens of whatever the objects are supposed to represent. One could make metal coins and claim that they are replicas of coins that are used on Mars, but the existence of these "counterfeits" would in no way prove that Martian coins really do exist. In the same way, the writing of a phony "bible," which a religious group tries to present as a book that was inspired of God, does not prove that a "real" divinely inspired book exists. It is far more probable that such a book is just one more example of a holy book for which sincere but mistaken claims of divine origin are made.

For the sake of argument, however, let's just grant Mr. Dobbs his point: the existence of a counterfeit known as the Book of Mormon does prove that a "real" divinely inspired book exists. Even with this concession, his argument begs the question by assuming that the Bible is the genuine holy book that was divinely inspired. One could just as logically argue that the Book of Mormon counterfeited the Avesta, an allegedly inspired book that antedates the Bible by many centuries. Dobbs, however, would never agree that the Book of Mormon "counterfeited" the Avesta, because he doesn't believe that the Avesta was divinely inspired. He would ridicule the logic of anyone who would use such an argument to prove the divine origin of the Avesta, yet he apparently can't see that the argument has no more merit when applied to the Bible.

What Franchise?

By Emo Philips:
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!"

He said, "Nobody loves me."

I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?"

He said, "A Christian."

I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?"

He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me, too! What franchise?"

He said, "Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."

I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."

I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

* Voted 44th funniest joke of all time in "The 75 Funniest Jokes of All Time" in GQ magazine (June 1999).

Three-In-One Again

From the Errancy Discussion List, 9-29-95:

nth
I am the father to my children, Brother to my siblings, child of my parents, lover to my spouse. How's that! Four in one.

Regards, nth

Till

But you are still just ONE person. In your capacity as father to your children, you know everything that you know in your capacity as brother to your siblings, and in this capacity you know everything that you know as child of your parents and lover of your spouse. It would be absurd to say that as father to your children, you know X , but as brother to your siblings you don't know X.

So what's my point? In Matthew 24:36, Jesus presumably said of his second coming, "But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the son,* but the Father only" (ASV). If Jesus and the Father are the same God but just different "persons" in the sense that you are father to your children, brother to your siblings, etc., how could it possibly be that God as the Father would know something that God as the son would not know?

This problem was obviously recognized fairly early in the church, because a footnote by this passage will say that "some ancient authorities omit the expression 'neither the son,'" and some translations (including even the KJV) leave it out too. More and more, that's becoming the way to solve textual and doctrinal problems in the Bible--just translate them out of existence. However, since the oldest manuscripts have the expression "neither the son" in them, a principle of lower criticism states that this is more likely to be a statement that was in the original. The RSV, NRSV, NASV, NIV, REB, NEB, NAB, JB, and others have retained the statement in apparent recognition of this principle. Besides, the parallel passage in Mark 13:32 contains the expression "neither the son" and was also retained in other "ancient manuscripts" of Mark, so nothing has been gained by trying to eliminate the statement from Matthew. Furthermore, most critics recognize that Matthew used Mark as his source, so the fact that the expression "neither the son" is generally found in the manuscripts of Mark and was in the earliest copies of Matthew is a pretty sound indication that it was very likely in the original text too.

So now trinity believers must explain how it would have been possible for the Father to know something that the son did not know if they were both one and the same God. I must also ask if inerrantists ever get tired and frustrated from trying to defend untenable positions.

Farrell Till

10 Characteristics Of Truth

1.  Truth is always narrow.

2.  Truth is always consistent.

3.  There is no safe substitute for truth.

4.  Truth is sometimes offensive.

5.  Truth is still the truth even when you stop believing it.

6.  Truth is not determined by who believes it.

7.  Truth is not determined by how many believe it.

8.  Truth is not determined by how much you want to believe something.

9.  Truth is not determined by how long you've believed something.

10.Truth is not determined by where you live.

When?

"...when does one's religious beliefs reach a point that they deserve scorn and contempt rather than 'respect'?" Clearly such a time is when Christians defend their god's command in Numbers 31:17-18, to kill all of the Midianite male little  ones, and kill all of the nonvirgin women, "But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." To any Christians reading this, how can you possibly defend this order from your god?

From the Yahoo group, Alt.Bible.Errancy, 8-3-99:

Berne
Helpu, a woman taken as a war prize to be a wife is in reality a concubine. She is forced to marry that man against her will. I am sure that more than one would have preferred death rather than live like that. You are being real offensive in trying to defend that situation and call it just. I  would not want you to live next door to me, if you call things like that just.

TILL
Helpu is in my e-mail filter, so I didn't see the posting in which he apparently tried to defend the Israelite rape of the Midianite virgin girls. I have to agree with what Berne said about the offensiveness of someone who would even try to defend the killing and rape of children, and when I read this, I had to wonder what Holman thinks about this familiar biblicist tactic of arguing that if God did it or commanded it, then it had to have been right no matter how morally offensive it may be when just ordinary humans do the same thing. In this case, Helpu is defending the murder and rape of children. Do you understand what I am saying? Helpu is defending the murder and rape of children.

Number 31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

I find attempts to defend such as this repugnant and see no reason why those who would defend such should not receive the scorn and ridicule of all rational people. Would this be a case, Holman, where one would be justified in calling Helpu ignorant? If not, what if he were defending the murder and rape of children in Kosovo? In other words, just when does one's religious beliefs reach a point that they deserve scorn and contempt rather than "respect"?

I say that Helpu is ignorant for defending such as this and see no reason why I should apologize for saying so.

Farrell Till