Pope Francis describes ‘ideological Christians’ as a ‘serious illness’

Ah yes, don't even get me started on the multiple series of translations over hundreds of years… Even the most naive are familiar with the lessons learned from the telephone game.

The bottom line is that it's all based on the faith of the followers. There's no rational, or scientific reason for believing everything in the Bible is what God believes to be true and right. On top of that, there's entirely too many contradictions within it for it to even possibly be entirely true and right.
 
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But fundamentally, man wrote the Bible. Not God. As such it is fallible.
Not necessarily so, good man. Depends on whether you buy into divine inspiration. If man was effectively nothing more than God's pencil (basically DArt's "dictation" model), then you could still have an infallible document.

I think the better argument would be to attack man's understanding of the document. Since man is, by definition, fallible, he can't possibly correctly interpret everything that's in the book. That keeps you clear of any debate on the book itself since the (im?)perfection of the document becomes moot.
 
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there's entirely too many contradictions within it for it to even possibly be entirely true and right.

Which is why it is so important to cherry-pick the right section depending on the group/person you are trying to discriminate against / oppress / shame at the time ... :D
 
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Not necessarily so, good man. Depends on whether you buy into divine inspiration. If man was effectively nothing more than God's pencil (basically DArt's "dictation" model), then you could still have an infallible document,

Assuming man is perfect dictation device. Which we know he isn't. So in this case as well there's no chance for an infallible document.

There are so many reasons why the document should be erroneous that believing it's perfect comes down to just faith. No rationale logic can explain such beliefs.
 
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Assuming man is perfect dictation device. Which we know he isn't. So in this case as well there's no chance for an infallible document.
Ah, not so, good man. If we assume the "dictation" model, which makes man nothing but God's mindless pencil, the document must be perfect or else God would have made a mistake. After all, if He's holding the pencil, you'd have to assume that the pencil is writing exactly what's intended, otherwise He'd be making a mistake.

Of course, by my lights it's all been bastardized to the point of losing all meaning anyway, but the logical gyrations can be entertaining.

edit- actually what I'm working from goes a little beyond true dictation since I'm basically taking away all free will. Perhaps I should call it the "possession" model instead.
 
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Possession and the perfectness of God's ability to make a man write the right thing. It all gets rather supernaturally wacky. I have a hard time understanding how anyone with half a brain can believe this stuff.

And to think of how many innocent lives have been lost because of these beliefs is truly tragic.
 
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Possession and the perfectness of God's ability to make a man write the right thing. It all gets rather supernaturally wacky. I have a hard time understanding how anyone with half a brain can believe this stuff.

And to think of how many innocent lives have been lost because of these beliefs is truly tragic.

Possession?


On top of that, there's entirely too many contradictions within it for it to even possibly be entirely true and right.

For every supposed contradiction there is an answer. I suppose this is where you look up "evilbible.com" or something and post all the supposed contradictions ask people to write up the explanations themselves?
 
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For every supposed contradiction there is an answer. I suppose this is where you look up "evilbible.com" or something and post all the supposed contradictions ask people to write up the explanations themselves?

Uh right. Faith without reason can allow you to believe anything that suits you or protects the church. It doesn't have to stand up to reason. All the "answers" I've heard have been ludicrous. And in themselves usually contradictory. Leading to more questions than answers. The amount of petrified bullshit is astounding.

And again at what cost. So many live ruined.
 
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Uh right. Faith without reason can allow you to believe anything that suits you or protects the church. It doesn't have to stand up to reason. All the "answers" I've heard have been ludicrous. And in themselves usually contradictory. Leading to more questions than answers. The amount of petrified bullshit is astounding.

And again at what cost. So many live ruined.

So if you could pick out what was the biggest contradiction what is it?


Well the way the process is described, it doesn't sound any different than a possession by God.

"Possession" describes a situation that has something elses actions than your own. Like its the difference between when a person tells you to stop moving and the persons physically stops you form moving.
 
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The biggest? There are too many to pick from. Look here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.html

The someone else's actions in this case would be God's actions.

Many of those arent even contradictions if you just simply read them.

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/morgand03.html

See i can do that too? Just point out an irrefutable contradiction If i cant answer it satisfactorily I will back off might even turn in my Christian membership card because as i said before the bible to me is infallible.
 
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Haha. Just the first one creates more questions that it answers in the first paragraph. That's the kind of crap that's a total waste of time.

I am not going to waste my time arguing with someone whose beliefs are based on faith rather than reason. In addition, you haven't demonstrated to me that you have the capability to think clearly enough to have an intelligent conversation.
 
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Haha. Just the first one creates more questions that it answers in the first paragraph. That's the kind of crap that's a total waste of time.

I am not going to waste my time arguing with someone whose beliefs are based on faith rather than reason. In addition, you haven't demonstrated to me that you have the capability to think clearly enough to have an intelligent conversation.

Fair enough. But you cant see that the link you gave me is full of crappy "contradictions" if you can even call those contradictions and expected me to answer every single one of those without ridicule? Essentially you copped out of the intelligent conversation when you cited that link. But lets end this.
 
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No, YOU copped out when YOU asked for an example. That is a major cop out. If you can't see the contradictions in the list I provided you then really there's my proof of your lack of reasoning.

I have to agree that a few of them sound bogus, but most do not.
 
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No, YOU copped out when YOU asked for an example. That is a major cop out. If you can't see the contradictions in the list I provided you then really there's my proof of your lack of reasoning.

I see some there that i could answer the rest were just laughable. I asked for one. Instead you gave me a list of them that would take me days to do the research and answer. You coudln't even pick one out of that lot. And FYI the first answer from the first contradiction from that site relates to cosmology. Would you even bother to try and understand creationist models of cosmology? The bible is vague on cosmology and i have to read through a whole book and understand all the formulae used.

I have to agree that a few of them sound bogus, but most do not.

It looked like 50% of those contradictions werent worth the time to answer.
 
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Kiddies, this particular discussion is older than the internet, and generally a total waste of time since neither of you will be convinced by the other, especially since neither of you are Hebrew, or Greek scholars. Can I answer every supposed contradiction in the Bible? Yes, and have done so here on several occasions. However, sometimes my responses require an extensive knowledge of Jewish culture and customs as well as a basic understanding of Hebrew usage so that one can refer to original texts rather than translations. Since I have spent many years gaining that knowledge, unless you too are willing to put in that amount of effort, having a viable intellectual discussion is impossible; you just don't have the in depth background necessary. This is not meant as any sort of 'put down', rather to me it's just the same as my trying to have an intellectual discussion with a rocket scientist about his field of specialty. I'd be WAY out of my depth.
 
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Thanks Corwin. That's what we've been saying from the get go. "The" Bible is a mess due to the poor translations, among other things.

And, no I shouldn't have to understand some convoluted theory of creationist cosmology that was created just to explain the Bible with no basis in facts or scientific evidence. It's plain lunacy.
 
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