Is the Bible Trustworthy?

[TagliatelliMonster]

no.

Necessarily "yes".

You said the flood occurred and the reason we don't see the evidence of that in the geological column, is because god "renewed" the earth and stuffed it with history (oil fields, fossils of creatures that never lived,...)

You said the flood occurred and the reason we don't see the evidence of that in the genetic record, is because god "fiddled" with the genes to magic the bottleneck away, and in the process stuffed it with an evolutionary history that never occurred.

This is even beyond "covering tracks". This is covering tracks + planting false evidence.


There really is no way around that conclusion, if those things are what you are claiming.

If he does nothing after the miracle, there is no reason to think there is evidence that the miracle took place.

False. In case of the flood, the earth would have a flood layer in the geological column, and it wouldn't have this "fake" history in it. The genetic record would also show the predicted universal bottleneck, instead of having this "fake" evolutionary history.

If you demand evidence, God would have worked extra hours to get the evidence in.

Nope. IN the case of your version of the flood, not only did he spend extra work making the evidence disappear, he even spend even more extra work on planting false evidence.

no, he is not a liar.

He is. He planted false evidence.

Again, this is the equivalent of strangling someone and then setting up an elaborate scene of a car crash to make it look as if the person was crushed by a truck in a car accident instead of being murdered by strangulation in some apartment.

and here I need to reiterate myself AGAIN:
producing the evidence that you demand would force God into working extra hours.

Au contraire. YOU are the one claiming he DID extra work, remember? You claimed that after the flood he "renewed" the earth by making the flood layer disappear. You also claimed he did additional genetic engineering work to make the genetic bottleneck disappear. Not only that, on top of this extra work, you claimed he also spend even more additional work on planting false evidence to show a fake evolutionary history that supposedly never occurred.

Why should he bother to do so?

Ask yourself that question.
Why do you claim that this god not only did additional work to cover his tracks, but even more additional work to plant false evidence that points to a fake history?

Last Thursdayism does not wort as a comparison.

Yes it does. You're simply not comprehending the comparison it seems.

Jesus had to die, I think. Otherwise humans could not be justified before God, this is my interpretation of the Bible. since Jesus didn't die last week, your Last Thursdayism does not work.

See this is you not understanding the point of the analogy
The analogy concerns the style/type of argumentation you use to "defend" the idea of "creating things with fake history".

Clearly it's going over your head.

... for us to draw a lesson from it.

That's your invention. Your way of trying to rationalize the obvious incompatibility between the evidence of reality on the one hand and the bronze age stories you are hellbend to believe on the other.

Scientists keep preaching that we will lose many many species if the global temperatures continue to rise. The evidence for this claim?

Errr.......... we ARE losing many many species TODAY as a direct result of climate change.
And we see many many species struggle to survive as a result of climate change.

You did not show that God cannot exist.

Neither did I try. It's an exercise in futility to try and demonstrate the non-existence of anything.
The burden of proof is on the positive claim. In this case, that god exists and did stuff.

even you can't even disprove this, you cannot disprove the existence of miracles, either.

Ditto. The burden of proof is the positive claim. It's your job to demonstrate that miracles (can) occur, if that is what you wish to claim. So far, all you shared were stories that fly in the face of evidence.

To illustrate the sillyness of your "objection" here: try and disprove the existence of fairies, extra-dimensional rabbits, centaurs, Thor and Asgard, dark elves, dragons, bigfoot, alien abduction,....

You can't do it. Because the burden of proof is on the claim of existence and proving a thing does not exist is virtually impossible, unless it is an internally inconsistent thing like a "married bachelor".

Biut if you demand extra evidence for every single miracle... you forse God into working more, just for you.

I demand evidence for any claim. Claims of miracles or gods don't get a free pass with me. Such claims are held to the exact same standards as any other claim being presented to me.

I require evidence in order to be rationally justified in accepting a claim.
I call that "being rational".

Are you asking me to give your specific religious claims some special privileged status?

God performing miracles (with no evidence) is not the same as a crime committed by humans (wiuth the evidence). You can't compare these two.

Ow come on man.... it's like you have no clue on how analogies work.
I didn't compare your god miracles to crimes. I compared them as actions that leave evidence behind after which a cover up occurs by planting fake evidence to not only hide the action in question, but even deceptively make it look like something completely different happened.

You're putting words in my mouth.
I said: it was in order to pursue other purposes: such as installing different languages... that he needed to change genetics.

Genetics has nothing whatsoever to do with language.

Please explain the purpose of planting inactive DNA and ERV's in all species to make it look as if they all evolved from a common ancestor.

as I said: the flood layer is nothing you can expect from God swapping the earthes. The old one perished according to 2 Peter 3:5-6.

And "the new one" holds a fake history that leads to the conclusion that all life evolved from a common ancestor, with humans evolving some 200.000 years ago and sharing an ancestor with chimps some 7 million years ago. Yes. The point exactly.

This is the equivalent of strangling someone in an apartment and then setting up an elaborate scene that would make any forensics research conclude the person was crushed by a truck in a car crash.

but that's extra work you demand from a God

Again: no. The opposite in fact. YOU are the one who's claiming he did the extra work (for making it look like we all evolved). THAT is what would require extra work. He had to go out of his way to make earth and genetics look like that. This is your claim.

He uses the same features for chimps and humans and other animals.

No. Cars use the same features. They don't fall in a nested hierarchy. It takes a special kind of care to make things fall in a nested hierarchy. You're also completely ignoring all the "features" of inactive DNA (that does NOTHING), which shows the exact same nested hierarchy.

For example: chickens have inactive DNA to build teeth. A (fake?) remnant from their ancient dino ancestry.

That's a good explanation of why genetics between the species are similar.

Not even remotely. Word shares features with Excel and Outlook. The code however does not fall in a nested hierarchy. The codebase of Word does not include "dead code" for managing an inbox to handle mail, for example. If microsoft engineers would do such things, they'ld be fired on the spot for being incompetent. You'ld also require an additional 200 gigabytes of free diskspace to accommodate for all that unnecessary baggage.

You should read up.

This is my explanation of the similarities.

And it's clearly based in ignorance of the subject matter.
The genetic evidence for evolution is not at all about "shared features". It is about the pattern of matches. Of BOTH features as well as inactive DNA as well as "genetic scars", like ERV's.

And that pattern is a nested hierarchy. A process like evolution can only end up in such a pattern.
Whereas in a productline with "shared features", such a pattern is the very last pattern one would expect. In fact, as said, any engineer who would design products like that, would be fired on the spot due to being an incompetent engineer or just a troll or even saboteur. It's horribly inefficient and wasteful.

Ask yourself the following questions to "test" your "explanation" of "similar features":
- why don't we see mammals with feathers?
- why do humans have goosebumps?
- why is the human mouth to small to house all the teeth (most need to have their wisdom teeth removed)?
- why don't we see any non-mammal with hair?
- why do chickens have inactive DNA to build teeth?

See in things like cars and smartphones, we DO see the equivalent of "mammals with feathers".

If you would find a mammal with feathers, then evolution theory is falsified. Do you realize that?

PLEASE, I don't have much time, don't put words in my mouth.

I'm not doing that.
I'm simply taking your claims, putting together and forming the inevitable logical conclusion.

 

[Earthtank]

And let's not forget that the early spread of Islam was largely through the sword

Fake news but i would not expect most people here to actually spend time looking up facts and history.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Fake news but i would not expect most people here to actually spend time looking up facts and history.

I have looked it up. There are of course Muslim objections and there are Christian overstating historical facts. But both religions spread largely by the sword at one point in their history. But since you claim it is "fake news" surely you can find reliable sources that say this is not the case.

 

[thomas t]

Necessarily "yes".

You said the flood occurred and the reason we don't see the evidence of that in the geological column, is because god "renewed" the earth and stuffed it with history (oil fields, fossils of creatures that never lived,...)

You said the flood occurred and the reason we don't see the evidence of that in the genetic record, is because god "fiddled" with the genes to magic the bottleneck away, and in the process stuffed it with an evolutionary history that never occurred.

This is even beyond "covering tracks". This is covering tracks + planting false evidence.


There really is no way around that conclusion, if those things are what you are claiming.



False. In case of the flood, the earth would have a flood layer in the geological column, and it wouldn't have this "fake" history in it. The genetic record would also show the predicted universal bottleneck, instead of having this "fake" evolutionary history.




Nope. IN the case of your version of the flood, not only did he spend extra work making the evidence disappear, he even spend even more extra work on planting false evidence.



He is. He planted false evidence.

Again, this is the equivalent of strangling someone and then setting up an elaborate scene of a car crash to make it look as if the person was crushed by a truck in a car accident instead of being murdered by strangulation in some apartment.



Au contraire. YOU are the one claiming he DID extra work, remember? You claimed that after the flood he "renewed" the earth by making the flood layer disappear. You also claimed he did additional genetic engineering work to make the genetic bottleneck disappear. Not only that, on top of this extra work, you claimed he also spend even more additional work on planting false evidence to show a fake evolutionary history that supposedly never occurred.



Ask yourself that question.
Why do you claim that this god not only did additional work to cover his tracks, but even more additional work to plant false evidence that points to a fake history?



Yes it does. You're simply not comprehending the comparison it seems.



See this is you not understanding the point of the analogy
The analogy concerns the style/type of argumentation you use to "defend" the idea of "creating things with fake history".

Clearly it's going over your head.



That's your invention. Your way of trying to rationalize the obvious incompatibility between the evidence of reality on the one hand and the bronze age stories you are hellbend to believe on the other.



Errr.......... we ARE losing many many species TODAY as a direct result of climate change.
And we see many many species struggle to survive as a result of climate change.



Neither did I try. It's an exercise in futility to try and demonstrate the non-existence of anything.
The burden of proof is on the positive claim. In this case, that god exists and did stuff.



Ditto. The burden of proof is the positive claim. It's your job to demonstrate that miracles (can) occur, if that is what you wish to claim. So far, all you shared were stories that fly in the face of evidence.

To illustrate the sillyness of your "objection" here: try and disprove the existence of fairies, extra-dimensional rabbits, centaurs, Thor and Asgard, dark elves, dragons, bigfoot, alien abduction,....

You can't do it. Because the burden of proof is on the claim of existence and proving a thing does not exist is virtually impossible, unless it is an internally inconsistent thing like a "married bachelor".



I demand evidence for any claim. Claims of miracles or gods don't get a free pass with me. Such claims are held to the exact same standards as any other claim being presented to me.

I require evidence in order to be rationally justified in accepting a claim.
I call that "being rational".

Are you asking me to give your specific religious claims some special privileged status?



Ow come on man.... it's like you have no clue on how analogies work.
I didn't compare your god miracles to crimes. I compared them as actions that leave evidence behind after which a cover up occurs by planting fake evidence to not only hide the action in question, but even deceptively make it look like something completely different happened.





Genetics has nothing whatsoever to do with language.

Please explain the purpose of planting inactive DNA and ERV's in all species to make it look as if they all evolved from a common ancestor.



And "the new one" holds a fake history that leads to the conclusion that all life evolved from a common ancestor, with humans evolving some 200.000 years ago and sharing an ancestor with chimps some 7 million years ago. Yes. The point exactly.

This is the equivalent of strangling someone in an apartment and then setting up an elaborate scene that would make any forensics research conclude the person was crushed by a truck in a car crash.



Again: no. The opposite in fact. YOU are the one who's claiming he did the extra work (for making it look like we all evolved). THAT is what would require extra work. He had to go out of his way to make earth and genetics look like that. This is your claim.





No. Cars use the same features. They don't fall in a nested hierarchy. It takes a special kind of care to make things fall in a nested hierarchy. You're also completely ignoring all the "features" of inactive DNA (that does NOTHING), which shows the exact same nested hierarchy.

For example: chickens have inactive DNA to build teeth. A (fake?) remnant from their ancient dino ancestry.



Not even remotely. Word shares features with Excel and Outlook. The code however does not fall in a nested hierarchy. The codebase of Word does not include "dead code" for managing an inbox to handle mail, for example. If microsoft engineers would do such things, they'ld be fired on the spot for being incompetent. You'ld also require an additional 200 gigabytes of free diskspace to accommodate for all that unnecessary baggage.

You should read up.



And it's clearly based in ignorance of the subject matter.
The genetic evidence for evolution is not at all about "shared features". It is about the pattern of matches. Of BOTH features as well as inactive DNA as well as "genetic scars", like ERV's.

And that pattern is a nested hierarchy. A process like evolution can only end up in such a pattern.
Whereas in a productline with "shared features", such a pattern is the very last pattern one would expect. In fact, as said, any engineer who would design products like that, would be fired on the spot due to being an incompetent engineer or just a troll or even saboteur. It's horribly inefficient and wasteful.

Ask yourself the following questions to "test" your "explanation" of "similar features":
- why don't we see mammals with feathers?
- why do humans have goosebumps?
- why is the human mouth to small to house all the teeth (most need to have their wisdom teeth removed)?
- why don't we see any non-mammal with hair?
- why do chickens have inactive DNA to build teeth?

See in things like cars and smartphones, we DO see the equivalent of "mammals with feathers".

If you would find a mammal with feathers, then evolution theory is falsified. Do you realize that?




I'm not doing that.
I'm simply taking your claims, putting together and forming the inevitable logical conclusion.

As the quote function takes too much time, let me answer you in bullet points

1) According to your logic, a creator God MUST NOT create one more language which would require a change in the underlying genetics. Why? He would “plant false evidence”.

2) According to your logic, God MUST NOT replace a flooded earth (see 2 Peter 3:5-6) including all the mess caused by the flood. Why? If he did so, you cry “planting false evidence” “what a liar”.

No, He MUST leave the mess so that everyone must notice a flood layer and a column.

If a land lord replaces a flooded house for the sake of living in a clean one, no one cries foul. But if God does the same replacing the earth, many atheists call God an evil liar. What a bias. What double standard that you use.

3) According to your logic, God MUST NOT give humans a history so that they could understand their own bodies better. Why? See above.

4) According to your logic, in case of a miracle like letting water become wine… God would have to work to let the evidence disappear that the water is one hour of age. How? (that’s your mystery)

5) If there is a miracle, there is evidence for the miracle, also. This is what you imply when you say “planting false evidence”. Why? This is your biggest mystery. You just brought up the analogy to murder. Why this analogy? Why is newly transformed wine that was water some seconds ago any different from the wine that you buy in a shop? This is all inside your fantasy. Only atheists put up the rule that there MUST be evidence for every single miracle. The miracles they don’t believe in.


6) According to your logic, the evidence left behind after a miracle is similar to the evidence left behind in case of (human) murder. Your evidence to back this comparison up making it valid? None.

7) God giving an appearance of age is like last Thursdayism, you say. Even if Gods salvatory plan takes more than a week.

8) You say disproving God would be futile, yet you say miracles should not be believed to exist.

9) Anyone claiming there are no miracles don’t have the burden of proof on them, since it is not a positive claim.





I say no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no and no to your assumptions 1-10.


I never said “You also claimed he did additional genetic engineering work to make the genetic bottleneck disappear.” I never said he had this intention. You’re putting words in my mouth. Again. I said, he did additional genetic engineering to let a new feature appear. As a side effect, the bottleneck is likely to disappear, I think.


You did not understand my claim that scientists base their claims of rising temperatures doing harm to the number of living species…. on the fossil record among others.

These are the stories that God wanted to convey by the fossil record, I assume. This alone would justify putting fossils into the ground. Oh no, this is not God “faking the evidence” for a young earth. This is God loving people explaining them how they should treat planet earth.

Nested hierarchies? Useful to save work for the creator, I think.


No, I won’t disprove the existence of fairies and so on …since they are not relevant enough.

You actually can prove a negative: “there is an elephant in the room” for instance can be easily shown wrong. However, you can’t disprove a God, neither can you discard the existence of miracles.

Link between languages and genetics, see here:


Language and genetics.

 

[Moses_UK]

Where is the evidence for God? Where is the evidence for the truth of Islam?

There is evidence, lots of evidence. But what counts as evidence depends on a lot of factors. This is a basic truth about the way reason and rationality works and it is just as true about religious claims as it is about scientific (or mathematical) claims.

Imagine you are a scientist living in a world that is bitterly anti-science. The masses are taught from a very young age to distrust science, to look down on scientists, and to view science itself as charlatanism at best, a violent death cult at worst.

In this world, of course, there is no institutionalized science education. The vast majority of people have zero exposure to science in the classroom growing up. This results in a severe lack of scientific literacy in the general population. But the ignorance runs deeper than that because even universities are anti-science. The vast majority of university professors and cognoscenti worldwide view science with snarky contempt.

The only way to study science is in small, underfunded, understaffed independent schools scattered around the world. To study at those schools requires great personal and financial sacrifice on the part of students, which means that very few legitimate scientists are trained relative to the size of the population.

Now, for some reason in this world, the public believes that burning forests is great for the world’s climate.

As a scientist, you know better. You tell people that actually burning the world’s forests will cause an environmental disaster. Most people laugh at you and ignore everything you have to say given that you’re just a kooky scientist. Others are more respectful and tell you that you have the right to believe whatever you want as long as you don’t try to impose your beliefs on others by, for example, insisting that they’re true.

But there are some science skeptics who enjoy trolling scientists. So they start a dialogue with you. And they demand evidence. How do you know burning forests will lead to disaster? Where’s the evidence?

Now, you might be inclined to explain to them about greenhouse gases. But, of course, these people know absolutely nothing about chemistry or physics or biology. You could try to explain to them how CO2 traps heat, but they have no idea what chemical elements are, let alone CO2. You could tell them about how trees trap CO2 and give off oxygen and how living things like humans need oxygen, but then they would ask you for the evidence of all that. So you might try to explain some basic chemistry, but of course, that is not enough because ultimately chemistry as a body of empirical knowledge relies on molecular physics. So you’ll have to explain that and justify why that is epistemically reliable. And when it comes to understanding molecular physics, working knowledge of nuclear physics and even quantum mechanics is required, and on and on.

Obviously, these skeptics are going to understand very little of anything you might explain, let alone assume that what you’re saying is true. After all, these people had doubts about your initial claim as a scientist — there is nothing that would make them less doubtful about any of the other claims you would have to make about the supporting science that justifies that initial claim.

Now you might tell them: look, if you want to know with certainty how I know burning forests is a bad idea, you need to get a thorough science education and then do some basic experiments and then go onto advanced studies, etc., etc., and then you will have the evidence you need.

To which the skeptics laugh uproariously.

The lesson here is that what counts as evidence, i.e., compelling evidence that justifies belief requires a gigantic body of contextual knowledge. In discussions about science, that body of contextual knowledge is simply assumed on the basis of scientific authority. People trust scientists to know what they’re talking about, so they won’t press them too far to justify every single thing.

But when those same people talk about God, the skepticism is turned up to a whole different level, because religion has no intellectual or epistemic authority in the secular world we live in.

There is plenty of evidence for God, evidence far more compelling, consistent, and “objective” than anything in empirical science. But two things impede people from recognizing this.

First, contextual knowledge is not there. Islamic education is nonexistent for most of the world, including Muslims. Instead, Muslims worldwide are educated through secular models of learning. Obviously, that will impact Muslims’ ability to intellectually arrive at the conviction in the existence of Allah and the truth of Islam.

And if that weren’t bad enough, the second impeding factor is a very active anti-religion, the anti-Islamic current that permeates the culture, the media, the academy, etc., etc. The state of iman and conviction of Muslims around the world is severely impacted by these two factors.

The evidence for Allah and the truth of Islam comes from different sources that mutually reinforce each other. This is the way any body of knowledge works, including scientific knowledge, as the example above was meant to show. A skeptic can undermine any specific point of knowledge but they can do this in virtue of ignorance of the larger context or paradigm or episteme or plausibility structure or web of belief (or whatever other philosophical/sociological terms you want to use).

 

[danieldemol]

Islamic education is nonexistent for most of the world, including Muslims.

That constitutes a failure of an omnipotent God right there, that even amongst God's allegedly willing servants God can't see to it that a decent education system exists.

As for your comparison of Islam to science;
It is precisely into such an hostile environment that science came and triumphed. By comparison according to you even in the Muslim world Islamic education has not triumphed.

In other words even in a receptive environment Islamic education has not triumphed whilst in a hostile environment scientific education has triumphed.

The reason for this is clear - the claims of science are demonstrable and open to change where proven false. By comparison the claims of Islam are not demonstrable, hence even in societies which practice anticompetitive means of selling Islamic education it has still failed.

 

[Moses_UK]

That constitutes a failure of an omnipotent God right there, that even amongst God's allegedly willing servants God can't see to it that a decent education system exists.

Your lack of knowledge of Islam is so apparent. We (Muslims) believe in free will which means humans decide how they wish to live their lives. They can choose to believe or neglect Islam. The doctor prescribes but can't force the patient to take the medicine. We are judged on our actions and choices in life. The whole purpose of this world for us is that we leave our egos and submit to the will of Allah.

As for your comparison of Islam to science;
It is precisely into such an hostile environment that science came and triumphed. By comparison according to you even in the Muslim world Islamic education has not triumphed.

The world we live in has been conquered by western, secular, caucasian lapsed Christians. Daniel at this present moment in time it's your empire that is ruling. Empires have come and gone and each dominated and subjugated the populations into believing their ideologies and principles. Like the Romans, greeks, Persian, Arabs, Egyptians, etc all had an ideology.

In other words even in a receptive environment Islamic education has not triumphed whilst in a hostile environment scientific education has triumphed.

So if any country in the world decides to teach non-secular scientific, western philosophies, would be disastrous for them. The western institutions would cut funds and even topple the leaders no matter what faith they practice. I don't need to teach you your history Daniel.

The reason for this is clear - the claims of science are demonstrable and open to change where proven false. By comparison the claims of Islam are not demonstrable, hence even in societies which practice anticompetitive means of selling Islamic education it has still failed.

No. You have more power and influence to dictate your beliefs onto others. We Muslims were the ones who gave the cave, uncivilized barefooted Europeans the knowledge they have now. You're too arrogant and ignorant to see past your false way of life.

 

[danieldemol]

No. You have more power and influence to dictate your beliefs onto others. We Muslims were the ones who gave the cave, uncivilized barefooted Europeans the knowledge they have now. You're too arrogant and ignorant to see past your false way of life.

Cite your source that Europeans lived in caves until the coming of Islam Mr "you're too arrogant and ignorant"

 

[Moses_UK]

Cite your source that Europeans lived in caves prior to Islam Mr "you're to arrogant and ignorant"

Have you learnt history in school? have you ever heard of the term dark ages?

 

[danieldemol]

Have you learnt history in school? have you ever heard of the term dark ages?

So you have no source that says Europeans lived in caves till Muhammad bought Islam. Gotcha

 

[Moses_UK]

So you have no source that says Europeans lived in caves till Muhammad bought Islam. Gotcha

A simple search on google

Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe - Wikipedia

 

[danieldemol]

A simple search on google

Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe - Wikipedia

And where in that link does it say that Europeans lived in caves until the coming of Muhammad?!

 

[danieldemol]

So it turns out that Europeans were not barefoot till Muhammad bought Islam, and did not live in caves till Muhammad bought Islam, but supposedly I'm the one who is too arrogant and ignorant.

 

[paarsurrey]

It means the text has to be interpreted, and contemplated, by each of us, for how it relates to our lives. The priests are not meant to stand between ourselves and God.

So, one has no methodology to discern right from the wrong, worth the name, I understand, as to what verse of Bible is to be taken literally and what is to be taken symbolically, it is with the Christians to decide rather on whimsical basis, and then pronounce that the Holy Spirit has guided them. Right, please?

Regards

 

[PureX]

So, one has no methodology to discern right from the wrong, worth the name, I understand, as to what verse of Bible is to be taken literally and what is to be taken symbolically, it is with the Christians to decide rather on whimsical basis, and then pronounce that the Holy Spirit has guided them. Right, please?

Regards

Everyone decides for themselves what is "right or wrong", already. And then experience verifies it for us. Religions can offer us ideals for consideration, and can offer us ways to practice the ideals that we choose to accept. But beyond that, they just become another human entity trying to control us for their own benefit, and should be resisted.