The Biblical writers stated that they were speaking for God. Since you have no evidence that they were lying, we can take them to be telling us the truth.
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I have a fundie pal who uses this argument a lot. He states since we can't prove them wrong it must be true. When I come up with a nutty conspiracy theory to explain how the ghosts are making gravity and the aliens are covering it up, and thus we cannot find my contact lens, he says he "knows" I'm lying.
The burden of proof is on the positive claim - that is, that they were speaking for God. Good luck proving that.
False dichotomy, you're conveniently forgetting that even being sincere doesn't automatically make them right: they could be mistaken, insane, etc. But actually there is pretty incontrovertible evidence that the Babble has always primarily been a mean to control people and to validate rulers, edited whenever it was necessary/convenient.
The mumbling veteren who frequents the all-nite diner I used to eat at also claims he speaks to god. What are you, high?
What about the very obvious geological evidence that the world was not created in six days nor is it 6,000 years old. This refutes Genesis and its authors and, by default, the claim that this is how god did it. All of which begs the question: Why did god lie to the early writers? Perhaps the answer is that God never spoke to them at all and they were, in fact, a group of very simple people attempting to explain who they were and where they came from.
That certainly is an interesting perspective.
rhutchin, that's amazing. No one has ever pointed this out to me before. The writers of the Bible claimed that they were speaking for God, therefore they must be speaking for God. Faced with evidence like that, I just gotta believe.
David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, said his neighbor's Labrador retriever was ordering him to shoot people. Since the dog talked only to him by mental telepathy, we have no evidence Berkowitz was lying, either. Should we let him out of jail?
I am speaking for God. Since you can't prove I'm lying, you can take me to be telling the truth. :b
Now just calm down, rhetchin. Nobody ever said they were lying . What we said is, they made shit up to try to explain what they didn't understand about the world they lived in. And since they were a superstitious lot with absolutely no scientific knowledge, the best explanation for them was Goddidit. So while you are correct, there is no evidence that they were lying, there is tons of it that they were wrong.
Rhutchin, your argument is so persuasive, I'm blown away! I'm going to go to a church and get saved first thing tomorrow morning! I can't believe I didn't think of it before. We have no evidence that the Biblical writers were lying, so they must have been telling the truth!
I am currently speaking for God: From this point until the day you die, you must walk only on your hands, and only speak in Mandarin Chinese. Backwards. Either prove I am not speaking for God or comply.
Since you have no evidence that they were telling the truth, we can take them to be telling us a lie.
Time to go to bed, and read a bit of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince...
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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