"If you're going to debate religion, especially Faith vs. Non Belief, don't quote the Bible..."
I've definately had enough of this nonsense!
One of the anti-Christian arguments I hate the most is the one that says "the Bible can't prove itself" or "the Bible can't be true because the Bible says so". Anyone with half a brain and a serious curiosity for honest truth should know that it's silly to think the Bible actually and merely says "The Bible is true". The Bible is a collection of statements and works describing human nature and systematically explaining the Truths of internal spiritual reality by means of metaphor and allegory, not a statement written by one man that merely says "this statement is true". It's as ridiculous to say "the Bible can't prove itself" as it is to say "this mathbook can't prove itself" or even "this fictional storybook can't prove itself"--anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant, dishonest, or maliciously trying to make the belief in the ideas of the Bible appear stupid without giving any real argument against them.
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I can understand, in a way, where he's trying to go with this (bear with me for a minute). He's saying that quotes from Biblical scripture shouldn't be summarily dismissed just because they come from a source without proven authoritative backing -- he claims that there is something to the Bible as a whole which shows it to systematically explain...well, something (he calls it "internal spiritual reality") and that even if quotations shouldn't be accepted on the basis of divine authority, they are by some means testable.were a demonstrable way for humans to test the truth of Biblical quotations regarding human nature and "internal spiritual reality", then why not posit that humans wrote the Bible in the first place?
That's just one angle of approach to show how this argument fails. I'm sure you could also easily bring up things like self-contradiction and contradiction with modern factual discoveries.
Gemnlinn : Excellent analysis and translation, man. One thing, though, is that even the most ardent fundie will usually admit that humans wrote the Bible; however, they were humans "inspired by God," which makes a difference.
I'm not really a mathematician, but near as I can tell, math books DO prove themselves. Or rather, a good one will prove everything that it says about how numbers relate to each other. And if it doesn't explicitly prove that to you, will point you to a book which will.
Excuse me, but you´re not right. The Bible is a book developed for a certain set of beliefs of people from a concrete place and time. So, if a person doesn´t believe in that particular conception of God, you can´t quote it, because means NOTHING to them, you have to reason a little your beliefs, or at least try to.
You want to leave the bible out of a religious debate about faith vs no belief? What are you going to use for argument, sock puppets?
If a math book can't be proven than I want no part of it. As far as a fictional story not proving itself I don't think you meant to say that per say as it makes your statement about the Bible (that which the people you are arguing against believe is a fictional collection of stories) less credible. But, if a fictional story countlessly contradicts previous statements which refer to the world it is set in, then I wouldn't think very highly of it.
Story books, at least the good ones, are entirely consistent. Mathematical and scientific textbooks are entirely consistent, and the good ones generally have a foreword from the author explicitly asking the reader to point out any inconsistencies for when they write the next edition. The bible is so inconsistent that it is impossible to discern any overall meaning from it, except for the suspicion that the authors were mostly authoritarian control freaks or arrogant moralistic crusaders.
Anyone with half a brain should see that he's making a perfectly valid point--the Bible never claims to be infallible, never says "I AM TRUE". That's an addition plenty of people are willing to make, but it's not in there.
> "this mathbook can't prove itself"
Hmm, well, within the constraints of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems, it pretty much can.
This begs the question, which bible? KJV? NIV? The Geneva Bible? The Vulgate? The long lost original manuscripts?
It also makes me wonder what conclusions can be drawn from the bible. After all, there have been thousands of denominations over the centuries, all of which insist on the superior, or even exclusive, validity of their interpretation of whichever bible they prefer. A math book does not lend itself to such varied interpretations, although a book of fiction might.
Care to take that thought one step further Jason?
"Fictional storybooks" do not and can not prove that Harry Potter is real or that magic spells are real, although we recognize that the characters and their emotions are "realistic", i.e. much like those of real people. That's why we call them fiction. That's in every way analogous to the bible, which describes human nature ("realistic") and also uses obviously-unreal tall tales (global flood, burning bush) as metaphors or exaggerations.
As for math books, count your toes and fingers, or compute how much fence you need to surround your one-acre garden. When you buy the right amount of fence and it goes all the way around, you've "proved" the math book.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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