I accidentally posted this in the Funnies to start with...I get too confused with the broken forums. You can ignore that thread, hopefully it will be deleted soon. This is the real one!

I had a discussion with Verithrax (I think?) awhile back in one of these threads around here about Christianity. Unfortunately, I got really busy and stopped replying. I did have a lot of fun with it, though, so I thought I'd open up a new thread. I am a fundamentalist Christian (not Orthodox) mainly because I believe there is a chain of evidence which leads most clearly to Christianity. I like to discuss and debate all kinds of related topics, from cosmogenesis to biochemistry to history to philosophy. There are a lot of things I don't know, but I always enjoy the discussion anyway.

So, this is the chance for everyone who ever wondered how any intelligent (or at least, not completely moronic) person could believe in Christianity. Post your questions for discussion here, whether they be about science, historical events, or anything else you feel poses a threat to the doctrines of Christianity, and I'll see if I can try to answer.

If nobody seems to have any major questions, I'll reply myself just to keep myself entertained. My own study followed a Descartes-like progression. I started with 'Why should we believe there is any higher power?' I then moved on to 'what can I know about this higher power?' then 'What about the Bible, why should we believe it's accurate?' Finally, I looked at 'Was Jesus real? Who was he, and what was he?'

If nobody brings up any major questions to begin with, I'll go on into rambling through those questions to see if it brings anything up.

Oh, this will be fun. Let's start with my favourite question to ask fundamentalists of all kinds:

If you received a message (Which you know to be intended as something one must take literally) from God, through a communications channel you knew to be infallible and secured, would you act on it regardless of what you were ordered to do? More specific, would you:

1) Believe something that directly contradicts factual observations (The sky is green, crickets have four legs, the USA will win the next world cup)?

2) Commit murder? What about genocide?

Additionally, do you believe the Bible to qualify as such a channel of communication?

Gotta ask this one.

How much of the bible do you take for truth? And does this include things in which there is scientific proof that directly goes against what the bible says. I.E.:age of the earth?

And for reference I'm fairly athiest but I have taken time to read the bible and I take it as a book of stories. Stories that have good morals to some of them but they are still just stories too me.

Hrm,

One, if God said the sky was green, one would think that the sky would turn green. There are stranger things than the sky turning green, if I recall. If I recall again, there is a moment when the sky does turn green. I'll have to look that up.

But then here is this, why would God say that the sky is green? Depending on most ways to look at it, that's about as a worthless as asking if God could create a rock so heavy He couldn't lift. There is no point in asking that kind of question. All it serves is to divert attention from more important matters as you argue it.

Murder is something a bit iffy here. Using murder as an example, there would have to be a good reason. I'm not exactly sure, but the ruthlessness shown to enemies in the Bible was a way of destroying those who would oppose God. And so His people could settle in land He promised them. They moved from slavery to a place in which all the people would seek to destroy them, so it was a matter of self-preservation.

Take the first half as what I know, take the second half as something I'm not too sure on. I'll look into it a bit later and double check.

Edit: To address Othero's question.

Considering that God created humans and all things, I don't think it would be too hard for Him to age things a bit.

Out of interest, how old does the Bible say the earth is? I don't recall it directly mentioning it.

For the whole seven days thing, it could mean six working days and one day of rest. A day meaning that once a work was finished, He moved onto another day. One would imagine that God, who has seen a couple of thousand years, would see a day pass by in a blink of an eye.

I see where you might be headed with this, could be interesting...

For both of these, I'll give a short answer and a longer explanation of why.

1. Short answer: yes. If there were a means of infallible communication with God, I would believe absolutely anything he said. I know that God is wiser than I am, and that he can see all I can and more, so I would trust his factual observations over my own. I'll elaborate a bit more on the infallible communication itself when I talk about the bible (number 3).

2. Short answer: yes. I believe this is primarily a question about morality. Ultimately, I believe that our very concept of morality came directly from God. So, if God commanded me to do something that went against my own personal ideals, I would believe that his thoughts of morality trump my own, as his scope is much wider. I think this is especially the case when we consider things like death, which from an eternal perspective may or may not be a bad thing, even though it is devastating to those of us who don't know any better.

3. Short answer: no. That's probably not what most people expect to hear from a fundamentalist, but there are problems with viewing the Bible this way. I do believe that the Bible itself is infallible. However, the communication model also includes the person receiving the message. So, even if the source is perfect and infallible, the interpreter is not, and so it cannot be considered a perfect, infallible line of communication. In fact, I'm not sure that any means of communication between God and men could be considered infallible for that very reason.

This is a more complicated question than it sounds. I believe that all of the Bible is accurate in what it is trying to get across. There are some facts that we misunderstand or misconstrue - one example that you pointed out is the age of the earth. I personally am not a Young Earth Creationist (people who believe the world was created only a few thousand years ago). The bible does not anywhere imply that it is, people reach that date by trying to trace geneologies backwards and assuming that no generations are left out. This leads to all kinds of problems, because it's trying to take the facts we were given and extrapolate meaning which was not intendended.

There are other issues that I've heard in the same vein, such as a few verses where the temple is being built where they are building a bowl, but the dimensions do not really add up to make a perfect circle. These are most often cases of people fishing for excuses to discount more important parts of the bible.

The one viable criticism I've heard regarding textual consistency was the question of where Jesus was when he ascended. The bible isn't incredibly clear on that. Still, it is not an important topic that the bible is trying to communicate.

So, in summary, all of the important doctrines are consistent and accurate, but there might be some more minor scribal errors with numbers/etc. These don't in any way detract from the infallibility of the bible as far as a historical reference or as a religious and doctrinal reference.

Let me point out that this is what scares me about fundamentalism: "Go kill your firstborn son, mortal." "Why?" "I said so." "Kay."

But anyway, back to reasonable debate... The bible is full of things that contradict observation and logical thought, like statements about the relative position of the Earth and the Sun, how many legs insects have, "Young Earth", and so on. Do you believe all those instances are true, contrary to the conclusions of scientists and researchers? The result of misinterpretation? Or a mix of both?

One word, Faith, and it's up to you if you want to believe it or not, after all, nothing is impossible right?

This one is taken from Matthew 21:21

"I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will recieve whatever you ask for in prayer."



Well, if you murder someone evil, will you be considered good? No, murder itself is sin, just like Cain when he became the first murderer because of the sin of jealousy.

In the old testemant, there have been countless murders and wars/genocide noted. The victims are sinners and because of their lack of faith and disbelief in God, he decided to let hand them over to Isreal (War/Genocide) or he will do it personally. (Example is Sodom and Gomorrah)

Of course, if you read on, you'll see that God was perfectly justified in his plan. The point is that we don't know or understand what God has in mind. Abraham trusted God and went up to kill his son like God told him. Notice what he says to the men he left before climbing the mountain, though. 'We will return...' Even though he was going to follow God, he trusted that God knew what he was doing, and that he would follow through on his promise to give him descendents through Isaac regardless.



I believe there is a mixture of both. As I mentioned in my reply to Othero, I believe there could conceivably be scribal errors or math errors. Most of these I believe are unimportant (relative position of the Earth and the Sun), misinterpreted (Young Earth), or in some cases correct dispite scientific evidence. While I'm not a YEC, I have heard some pretty interesting arguments on their behalf that scientists haven't quite been able to answer, and so have ignored.

Also, we have to keep in mind that the bible is not a textbook. It was written by ancient people and for ancient people. The truths in there apply to us just as much today as they did at that time, but it is not meant to be a textbook on astronomy or mathematics, which would have made it much more confusing for the people for whom it was written at that time.

How do you justify people in the bible being ordered to kill their own first-born children, or the murder of children in general (Including babies and such which wouldn't be really guilty of anything)?

There is also the difference between murder and killing.

Murder is in cold blood. If I recall, the commandmant was originally "Thou shalt not murder."

Killing is in self defense of yourself or another. More recently, I've noticed Bibles saying "Do not kill."

Always bugged me for a reason.

Edit: Respond to above.

The most common example for the murder of the first born is generally thought poorly on. God did stop Abraham from killing his son, have you ever thought that was part of the plan to see the human's obediance?

Yes, I see that.

I actually got to tip my hat to you. You are able to follow an idea to the very end. Even if I believe the idea is wrong that is an amazing virtue. To be able to go I believe what this says just because of faith is amazing to me

Mhm. What about the lesser-known story of Jephtah? Jephtah asked the Lord his help in slaughering the Ammonites, vowing that the first thing he saw when he came back would be sacrificed as a burnt offering. First thing he sees? His daughter. Which ends up a burnt offering. God obviously has no problem with child sacrifice. God also kills plenty of children himself, personally, in various instances. And it seems obvious that the numerous ethnic cleansings done by Israel necessarily included children.

I've got a Genesis question, its something I've always wanted to ask other people like myself.

Geneologies, individual people, or socitieis?

Meaning, when it says adam lived for 980 years (I think is the number) who then had a son who lived 500 years who invented architecture, are these people or societies/kingdoms created by these people?


Its a very new/western question because in Jewish sources there is no difference between the two. (For example, Haman becomes the entire nation of Amalek, and the entire nation of Amalek becomes Haman for all intent and purposes.)

Yes ofcourse, this must be a story about child sacrifice! This is no way, could even possibly remotely be a lesson on being carefully what you Vow, and sticking to your word, no ,no , it must be about child sacrifice, which the bible says 3 times explicitly is not allowed. This story has no bearing on the modern practice of Jews in courts to say "I affirm" instead of "I swear", nope none at all.

Ah yes, that one.

I'm thinking that the reason why his daughter was accepted as an offering was because he had made the oath to the Lord. He made an oath to the Lord and refused to break it. He was likely greatly saddened, and probably never made an oath like that ever again. The punishment was inherent in the act. He lost his daughter.

Regarding the society and such, I have no clue on that one.

It always fasnates me how people seem to forget that the bible is full of good people and bad people, good kings and bad kings, and that for various reasons sometimes the wicked prosper. Just like the real world, and no real effort is ever put in to see why.

Fundis just say "G-d is too complicated" and critics just say "Look hypocrasy!"

Egypt had the chance to let God's people go. They said "No." God may have harden Pharoh's heart, but Pharoh could have let them go anyways. God doesn't force people to do things. More or less, God says "If you do or don't do this, X will happen." A lot of the time, it's their own darn fault. Much of what goes on is a test of sorts, or serves to teach.

Quoth the "good" book:



Jesus then goes on to provide an exception to this rule.

Human sacrifice is relatively unusual (But apparently, acceptable and quite possibly a common practice) in the Bible, although animal offerings are common (There are whole chapters about how to make them in Leviticus). Instances of people being stoned for lesser crimes are very very common however; I can go on all day about them.