In most religious discussions with Christians, the Christians claim that the
only possible reference (witness) is the bible - "When all things began the
word already was..." (1 John 1 et al), and once you accept this premise you
are expected to lose any argument as "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and bring to nothing the cleverness of the clever" and "Divine folly is
wiser than the wisdom of man, and divine weakness stronger than man's
strength" (1 Cor 18...25). This presupposes that you, the atheist, will
attempt to confound the "missionary" using non-scriptural and rational
argument. As the Christian position has been developed over 1,500 odd years
they reckon that the chances are that you will lose any debate on these
grounds.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, most Christian apologists claim that
the bible was written by a single mind, that of god, and that it is
indivisible. So why not turn their logic on its head and silence them for a
little while they decide you are not worth "saving", never mind debating
with.
After thousands of years of development, all modern legal systems apply the
following tests. In a court of law, any witness' testimony has to be
accepted without query or quibble until said witness can be proved to have
lied, either through self-contradiction, or through the balance of opposing
evidence and/or testimony. Once a witness can be proven to have lied, all
statements made by that witness must be disbelieved unless corroborated
through some independent means. This is why all adversarial and
inquisitional systems attempt to establish cracks in the edifice presented
by witnesses. If a witness is to be discredited, t'were best done through
his own words.
But, why should we apply different standards to biblical/religious
discussion than to the disputes of humans? Let us examine the bible with
this in mind. ***All*** we need to do in order to nail this debate is to
prove that, the Christian god tells lies in order to remove the bible from
the debate. Despite claims in Hebrews 6:18 (NIV God did this so that, by two
unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have
fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.)
which says that it is impossible for their god to lie about two things, but
leaves it open for him to lie about other things, or Titus 1:2 (NIV a faith
and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not
lie, promised before the beginning of time,) which says that God does not
lie at all. Is it possible to prove that their god does tell lies? Let's try
1 Kings 22:18-23 (NEV).
'Listen now to the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord seated on his throne,
with all the host of heaven in attendance on his right and on his left. The
Lord said, "Who will entice Ahab to attack and fall on Ramoth-gilead?" One
said one thing and one said another; then a spirit came forward and stood
before the Lord and said, "I will entice him." "How?" said the Lord. "I will
go out", he said, "and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets."
"You shall entice him", said the Lord, "and you shall succeed; go and do
it." You see then, how the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all
these prophets of yours, because he has decreed disaster for you."'
The jewish god, Yahweh, apparently had a penchant for putting lying spirits
into people, because a less detailed, but similar, incident is related in
Isaiah 37:7 (NIV Listen! I am going to put a spirit in him so that when he
hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will
have him cut down with the sword.'") and 2 Kings 19:7 (For reasons known
only to Yahweh and Bible inerrantists, the wording of these two chapters,
Isaiah 37 and 2 Kings 19, is identical.) The chapters end with an account of
Sennacherib's assassination by his own sons, but that is only incidental to
the story. The important thing is that Isaiah, as did Micaiah, depicted
Yahweh as a god who dealt with troublesome men by putting lying spirits into
them to deceive them and lure them to their deaths. How can these stories be
reconciled with the claim that it is impossible for God to lie?
There are other stories in the Bible that are inconsistent with the claim
that God cannot lie. Yahweh, in Genesis told Adam not to eat the fruit... or
he would die that day. Did he? Yahweh unconditionally promised that he would
without fail give all of the land of Canaan to the Israelites but then
failed to make good his promise. Yahweh also promised that he would
establish the throne of David forever and then failed to make good that
promise. All such stories as these are devastating to the claim that God
cannot lie. Lest you begin to think that this is confined to the O.T., in 2
Thessalonians 2:10-11, we read, "And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of
the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." Is there a difference
between sending delusions so that people conveniently believe lies and
telling lies directly?
So the gods of the Jews and the Christians does tell lies. Or, at best, is
not above using lies to achieve his ends. And, the bible was allegedly
written by their gods. All of it. So, no more "witness" without external
corroboration. External corroboration that they cannot find, as it most
certainly does not exist. Will the Christians please retreat in confusion,
at least until they discover external evidence to argue from. The bible is
no longer an acceptable source. Unfortunately, Christians are not rational
and probably won't. After all, they have been brain scrubbed by the contents
of this book. If they really hassle you, suggest that perhaps the entire
bible is a lie, written by the father of lies, and the "true" gods have
given up on humans due to their gullibility in falling for this line...
TheHermit
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
> Of Eva-Lise Carlstrom
> Sent: Friday, December 04, 1998 4:59 PM
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: Re: virus: Ho Ho Ho-Hum
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, 4 Dec 1998, sodom wrote:
>
> > So - my Uncles - Father Bob and Father Ray Roh, have started
> e-mailing me
> > quite a bit. Seems they stumbled onto some of my rather, um,
> uncomplimentary
> > religious writings on the web. They have avoided direct
> confrontation so far
> > though, and I have not let on that I know how they found my web
> presence. As
> > I am always starting philosophical trouble, and these men are pretty
> > intelligent, I am drawn to contest their belief systems. Of
> course I do not
> > expect any kind of "pseudo-victory" over my favorite topic of
> discussion, I
> > am hoping to come up with enough questions that cannot be
> answered by well
> > studied Catholic priests. From a memetics standpoint - I'm
> curious where I
> > can sow seeds of "questioning" in their minds. I'm pretty tired
> of the old
> > arguments (correct though they may be) I need something new
> that they have
> > probably not seen before. I do care about these guys, so I dont want to
> > cause any family aches.
> > If anyone has ny idea, I'm listening.
> >
> > Bill Roh
> > Sodom
>
> For this line of thinking, I highly recommend reading _The Mind of the
> Bible Believer_; it points out in fine detail many places where the Bible
> has important and, according to the author, purposeful, inconsistencies
> that induce a particular kind of mindset in the Christian, including an
> unwillingness or even inability to focus on those same inconsistencies.
> If you're going to try to point them out, you should know where they are,
> how they work, and what you're up against.
>
> I don't know whether I agree with the author's claim that the Bible's
> memetic structure was consciously designed that way, and for the purposes
> of current theology and philosophy, I don't think it matters (though for
> history of course it would). But I cannot find fault with his analysis
> of the complex interactions of Christian Gospel memetic structure with
> the human mind.
>
> The book's somewhat difficult reading, but I think it's worth the trouble.
>
> --Eva
>
>