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Hold everything. Some people can believe that they are not sure they believe in God. That is another topic that belongs in a different thread, IMO. I appreciate these lessons in mathmatics and logic lately, but I'd like to drag the conversation back to point of the article: To show that inerrancy is a premise that disallows genuine research to be done. Why? Because a person who thinks the scriptures must be perfect will only look at evidence to back up their claim. Part of the post I made last night, which is #38 in this thread)reminded us that: There are no originals of the text(s) of the Bible to make this claim about. Fundamentalist are making a claim about something that does not exist. No one has seen the original(s), they were destroyed long ago. Get it? I cannot overstate the importance of this point. I'll use VPW's quote here because we are dicussing TWI and its offshoots that adopt the same premises he did for researching the Bible: PFAL book, pg.128: "What students or scholars refer to as originals really date from 430 and later. These manuscripts are not originals [he's right about that]...at best we have copies of the originals. [most scholars say we have copies of copies of copies of copies etc. of the originals]. When I refer to the Word of God, I do not mean a copy or a translation or a version; I mean that Word of God which was originally given by revelation to holy men." Did VPW ever show us these originals? NO. He did not have them. Nobody does. When he refered to "the Word of God" he refered to what he THOUGHT the Word of God must be. The claim of inerrancy is an assumption made about something that does not exist. No one can point to the originals and say, "See these are perfect, without contradiction, they are inerrant." Why? Because no one has them. Cough, cough. They should be embarrassed if nothing else about making such a claim. It is easy to make a claim about something that does not exist. I can claim the "original" moon was made of cheese and no one can prove me wrong. There's no original moon for anyone to examine who might want to prove me wrong. The amazing thing is that I could get some people to BELIEVE my claim about the original moon made of cheese or something else that does not exist. There are always people, given certain circumstances, who will believe (and I was one in TWI and may very well be one again some other time) even the most outrageous claims made by the most sincere and kind people. I suspect we all can think of examples... Topic Disclaimer: What this post is NOT: This post is not intended to destroy anyone's belief in God or the sacredness of the scriptures, or any religious beliefs or lack of them. This post is not an attack on God or a way to dispute His (or Her) existence or non-existence. These ideas IMO would be What this post IS: An attempt to use critical thinking regarding the physical texts of the Bible and to remind everyone of the fact - which most of us already know - that there are no original texts of the scriptures about which we can even make a claim of inerrancy. Most people seem to forget this. Why remind us of this? Because inerrancy is the cornerstone of TWI research and is till being perpetuated in offshoot groups who claim their beliefs as THE TRUTH OF THE WORD OF GOD. This has been proven time and time again to lead people into making bad decisions for their lives and families. That's what I find a problem with. If you want examples, roam around the topics here at GSC and you'll find them aplenty. If some people still want to BELIEVE in inerrancy, fine, they have that choice. I simply ask those people one thing: Please have the courtesy to say inerrancy is your BELIEF, and not say it is THE TRUTH which everyone else must accept. Peace, Charlene Now, back to the "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" shared with us on the previous page...now THAT'S funny!