Raf

Forget PFAL for a second. What do you mean when you say "the Scriptures are inerrant" AND "Are there accuracy issues in Genesis? Yes." If there are accuracy issues, then the book's not "inerrant," so what do YOU mean by inerrant? Mind you, the Bible never claims that IT is inerrant, so I feel compelled to ask why that's a part of your belief. We throw a lot of terms around here interchangeably, and sometimes you'll say something that's precise to how you see things, not realizing that when I READ your words, I process them according to what I think you mean. Does Bible = Scriptures = Word of God? Does inerrant = without error? If not, what does it mean? Genesis certainly gives no indication on its own that it is anything other than a History of the World Part One. When we start replacing the literal meaning of the words with figurative extrapolations that allow us to retain symbolic meaning without contradicting science, do we do damage to the "integrity of the Word"? In my opinion, we do. This is apparently the heart of where we disagree, and I'm comfortable disagreeing there. I could quibble with how you express your view until the cows come home, and it won't make much of a difference to either of us. To me, either there was a Great Flood that covered the whole Earth or there wasn't. I think a plain reading of Genesis indicates there was. But even allowing for that interpretation to be wrong, I see no evidence of a regional flood that would have covered the region with as much water as described in Genesis. So maybe Genesis was just exaggerating about the amount of water. Fine. Except it doesn't say it's exaggerating, so how do we know? Well, we know because when we look for the evidence that we would expect to find if the Genesis account were literally true, we don't find it. So I guess my question is, how literally UNTRUE can Genesis be before we feel comfortable declaring it false? Because the flood story is a whopper. It's false. The story of languages being confused at Babel is false. That's not how languages developed. The Garden of Eden story is false. There was no bottleneck of human development traceable to a single couple that lived 7,000 years ago, or 10,000 years ago, or 20,000 years ago (and anything beyond that would disqualify the Genesis account just for reasons of time). These are false stories. Fables. You can learn a lot from fables. A lot of "truth." But the truth is in the lessons, not in the stories themselves. The ant and the grasshopper, the tortoise and the hare, the fox and the grapes -- all these stories teach us interesting and valuable lessons, but we need not believe they really happened in order to extract the lesson from them. The problem with Genesis, as I see it, is that it doesn't present itself as fable or myth, though it clearly is. So along comes an author who says these stories aren't literal, they're not science, but they still communicate God's word and will. That's nice. But how did he come to that position in the first place? By being confronted with and forced to acknowledge that the stories cannot be literally true, a testimony not to be found in the pages of the Bible itself. Etc.

Not correct. More accurate: Raf's going "Genesis is unreliable. My trust or lack thereof has nothing to do with it. Let's look at Genesis to see whether my statement holds up or not. If A. PFAL's criteria of God-breathed is correct, and B. Genesis is filled with actual errors, then C. Genesis is not God-breathed." T-Bone is rejecting A and C. Rejecting A makes B irrelevant. In my view, it raises the question of what God-breathed means, but that's a separate issue (and one that we cannot possibly hope to settle on a message board). If you want to extrapolate from "Genesis has errors" to "therefore the Bible's not from God," I would say we're missing QUITE a few steps. For one, who said something has to be error-free to be from God? If you want to extrapolate from "since the Bible is not from God" to "there is no God," you are likewise missing quite a few steps. If the Bible is not from God, all that proves is that the Bible is not from God. It does not prove that there is no God, and I am not saying or implying to the contrary. Maybe there is a God, and it's Allah. Or Zeus. Or the back of a turtle. Or the deist God. Saying "Genesis has errors" is FAR from saying "there is no God." On this thread, I have one thesis: Genesis has errors that disqualify it as God-breathed according to PFAL's definition. I even said, right there in the first post, that if you reject PFAL's definition, you can loathe my other conclusions about God's existence without denying there are errors in Genesis. T-Bone's discussion both IS and IS NOT a good fit for this thread. It is a good fit because it seeks an alternative interpretation of Genesis that appears to reject its factual accuracy in favor of its larger Capital-T Truth (T-Bone will correct me if I'm wrong). It's NOT a good fit because it sidesteps the careful way I tried to frame the discussion. It basically says, "Raf, you're correct to say PFAL is wrong about 'God-breathed,' but you're mistaken about there being errors in Genesis." That's where I got confused, which T-Bone then clarified. In responding to T-Bone's views on Genesis, I demonstrated why the alternative interpretation does not satisfy me. But I re-assert, honest people can disagree without being hostile (and I trust neither of us have gone anywhere near the line of hostility, much less crossed it). I made a number of edits to this post. I hope I have not thrown anyone off course in responding to me.

I'm not trying to shove you in any box. I'm trying to address specific points you made. Your post made it appear you believed Adam and Eve were historical people and that the genealogies in Genesis were legit, if not complete. I addressed what you said, not PFAL. Regarding the flood, I addressed what you said, not PFAL. The only way to harmonize scripture and science is to distort one, the other or both. You offered an alternative way of looking at parts of genesis, a way that differed from TWIs views on the same topics. I demonstrated why I do not accept those alternative explanations. PFAL has nothing to do with it. I think the internal evidence of the Bible is that these stories are to be taken literally as history, and it was only when they were demonstrated NOT to be history that alternative explanations emerged. If Adam and Eve were not literal historical figures, then important sections of the Epistles no longer make sense. So it's not a small matter in my mind. But honest people disagree. You're an honest person. And I thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Oops

I would start by observing that there is no word "expanse" in Genesis. The "firmament" was a solid structure (in the storytelling, not in reality). "Expanse" is a word that was introduced by translators who recognized at some point that "firmament" was not an accurate word to describe what's really up there. I have no quarrel with anything else you wrote there, except to say explicitly what is implied: the writer of Genesis either did not know or did not show that he knew any of the truth of what you just wrote. If he did not know it, that's an obvious error. If he knew it but did not show that he knew it, then it's just poor communication. Maybe he had no idea that people would take him literally. There's no way to tell, not knowing who authored Genesis. Taking the text at face value, it's an error. Even the most satisfying explanation is extrinsic to the text itself. In other words, if you had no idea what was up there, and you used only Genesis to inform you, you would be misinformed. I don't see a need to belabor the point, as I don't even see us in real disagreement here. I think Lightfoot and Ussher were justified in treating the genealogies as complete, considering that the lists include numbers. Read Genesis 5. It not only lists names of fathers and sons, but it tells you exactly how old the fathers were when the sons were born. So you can't say "it's an adequate list but not a complete one." Without the numbers, you could make that claim. But with the numbers, you're kind of stuck. Either Seth was 105 when his son was born or he wasn't. Whether it's his son, grandson, or great grandson is irrelevant when you're talking about how much time passed, because the amount of time is fixed by the number. Not sure how anyone can say the date for Abraham is "well-established," considering his existence as a historical figure is not in any way well-established. To what date are you referring? Not sure how this relates to our discussion. Elaborate? Or don't. I'm good either way. Agreed, but it is precisely because the writers of the Bible had no clue that New Zealand, Australia or the Americas existed that they could write "worldwide" with no understanding of the mistake they were making. Even allowing those later usages of the concept of "worldwide" to be figurative (which is easy), the wording in Genesis makes it impossible to treat the Flood as another example of such a figurative use. In Genesis 6:1, God commits himself to wiping out humanity. Not "humanity here, in this particular area." Then we have Genesis 7: There's nothing local about this wording, but even if you grant the text that flexibility (which it does not claim for itself), you still have to contend with the fact that we're talking about covering local mountains -- with 15 cubits of water. So according to Genesis 7, assuming Ararat to be the highest mountain we're talking about, the Flood covered the earth in water up to 16,946 feet PLUS FIFTEEN CUBITS of water. Never happened. The resting place of Noah's ark is irrelevant to the global flood interpretation. It could have come to rest in the Sea of Galilee. The point is, there was no REGIONAL flood that covered Ararat under 15 cubits of water. So whether we're talking about a global flood or a regional flood as described in Genesis, it doesn't matter, because neither ever happened (at least, certainly not in the time frame described in the Bible. I have no idea what happened 10 million years ago, but I think we all agree that the Biblical timeline does not stretch back that far. Genesis 6 does not say God shortened man's lifespan, I don't think. Pretty sure it's talking (in verse 1) about how much time would pass between the time God said "I'm getting rid of these people" and the time the Flood came. So a reasonable place to start the inquiry is NOT to do all the calculations you said, but to ask whether either of us is interpreting that verse correctly in the first place. Trying to figure out HOW God shortened lifespans is not necessary, because we have not established as fact the notion that lifespans were ever so great. Stories from ancient Akkadian and Sumerian cultures are problematic, because it is FROM those very sources that the mythology of Genesis derived. So now, instead of actual errors in Genesis, we transfer our discussion to actual errors in the Akkadian and Sumerian myths and epics that were the source material for the Genesis myths. In "conclusion," I'm not sure what points you were trying to make here, because if you reject PFAL's criteria for what it means to be God-breathed, then you should not be even slightly uncomfortable admitting there are actual errors in Genesis. Yet you do seem uncomfortable with that notion, at least to some extent. There was no "Adam and Eve." There was no Noah. There was no "Great Flood." We can learn quite a bit from those stories, but "history" is not one of the things you'll learn. Astronomy, ecology, geology, etc. are not things you'll learn from Genesis. If this truly is God's Word, then we have to ask ourselves, what is he trying to tell us? I no longer concern myself with that question, but that's my business. If you wish to concern yourself with it, be my guest. :)

:) Ok, now to address the substantive parts of your post, which is difficult because on the one hand you say you reject PFAL's criteria for establishing the God-breathed word while on the other hand you appear to be defending the accuracy of the Genesis account as written. So I'm a little confused, and this time I don't know if I'm misunderstanding you or if you're not being clear, or both. So without shouting I'm right! or you're wrong! I'll just address your points individually and without personal judgment.

No need to get testy. I said I was the one who misunderstood, not you.

I thought you were going to list answers, not books. I could respond with a list of books that refute the above books, but what good would that do. I apologize for misunderstanding you.

The Geer defection took place at exactly the right time to capitalize on the enthusiasm of a believer like me, a newbie who could show he was not beholden to a cult by breaking away from it (right into the arms of the same cult, when you think about it).

Please list at least some of them. Who knows? You might change my mind about something.

Too bad. No charity is entitled to freewill donations. If you want to give to the Timbuktu Poison Ivy Conservation Society, that's your right and your business.

If you are suggesting that you have secretly been atheist all along, I accept your confession with some genuine surprise. If you are suggesting that I have been secretly atheist all along, that makes you a liar, a bearer of false witness, a slanderer. Telling the truth about yourself does not give you license to lie about other people.

Agreed, Rocky. And I shared my "conversion" because of the nature of this forum, the discussions we have and the positions I have taken in the past. If this were a forum of Battlestar Galactica fans, I would not have mentioned it. Of course, a fan of Battlestar Galactica who later changes his mind is never accused of never having been a real fan in the first place.

You've convinced me.

Yes

The shifting of the burden of proof is the age-old tactic of theism, and it is what John is doing here. He asserts that I have no proof for the claim there is no devil, and therefore the position that there is no devil requires faith. Bull. That is a lie. There is no need for me to disprove a proposition for which there is no proof in the first place. It is not the responsibility of unbelievers to disprove Zeus, Allah, Vishnu. Thor, Odin, Willy Wonka, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, leprechauns, fairies, goblins, gremlins, E.T.'s, Peter Pan, Candy Man, the bogeyman, werewolves, vampires, succubbi, drop dead fred, Satan, or God. It takes faith to believe in any of those things. Not believing in them does not take faith. The burden is on the person who believes in those things to prove those things. Continuing to believe in those things despite being unable to prove them takes faith. Rejecting any of those claims does NOT take faith. It is simply an expression of my opinion that you have not met the burden of proof. Remember, the burden of proof always falls on the person making an AFFIRMATIVE claim. "There is no God" is not an affirmative claim. It does not await proof. And no matter how you try to rephrase it, it will never be an affirmative claim. An affirmative claim is one that asserts something exists or happened, etc. "There is no devil" is not an affirmative claim. Your failure to prove your claim is sufficient reason for me to disbelieve it. It doesn't become my responsibility to disprove your claim. You're the one with faith, not I.

Recap: when I said: What I meant was: Agnosticism is a feature of every point on that scale except 1 and 7. Most atheists I have encountered are a 6. Some like to get clever and say "6.9999." The point is, they don't pretend to "know that they know that they know" there is no God. But they're pretty confident on the subject. That confidence may sometimes come off as certainty, but that's because we're all human and we don't stand around qualifying every single sentence we utter. When I said in my opening post on this thread that I say in my heart there is no God, I said it with confidence, not certainty. What I meant was NOT Well, ONE of us is speaking English here, but his name does not rhyme with Ron Eye Yam. Enough double speak and twisting people's words around, John. E nuff.

Thank you, waysider, for pointing out what should have been the obvious. I never said I know God doesn't exist, and if you've paid any attention to this thread, you can see that I had a specific post about it. Which means either that johniam has not really read the thread and all my comments, he's lying, or he lacks basic reading comprehension skills. Since b and c require me to engage in a personal attack, i'll go ahead and hope the answer is a, he hasn't read the thread. Because it would be wrong and against the rules to call someone a liar or an idiot.

The star of the movie bore such a strong resemblance to the writer/director/costar that he almost didn't get the part

Thanks Ron

I have a good idea for a follow-up next year. I'll let you know if it's accepted by the ALS Association.

No, this is AfterMASH

Selective reasoning is one thing. Electing not to reason is another. Vague criticisms are nothing but personal insults in disguise. Why not just say hey, we don't agree, but I respect your right to disagree with me on this and other issues. Either that, or grow a pair and say what you're really thinking.

Two quick points, with the right to comment further tomorrow when I'm at a keyboard: If faith is believing in something you can't prove, then refusing to believe something you can't prove, by definition, is not faith. It takes faith to believe there is something spiritual at work in Ferguson. Natural explanations cover the situation quite adequately. If you assert something on faith, it takes "not faith" to deny it. Does it take faith to deny Zeus, Thor and Odin? No. Nor does it take faith to deny Satan. He doesn't exist. It takes faith to say he does. I reject that, and it does not take faith to do so. Second, there seems to be a defense mechanism built into some Christians that requires them to slander those who once embrace and later leave the faith as never having truly been believers. I guess it terrifies you to the core of your being to recognize that a true believer can truly evaluate what he truly believes and come to the realization that it's a bunch of ancient made up superstitious nonsense. Well, hate to burst your bubble, but that's what happened here. I truly believed, and anyone who implies the opposite, subtly or directly, is a despicable bald faced liar who should be ashamed of himself for bearing falsewitness against his neighbor. Period. If you want to believe that about me, you're entitled, and I can't stop you. But the moment you articulate that belief about me, you will have engaged me on a personal level, and I will respond to you on that level. I hope I've made myself exceedingly abundantly clear.

Yes.