Raf

No. No he did not. And he TOLD us as much when he said he no longer believed the words Holy or Bible on the cover of the book. From that point on, every. single. thing. he. dud. was. a. self-serving. con.

For those who ached for an end to this thread: You're welcome.

That really is the key question, isn't it? But there seems to be passionate agreement that WHATEVER God-breathed means, PFAL does not qualify. How do we proceed? Define God-breathed first [a scriptural term, not one invented by a cult]? Or propose a standard first? Either way works with me. One makes a right turn and the other makes three lefts.

Stepping back: by what standard do you reject PFAL as "God-breathed," however you define that term? And are you willing to apply that same standard to the 66 books that make up the Holy Bible?

It's part of it. Maybe a jumping off point. But it's more complicated than that. Because all that establishes is that PFAL must be wrong about what it means to be God-breathed. If so, by what standard can anyone reject PFAL as God-breathed? And what happens when you apply that same standard to the Bible? For example: The history of the Khazars in Eastern Europe as presented in JCOP [borrowed with proper attribution from Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe] is demonstrably and dangerously false. It's presented as history, but it's not. Not by a longshot. Does the fact that PFAL contains a discredited "history" disqualify it as God-breathed? If so, hold the Bible's beer!

no, you're good. thx

The alphabet probably makes no sense to you. That does not confer upon me the burden of explaining it to you.

To be abundantly clear: NO SUCH THING IS BEING IMPLIED. Now I have to discuss the difference between this batcrap stupid extrapolation of my point abd my point itself. Because that's what Bolshevik does in every @#$!ing conversation. I am tired of clearing up every misconception that he introduces in response to everything I post. E flipping nuff

Bolshevik obsesses over definitions and alternative definitions and esoteric definitions to which he and only he subscribes in order to make a reasonable duscussion impossible. By the time you're done chasing his red herrings the original point of the thread and conversation are long lost.

Bolshevik, Everyone understands my terms but you. Stop derailing the thread. If someone says they didn't know VPW was a sex predator, the burden would be on me to prove that person DID know. Otherwise the best I could do is demonstrate that the person could have or should have known. Which has nothing to do with scripture being God-breathed. Again you are derailing the conversation with a tangent to satisfy your obsession with defining the terms of a discussion to the point of making said discussion impossible. You're not being targeted. Your bulls hit tactic of derailing every damn thread is being called out

Your comment appears to be directed at me and I am pretty sure that is in error

Stop derailing the thread

The game is you babbling to derail the thread and me refusing to participate in it. Stop. Derailing. The. Thread.

I can't believe this needs to be said to someone with a measurable IQ, but I'll try: The role of the Bible in the development of Western Civilization is not in any way, shape or form dependent on the Bible being "God-breathed" by any definition. It is therefore IRRELEVANT to this discussion, which, I assume, is the reason it enthralls you so much, because there is NOTHING you enjoy more than exploring an issue to death that is completely UNRELATED TO THE TOPIC AT HAND. While we're at it, "God-breathed" in the sense of the Genesis account of the creation of Adam, is not related to God-breathed in the discussion of inspiration of Scripture, but since you so thoroughly enjoy derailing conversations so that we exhaust ourselves chasing your red herrings to your satisfaction, it has to be discussed here and now. Stop. Derailing. This. Thread.

I rest my case.

Bolshevik, I'm going to try to be polite here: You derail threads with a skill that puts Mike to shame by trying to reduce everything to definitions that YOU accept, many of which have NOTHING to do with how the rest of the world defines those terms. It is exhausting and has derailed EVERY SINGLE conversation you and I have had. I'm not putting up with it again. "Rebuild all of society" to escape that I just wrote? That's absurd. And I will not have this thread derailed before it's even had a chance to start just because you aqre determined to make every thread about your inability to draw a straight line from one concept to the next. Enough. If you don't understand the points being raised, sit back and enjoy the conversation among those of us who do. Somebody had to say it.

I tended to use PFAL's definitions of the characteristics of God-breathed scripture, as they were the only ones for which we all had a common frame of reference. Whether a scripture can be "God-breathed" and not have those characteristics is a whole other issue. I think if anyone is going to make a case that a work is God-breathed, it's incumbent on that person to define it in a way that's falsifiable. You don't get to just say "It's God-breathed and you can't prove it's not." You have to prove it IS. That's how burden of proof works. If you make an affirmative claim, the burden is on you to prove it. Give PFAL credit for defining the characteristics of the God-breathed word, even if you don't agree with it. PFAL does not live up to those characteristics. Neither does the Bible. If you have an alternate set of characteristics, I'm happy to entertain them. If you have a definition of God-breathed we can explore, I'm happy to explore it.

Originally posted in the Absent Christ thread... There is no basis for rejecting PFAL as God-breathed that does not apply equally to scriptures that have been considered God-breathed since there was a canon.

This is a meta-reply that is kind of off-topic but speaks to the larger point of Mike's thesis, which hasbeen the undercurrent of multiple threads. I'll make the point here, but it A. deserves its own thread and B. that thread belongs in Questioning Faith or whatever we're calling the Oh Shinola corner of GSC these days. The point is this: There is no basis for rejecting PFAL as God-breathed that does not apply equally to scriptures that have been considered God-breathed since there was a canon. That is why you'll never get through to Mike any more than Richard Dawkins, Penn Jillette or I will ever get through to you.

PFAL has errors and contradictions. So what?

"You're blaming the Bible for slavery..." No, I'm not. Not what I said and cannot be inferred by what I said.

Mike, you're welcome to leave, you're welcome to stay. I realized after my change of heart that there was probably a shred of difference, if that, between the arguments we had and the arguments they had when the first believers had the audacity to suggest that Paul's letters were God-breathed. And those arguments no doubt preceded the endless debates about what gets in the cannon [sic] and what gets preserved as The Word of God. No doubt some wiseass completely dismissed Matthew and Luke for their painfully obvious plagiarism of Mark, and Mark got raked over the coals for knowing as much about Palestinian geography as Craig Martindale knew about celibacy and humility. And I'm sure lists of contradictions were compiled. How dare you put Paul's writings on the same level as Moses? Or John's writings on the same level as David's? Funny thing is, I now put them ALL on the same plane, but not because they're divine. I put them on thecsame plane because they all contain massive errors that disqualify them from being anything other than the scribblings of ignorant men who could have guided us away from people owning each other but instead made damn sure cheeseburgers were not on the menu. Maybe throw in that rape is a violent crime against a woman, not a property crime against her husband or father. But hey, go ahead and keep dodging and distracting and refusing to call an error an error. You won't be the first or the last. They did it with the 66 books, with the Quran, with the Book of Mormon. JWs refuse to admit their errors. It's the same old lie.

Like as of fire

Cut me some slack. I saw the movie one time. Ignore what I previously wrote. Wrong thread. New clue coming up.

It's fun, but best if you start from the beginning to get a sense of the character development.