Good reason

[nobspeople]

In a different thread (listed below), when discussing, in part, if the bible is true, TRANSPONDER said " It is a well known argument that asserting what is in the Bible is true because it is in the Bible is a fallacy. A Lawyer would know that a witness statement is not going to be accepted as true just because he or she has said it. Nor of course rejected without good reason."

The above bolded section caused me to think (not claiming this is TRANSPNDER's assertion): is there good reason to think the bible isn't true?

For discussion: Is there good reason (define what is 'good reason' to you) to think the bible is or is not true*?

*TRUE here being used as 'legitimate, real word of God which was written by men, inspired by God' - this would assume everything written in it is true and agreed upon by God - in other words, nothing written is personal opinion of the writer.



Reference viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38540&start=10

[JehovahsWitness]

Is Noah's flood presented in the bible as some sort of miracle? Or is it presented as an actual event with natural causes?

Noah's flood presented in the bible as some sort of miracle. The bible explicitly states it was God (not just the natural water cycle) caused the flood waters to fall. The bible presents miracles as actual events.

Biblically a miracle is “a great and splendid deed” or “a splendid and conspicuous deed.” this may be because it is a supernatural event or not. Colloquially a miracle is an event that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

Noah's flood meets all the criteria of a miracle. It is presented as something that "surpasses all known human or natural powers", since as you correctly point out ...

...since this much water could not possibly come from natural sources on the planet ... that is easy enough to show.

I am of the opinion that that God does not "violate" his own natural laws he merely manipulates (or perhaps overrides them) . In any case, the bible presents God as the first cause of the flood where he obviously used a "natural" phenonomen (water / gravity...) to achieve his ends. Whether he or not he subsequently used his supernatural powers to eradicate all or some of the geological after effects of the event one cannot say for sure (it wouldn't be the last time God is reported to have returned things back to their previous condition after a miraculous manifestation of his power) but what we can say is an omnipotent God could.

[JehovahsWitness]

... I never claimed that science has disproved any miracle, only that no miracle has ever been demonstrated to have occurred.

You are repeating yourself ... Again you are making a statement (the part in blue) you cannot possibly prove to be true: You are thus making a belief statement. You are perfectly within your rights to state what you believe but unless you are claiming supernatural powers, it is clearly what you believe rather than a statement of fact.

Since you have repeated your claim, I feel at liberty to repeat my objection:

No miracles have ever been demonstrated to have occurred, and no omnipotent gods (or supernatural gods of any kind) have ever been demonstrated to exist.

That is a somewhat grandiose statement to say the least: You cannot possibly prove the above to be true without knowing everything that has ever happened in every possible universe; making yourself the very thing you claim does not exist.



The most someone can say is they are not aware of any such demonstration. Or, since I presume you have or are aware of the contents of the bible, that you do not believe any recorded reports of demonstrations of divine encounters or miraculous events.

To learn more please go to other posts related to


GOD, MIRACLES and ... THE MIRACLES OF JESUS CHRIST

[TRANSPONDER]

What we are getting here is a rather typical fiddled argument of Bible apologetics. The argument logically should be which of the two hypotheses is more logical - that God did a Flood (which is a dubious enough miracle to start with) and then miraculously cleaned up all the evidence to make it look as though he didn't.

Or that there was no such flood.

The logical answer of course uses the least number of logical entities, and rather absurd ones at that. The question would not be to for the doubter to prove that God (supposing fsoa that it existed) would not be capable of making evidence disappear if he wants to.

It's a deliciously cunning apologetic but fundamentally invalid.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #63]

You are repeating yourself ... Again you are making a statement (the part in blue) you cannot possibly prove to be true: You are thus making a belief statement. You are perfectly within your rights to state what you believe but unless you are claiming supernatural powers, it is clearly what you believe rather than a statement of fact.

I thought I clarified this in post 60:

Well, I am assuming happenings on planet Earth since we've yet to find life anywhere else, or identified other universes (or verified any miracles, or the existence of any gods). But you can prove me wrong by giving one example of a scientifically verified (or verified by some valid method that isn't heresay or imagination) miracle, or any demonstration that any of the thousands of gods that humans have invented exist now, or ever did exist (in any universe).

The claim is that no miracle has been demonstrated to have occurred, but I'll amend that to not being aware of any example of this ever having been done because I think that is accurate. But again, give one example of where a miracle has been confirmed and that will disprove my claim. I don't know of any way to prove that no miracle has been confirmed just like it is not possible to prove that no gods exist. Someone who claims a miracle has occurred has the responsibility to demonstrate that this is true. The lack of any such demonstration (that I am aware of) is the basis for my claim. I don't believe gods exist for the same reason ... I've never seen any convincing evidence that they do.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #62]

... but what we can say is an omnipotent God could.

Which is by definition true, and it gives license to anyone who believes in omnipotent gods and miracles to use the god magic explanation for anything that doesn't make sense within the natural laws that normally apply.

Some of these stories also are more easily debunked if the young earth (~6000 years old), literal biblical chronology is adopted. In that case Noah's flood happened only around 4,400 years ago (AIG give 4,359), and without regard to any geological evidence there are many other implications (and god cleanup) that would be necessary and harder to rationalize. For example ... the current geographic distributions of plants and animals (including humans) on Earth, their diversities, archeological artifacts and their state of preservation, etc. ... given only 8 humans and whatever animals could fit on the ark and their landing somewhere in the Middle East only ~4,400 years ago. The actual population of the world at that time was something like 30-70 million (estimates vary widely, but are in the tens of millions), with no indications in the fossil or archeological records that these people were wiped out around that time frame.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates ... population

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10. ... 10.00587.x

All explainable by more miracles of course, but it gets harder to believe such stories when everything is added up and the time frame considered. And why would an omnipotent god choose such a clumsy and messy global flood to wipe out humans in the first place? Certainly not to teach the survivors a lesson as there were none apart from the 8 on the ark. Of course, it is possible that the writer plagiarized the Epic of Gligamesh flood story, which seems a likely possibility given their similarities and evidence that it was first described some 600 years prior to the writing Genesis (Chaldean Flood Tablets). Many Christians dispute this of course, but it sure looks suspicious.

https://www.icr.org/article/noah-flood-gilgamesh/

[nobspeople]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #62]

... but what we can say is an omnipotent God could.

Which is by definition true, and it gives license to anyone who believes in omnipotent gods and miracles to use the god magic explanation for anything that doesn't make sense within the natural laws that normally apply.

Some of these stories also are more easily debunked if the young earth (~6000 years old), literal biblical chronology is adopted. In that case Noah's flood happened only around 4,400 years ago (AIG give 4,359), and without regard to any geological evidence there are many other implications (and god cleanup) that would be necessary and harder to rationalize. For example ... the current geographic distributions of plants and animals (including humans) on Earth, their diversities, archeological artifacts and their state of preservation, etc. ... given only 8 humans and whatever animals could fit on the ark and their landing somewhere in the Middle East only ~4,400 years ago. The actual population of the world at that time was something like 30-70 million (estimates vary widely, but are in the tens of millions), with no indications in the fossil or archeological records that these people were wiped out around that time frame.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates ... population

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10. ... 10.00587.x

All explainable by more miracles of course, but it gets harder to believe such stories when everything is added up and the time frame considered. And why would an omnipotent god choose such a clumsy and messy global flood to wipe out humans in the first place? Certainly not to teach the survivors a lesson as there were none apart from the 8 on the ark. Of course, it is possible that the writer plagiarized the Epic of Gligamesh flood story, which seems a likely possibility given their similarities and evidence that it was first described some 600 years prior to the writing Genesis (Chaldean Flood Tablets). Many Christians dispute this of course, but it sure looks suspicious.

https://www.icr.org/article/noah-flood-gilgamesh/

And for some, unfortunately, this is 'good enough' a reason to believe.
What a world to live in when you can suspend doubt, logic, common sense and a sense of self and blindly follow a 'thing' based on taught (though not entirely believed in) faith!

[TRANSPONDER]

Yes. The name of the game is not what explanation best fits the facts, especially if that explanation does not support the Bible, read literally, cover to cover (though JW recently tried to pass off as metaphor the apparently factual event of Jesus assuring his disciples that they only had to pray with a mustard - seed of Faith and they could have a mountain launch itself into the sea) but to come up with anything that would avoid admitting that something in Genesis is not - according to the evidence - true. Even if it can be done only by the waving of a divine magic wand to manufacture faked evidence that would apparrently disprove the Bible.

No doubt to test the Faith of the Faithful. I have sometimes got the impression that Some Bible - believers think that the more you can keep the Faith in spite of all the evidence, the better God will be pleased.

[JehovahsWitness]

The claim is that no miracle has been demonstrated to have occurred, but I'll amend that to not being aware of any example of this ever having been done because I think that is accurate.

Well you are obviously aware of reports but you don't believe them. I dont see why anybody should care since you cannot prove your assumption is correct.

Kudo for being big enough to amend your statement. I think we can both live with it as it stands.


JW

[JehovahsWitness]

And why would an omnipotent god choose such a clumsy and messy global flood to wipe out humans in the first place?

Why a god does or does not do something is called theology not science. You want to talk theology...?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #69]

I dont see why anybody should care since you cannot prove your assumption is correct.

The burden of proof is on the person claiming a supernatural event has happened. I'm not sure how you would expect me or anyone else to prove that a supernatural event did not happen. We can prove that Noah's flood did not happen within normal natural laws, as it is described in the bible and when, but if you introduce supernatural events like a god cleaning up the mess to fool future geologists (and biologists, archeologists, geneticists, etc.) then you also through out the window any ability to disprove the story.

Are there any reports of miracles that have been substantiated? Is the mere report of a miracle any different in terms of legitimacy than the report of an alien abduction, or a ghost sighting?

Why a god does or does not do something is called theology not science. You want to talk theology...?

Uh ... no. Theology assumes that gods exist.