Follow up with Jason 2

Jason replied to my blog about a week ago, which can be found here. I thank him for replying and I apologize for the long wait for my response, its been a busy week for me. Anyway, I will respond thoroughly and this may be a long blog because there is a lot to say. Jason's responses will be in bold, and my replies to those responses will be in normal font. Videos will be included, and I highly recommend taking the time to watch them.

Michael said: "The first and foremost thing I would like to point out is Jason's continuation of everything is based on assumptions, and yet claims that God created the universe and " only the Christian can provide a rational explanation for the presuppositions..."

Michael, that is exactly what I am claiming, only the Judeo-Christian God and view of the universe can provide a rational explanation for the presuppositions we assume to be true. You seem to be in agreement with me here in part. You seem to imply that this view is valid but you disagree that it is solely Christian in nature.

My first response would be on the subject of “rational.” You claim that only the Judeo-Christian god can rationally explain everything (although I am sure even a pantheist will strongly disagree), but what about the fact that you are asserting a magical being as the answer without anything to back it up. When questioning deeper into the nature of God, or how exactly he created anything in the beginning, theists claim they do not know, or God is mysterious. So basically when it comes to the mystery of life, they answer the mystery with another mystery; basically not providing an answer at all. There is nothing rational about that, so no I do not agree with you regardless of what theology shares such view. Just stating “God did it” for every unanswered question is just a simple response for the simple minded.

Can you give me one particular example of a creation scientist pretending certain evidence does not exist?

Yeah, I can name many creationists, especially the ones today who repeat the same lie (among many other lies) that there are no transitional fossils, like Kirk Cameron, Ray Comfort, Lee Strobel, Kent Hovind, Ken Ham do constantly. They know they are wrong, they have been corrected before many times, but I guess lying is okay if you do it for jesus.

Or if that is not enough, lets look at a creationist textbook that repeats the same old lies that have been debunked years ago, such as gaps in the fossil record between fish and amphibians. This website goes through the textbook and presents slides, photographs, and articles going back as far as ten years that totally refute such ridiculous claims.

Without an example of willful distortion of the facts, you’re just throwing sand.

I provided a link to a full library of transitional fossils in my last blog, but even to this day creationists will claim that none exist. If that is not distorting facts, I don’t know what is.

Or how about my favorite when creationists to this day continue to quote Darwin claiming the eye could not evolve, that Darwin said he thought it was “absurd to the highest degree.” But if you read the next sentence it shows Darwin did indeed thought the eye could evolve, and he even explained how. This has been pointed out hundreds upon hundreds of times, I have seen it made clear many times for years, and to this day creationists continue to use this quote mine shamelessly.

Please give me an example of propaganda.

Creationist propaganda: Ica Stones, Paluxy footprints, the Calaveras skull, Moab and Malachite Man, and others. More important is how people deal with these hoaxes. When scientists expose hoaxes, they stop being used as evidence. These creationist hoaxes, however, can still be found cited as if they were real.

Or how about creationist cartoons, seminars, and films that spoon feed their audience that evolution leads to evils like Hitler and racism.

How about, my favorite, Ray Comfort -trying to avoid scientific peer-review and evidence checking- inserting a obnoxious and outright dishonest intro into the Origin Of Species. He also excluded several chapters of the book on purpose. Here is a review of the intro that points out every piece of propaganda in it, including deliberate plagiarism. Here is a blog and another site. Here is a video:

Please give me an example of these distortions and denials, it’s hard to respond to empty claims.

At the Promenade, when I tried to explain what a transitional was, your friend said we never see half this half that. This is not what a transitional fossil is. A transitional fossil is a creature with a mosaic of features of older creatures. When your friend said that there were no such fossils at all, and then I named just one, he never heard of it but he did not have to, since right away he did not accept it without bothering to learn about what it was I presenting. He did not care about the amount of study and research that has been put into it, etc. He just denied it right off the bat. He, and others like him, are living in denial.

Creationists take joy in distorting what science overall is. As I explained earlier, creationist’s cherry-pick evidence to fit their views is the opposite of how science works. They cannot identify one major scientific association, society or organization that endorses creationism as science. Creationists, who want to be taught as science, admit they must allow supernatural forces, they admitted this in court that their definitions of science do not match with the scientific community (like Behe admitting his definition of a "scientific theory" would allow astrology as a valid scientific theory. Give me a break). They have even admitted they use “fringe science" which has achieved no acceptance in the scientific community at all.

[Regarding proof of a judge taking note of creationists ignoring evidence] Should I just take your word for it or can you give an example to support this claim?

When I stated this I was referring to several court cases that settled this debate long ago. One recent one in Dover recorded many deliberate lies from the creationist proponents who later tried to cover their tracks. Michael Behe claiming no tests show how the immune system evolved. He claimed after all his research into the field there was none at all, he went as far as to say the immune system could arise natural was “impossible.” What he did not know was that these questions were already examined 60 years before he wrote a book and has been common knowledge since then. When he was presented a mountain of books, science articles, and peer reviewed tests on the subject to explain every detail Behe demanded for, he basically shook his head and said they were not good enough, simply denying they were proof. This caught the attention of the Judge, who saw this as willful ignorance and intentional deception (which he saw multiple times throughout the trial).

Are you saying evolution is not random? Let me ask you a question: If evolution started over today from square-one would we wind up exactly where we are today given enough time? Would we have all the exact same species as we have living today? If not, then it is random. Evolution relies on mutations, which are random, they are not orderly, that is why they call them mutations. Can you predict when a mutation will occur and what a mutation will do when it occurs? If not, then it is random.

Even if we, humans, did not arise the same as we previously evolved, that does not show evolution as random since life at the restart will continue to evolve regardless. You make it sound as if all the creatures of earth, especially humans, today were determined to be what they are as you perceive them. Evolution does not rely on mutations, it relies on natural selection. Mutation is not the driving force, you left out other forces like genetic drift. Mutations are random yes, but natural selection is the opposite of random. If you feed random inputs into a non-random process, the result is non-random.

Your question is similar to the one asked in this video:

Can I predict when a mutation will occur? I can predict that mutations will occur if you and your wife have a child. There are about 128 mutations in each human zygote, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Our cells will mutate again 30 more times over the course of our lives, and some of these subsequent mutations can be passed on to our children too –usually with no more effect than those we recognize as family traits.

Can you give me an example of the "monstrous absurdities" creationists demand?

How about the Kirk Cameron’s lame Crocoduck, or any other weird combination of modern animals. Darwin explained in detail why we should NOT find anything like this. We’re not looking for a blend of two species that both currently exist. Such a thing would actually go against evolution. Instead, he said, that if his theory were true, then what we should find would be a basal form potentially ancestral to both current species. And in this one case alone, we’ve found dozens of them in a near continuous lineage dating beyond the dawn of the Mesozoic era.

[Regarding creationists will make absurd claims, even if we show it to them they will make excuses to disregard it overall] Michael, you are just throwing more sand without any logical reasoning or examples to support your claims.

At one point creationists were mocking scientists in search for a transitional of a land animal to a whale. They made a cartoon as a parody what the “evolutionists” said at one point existed. When we found just that, and many more intermediates, they never used that cartoon again. The speaker in this video will explain this, keep in mind the speaker is a Christian.

When creationist run out of excuses, some will go as far as saying that all the fossils are fakes.

I specifically stated I would answer it in a later post, because I wanted to focus on presuppositions. The definition of "kind" in biblical terms is primarily defined by the capability for a specific animal to reproduce. Originally, before the Fall, the created "kinds" were definied by reproductive ability. Today, after thousands of years of genetic mutations from the Curse, these lines may have been slightly blurred but are basically the same. For land animals and birds, the created kind most often corresponds to the conventional classification rank called “family". For example, there is evidence that the camel, horse, cat, dog, penguin, and iguana families are each a created kind. Most likely, the coyote, wolf, jackal, and dog would be in the same kind, along with the fox. The lion and house cat would be in another kind, and the llama and camel in yet another kind. Today these species (i.e., llama and camel) look amazingly different, but they seem to have been generated after the Flood from information already present within their parent kind. Lions, coyotes, and dromedary camels were probably not on the Ark but were born to parents within the cat, dog, and camel kinds.

Thank you for providing a definition. What I first must point out is that your definition remains inconsistent with other creationists definitions, but we will ignore that.

CreationWiki states that the definition of "kind" depends on what creature is in question, enabling them to make up any definition they seek to suit their needs, meaning the definition of "kind" is subjective. This enables them to move the goalposts by swapping definitions of kind to suit their purpose.They state that Homo sapiens, a species, is a distinct "kind" but Canidae, a family, is also a kind.

Your argument reminds me of creationist arguments of dogs other members of the family Canidae, such as foxes and African hunting dogs, even though these are members of separate genera and are demonstrably not interfertile with the Canis genus. In this respect, creationists are accepting morphological similarity as evidence of common descent. However, when it comes to animals that also look like canids, such as bears, raccoons, weasels and seals (all placed in the suborder Canoidea by biologists), creationists are not willing to accept morphological similarity as evidence of common descent -another cherry-picking by creationists.

As for cats and lions, one problem for creationists is that panthers and felines are well represented even in the most ancient of Egyptian artifacts. This means that if Noah took only two cats onto the Ark, it would take a super-hyper-caffeinated-electro-mega evolution to explain why we suddenly have modern lions and other familiar felines present immediately after the Flood, and of course that still would not explain why we have feline forms in cave paintings tens of thousands of years before the Flood.

You stated that cats and dogs are different kinds, but in the earlier post I pointed out one animal that looks like a dog (the Aardwolf) but is more related to cats. I can do the same thing with other animals.

As for the Ark itself, there are too many problems for this scenario that it is practically impossible. Since you were able to provide a definition of the word “kind” which I am thankful for, I would like to see if you can provide any method at all that can explain where the water came from or where the water went? That, Jason, will be very impressive and something I would like to see.

Here are just a few problems with the Ark:

*Amount of space: The amount of space provided by the Ark would not come near to enough to hold all species, genus, or even families observed today.

*Food requirements of animals: Some animals, such as Koalas, require very specific diets.
How could these dietary requirements been provided, and who could keep up with such variable requirements on a ship?

*Symbiotic relationships: Several species have a sole source of nutrition.
How did these creatures exist during or after a global flood?

*Social Insects: one pair of ants, bees or termites do not constitute a viable unit for survival.

*Vegetation: Neither most vegetation nor their seeds can survive under salt water. Nor can such vegetation root and thrive in salt encrusted soil (which also largely didn't exist immediately after any flood).

*Food pyramid: how could the predation relationship on the Ark be preserved with only a pair of creatures at the bottom of the chain?

*Humidity: Many animals and plants, particularly those adapted to deserts, would quickly die in an environment of 100% humidity.

*Food storage: How could Noah preserve food in 100% humidity among all those microorganisms, mold, and disease causing agents without modern refrigeration for nearly a year?

*Waste removal: The crew of the Ark would be insufficient to clear the ship of body waste. The stinking hulk would probably kill all life aboard before a few months had past.

*Leakage: A wooden ship of this size would flex due to stress to such a degree that no tar type sealant would work to prevent leakage and eventual sinking within a few days.

I can name 90 other problems (perhaps more) with the Ark alone, but you get the picture.

Michael, are you claiming that scientists have no presuppositions at all? Did you read any of the paragraphs I wrote about scientific presuppositions? Here is a summary of what science presupposes in order to do science: 1) that his or her senses are reliable, 2) that light travels in an orderly way, 3) that the universe continually behaves in an orderly, logical way, otherwise, what good would any experiment be if the universe did not behave in a consistent, logical fashion? 4) There is also induction, which is a fundamental presupposition of science. Please logically show me how science has no presuppositions if that’s what you claim. Just saying the words “science presupposes nothing” does not prove anything.

So we cannot make conclusions because our senses are not reliable? All the more reason to have a skeptical mind like me, however the beauty of science is that it can be tested multiple times from brilliant men and women around the world, eliminated rooms of error.

1) Isn't reliable senses a presupposition for any human endeavor? If one cannot assume reliable senses, how does that bolster the case for a deity or deities and magic as an explanation for the world and the universe we perceive?
2) Assuming that when you refer to a constant speed of light when you say "light travels in an orderly way," what empirical evidence can you offer that would lead one to suspect that the speed of light varies and what physical processes do you propose as a mechanism capable of causing the speed of light to vary?
3) What does "the universe continually behaves in an orderly, logical way" mean? If you mean that we presume that there are physical constants governing how the universe functions, then doesn't repeated and repeatable experiences validate the assumption? If I observe several people jumping off a cliff, and the result is invariably a plummet followed serious injury or death, doesn't that validate the idea of physical constants? And, if a mixing certain chemical compounds under the same physical conditions always leads to the same result, doesn't that validate the assumption of physical laws? Repeating my earlier point, if we cannot assume physical constants, how does that bolster the explanatory power of belief in magic and a deity or deities?
4) Inductive reasoning is a part of many human activities. Are you suggesting that the use of inductive reasoning and forensics in crime investigation, for example, is invalid? If I find a bled out corpse lying on the ground, his throat slit, and a bloody knife lying nearby; if lab tests then confirm that the blood on the knife is the victim's, and the wound is consistent with the type of knife found, are you suggesting that an identification of the knife as the murder weapon is imprudent?

By the way, if the speed of light was different, we would notice it immediately. Some creationists say that light must have been faster in the past -however, this would make the universe OLDER. This video will explain for you:

If God made the universe several thousand years ago, and then made it look much older and every other test we have come up with show without a doubt that it is billions of years old, that would make God a deceiver.

[Regarding creationists cherry-picking evidence to support their view] Michael, it’s hard to respond to sweeping generalizations without giving me an example to respond to.

When you claimed that we both look at the same evidence, I pointed out that is not the case. Biologists have and test ERVs, atavisms, transitional forms, physiological, anatomical, and molecular vestiges, ontogeny and developmental biology, protein functional redundancy, convergent phenotypes, mobile genes, observed speciation, or the myriad methods of dating geologic stratigraphy, nor any twin-nested hierarchy of phylogenetic clades. All of these are peer-reviewed and verified accurate evidence positively promoting evolution. Creationists however ignore these and only cherry-pick the ones that fits their views. Creationists have not presented any peer-review papers, nor do they do any tests. All they tend to normally do it pick up parts when scientists screw up or when the media over hypes incorrectly on science (like Piltdown man) and conclude that the theory of evolution has holes in it. I recall a creationist Kent Hovind claiming at a debate what he thought was the strongest evidence for creation, he replied "I think the greatest evidence for creation is the impossibility of the alternative view [evolution]."

You have never made a case for the Bible being inconsistent. It is intricately consistent from Genesis to Revelation, actually.

“It is intricately consistent from Genesis to Revelation, actually.” That is an incorrect generalization. Biblical scholar Randel Helms, in his book The Bible against Itself, argues that “[t]he Bible is a war zone, and its authors are the combatants.”

“It is intricately consistent from Genesis to Revelation, actually.” That is an incorrect generalization. Celsus (secondary century CE) and Porphyry (third century CE) already noted the discrepancies between the Old and New Testaments and between the various books of the New Testaments. We find Augustine (354-430 CE) trying to defend the Bible against such accusations in one of his letters to Jerome (347-420 CE), by claiming “…if in these writings I am perplexed to suppose that either which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.” The problem with such an apologetic strategy is obvious: it’s a circular argument. This explanation is based on the prior assumption that the Bible is divinely inspired, or inerrant, in the first place.

I agree, there is dispute over Mark 16:9-20 and whether or not it should be included in the New Testament. It is found in many old manuscripts but is omitted in two of the earliest complete copies of the Bible known as the Vaticanus (350 AD) and Sinaiticus (375 AD). However, even if we removed those 12 verses from the Bible, it would in no way change the Bible’s message about sin, righteousness, judgment, salvation, etc., so it is really a mute point. The fact that this is an open fact and even mentioned in the Bible when you read it, shows that there is nothing trying to be hidden.

It may not change a particular message, but it shows that the Bible has and can be meddled with, and we know it has been. Even the book of Revelation warns its readers not to add or remove anything, so even early Christians were aware that the Bible was being meddled with intentionally. Perhaps Revelation was added by its author with an agenda to be the final insertion and have the final word, leaving the author to say whatever he wished. We even know several of the books in the Bible were written by people who claim to be someone they really weren’t. There is a class of books called by scholars pseudepigraphy (literally “false writing”) characterized by pseudonymity (“false name”) in which the author deliberately tries to present his writing as originating from someone else. Are there pseudepigraphical works even in the canonical Bible? The answer is something critical scholars have known for years—an unequivocal “Yes.” Eight to ten of the books of the NT are unanimously considered to be pseudonymous.

You might not think there is proof of supernatural beings, but I undoubtedly do. And you don't need proof, God has already given us all the proof we need. Romans 1 says: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles." Romans 1:20-23.

“And you do not need proof” DING DING DING DING. You just made it clear that you do not require proof. Why? Because your side is based on faith. Faith is belief with little or no evidence at all. This does not cut it and should not be used by grown thinking adults. You said that I think there is no proof of the supernatural but you undoubtedly do have proof. However you and I both know you don’t have any proof. Not once has the supernatural ever been confirmed or proven. Talismans, incantations, elemental component spells, enchantments, clairvoyance and prophesies all consistently fail every test.

To confirm this, James “the Amazing” Randi, a former Las Vegas illusionist well-versed in the angles used in supernatural pseudoscience -has for ten years- offered a million-dollar prize for anyone who can show testable evidence of the things we should expect would also be true if there were ethereal entities influencing things with molecular structures. In that time, he has exposed a many frauds. But to date, no one has ever produced any actual evidence for faith-healing, telepaths, psionics, precognitive psychic friends with astral bodies, past life remembrance, or spectral manifestations of any kind. So where is there any field of study or accurate fact positively promoting a magical creation?

Regarding that bible verse, remember when I said at the Promenade that religions put people in a corner that only their “deity” can help, this bible quote proves just that. Without providing a shred of proof, Paul straight up says “My particular god did it all and you are all without excuse.” How difficult is it to write propaganda like this: you are without excuse and those that can see the lies I am spreading are wicked dumb people, so don’t listen to them or you will be punished.

1. the Messiah's ancestry, that He’d be born of the seed of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3, 22:18)

2. of the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10)

3. of the house of David (2 Samuel 7:12f), etc.

4. The city in which He would be born (Micah 5:2),

5. that He’d come while the temple was still standing (Malachi 3:1),

6. that He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14),

7. that He would perform miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6),

8. that He’d be rejected by His own people (Psalm 118:22; 1 Peter 2:7),

9. the precise time in history when He would die (Daniel 9:24-26; 483 years after the declaration to reconstruct the city of Jerusalem in 444 B.C. This was fulfilled to the very year.),

10. how He would die (Psalm 22:16-18, Isaiah 53; Zech 12:10),

11. that He would rise from the dead (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27-32),

12. and there are many more. All of these prophecies and hundreds of others have been literally fulfilled.

My first remark is that all of these prophecies are irrelevant if Jesus is the work of fiction. I know some Christian and Jews who would argue some of these are not prophecies, but ignoring that, it is not difficult to create and structure a character who fulfills each of these requirements written many years beforehand. Moving on, there are several mundane ways in which a prediction of the future can be fulfilled:

1. Retrodiction. The "prophecy" can be written or modified after the events fulfilling it have already occurred. The Book of Daniel runs into this problem, as all evidence suggests it was written long after its alleged "predictions".

2. Vagueness. The prophecy can be worded in such a way that people can interpret any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradomus's prophecies are all of this type. Vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the prophecies. The Book of Revelation runs into exactly this problem. The prophecies are so vague that they can have easily have many different "fulfillments". For instance, who is the beast of Revelation 13 (whose number is 666 or 616)? Some Fundamentalist Christians insist that it is the pope; Catholics believe it was Caesar Nero; some say it is Mohammad; and yet a few conspiracy theorists argue that it is Ronald Reagan! These symbolic prophecies are meaningless because they can be interpreted to fulfill anything that happens.

3. Inevitability. The prophecy can predict something that is almost sure to happen, such as the collapse of a city. Since nothing lasts forever, the city is sure to fall someday. If it has not, it can be said that according to prophecy, it will. For instance, a lot of people predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, because they saw that it was a very unstable government. Yet we do not think of them as prophets. A prophecy must be something that few/none would have predicted when it was made.

4. Denial. One can claim that the fulfilling events occurred even if they have not. Or, more commonly, one can forget that the prophecy was ever made.

5. Self-fulfillment. A person can act deliberately to satisfy a known prophecy. This is a common method, but also dangerous.

There are no prophecies in the Bible that cannot easily fit into one or more of those categories. For more on prophecies, and why they are not a reliable or credible argument, see here.

Now I will examine the prophecies you presented.

*Genesis 49.10 The tribe of Judah will reign "until Shiloh," but Israel's first king (Saul) was from the tribe of Benjamin (Acts 13:21), and most of the time after this prophecy there was no king at all. Plus, Jesus never was a king. Nor does he control the obedience of the nations. The verse in Genesis has nothing to do with a spiritual king (Jesus). It says a king from an unbroken line of Judah would rule this earthly world. The line of Judaic kings was broken in 586 B.C.E when Jerusalem fell to Babylon, and it was never restored. Not only does this verse say nothing about Jesus, it was a false prediction

*Isaiah 7:14. I already pointed out at the Promenade that the verse does not say “virgin” but young woman.

*Micah 3:1 does not say while the Temple was still standing, it says he will rebuild it.

Isaiah 27:12-13, Isaiah 11:12, and Isaiah 43:5-6 says the Messiah will gather all the Jews back to the land of Israel again. Jesus never did fulfill this prophecy.

*Psalm 22:16. Fundamentalists have always claimed that the latter part of Psalm 22:16 "They pierced my hands and my feet" (which we shall designate as Psalm 22:16b) is a direct prophecy of the crucifixion; with the "piercing" referring to the nails going through Jesus' hands and feet. Although this is not the reading found in the Hebrew Masoretic text, support is claimed from the readings found in a Dead Sea Scroll fragment and in ancient versions of the Bible such as the Septuagint and the Vulgate.

This claim is false, for a few reasons:

The Hebrew Text Behind the King James Version
Despite the claims of its accurate rendition of the original text, the Hebrew equivalent for "they pierced" was not found in the manuscripts available to the translators of the King James Version. Indeed the word rendered in those manuscripts means "like a lion".

The Dead Sea Scrolls
The evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, is ambiguous at best. The word found there, kaaru, has no known meaning and may actually be meaningless.

Ancient Versions

A) Before looking at the readings of the ancient versions, it is important to know some preliminary background information about them first.

B) A careful analysis of the readings given in the ancient versions does not support "they pierced" as the correct translation. Indeed the analysis shows that there were two extant readings in the Hebrew text, one being kaari (like a lion) and the other kaaru. The very fact that translators did not translate the latter word consistently showed that even by that time, the meaning of that word was no longer known.

Use of Psalm 22:16b by the Early Christians
No early Christian writer, including the evangelists and Paul, until the time of Justin around the middle of the second century CE, made any explicit reference to the word "piercing" in Psalm 22:16b in relation to the crucifixion of Jesus although there were ample opportunities to do so.

A consideration of the various internal evidence favors "like a lion" as the correct rendering of the word found in Psalm 22:16b.

We can conclude with certainty that there is no reference to the crucifixion in Psalm 22:16b and with some probability that the correct rea

____________

In order to avoid identifying the wrong individual as Messiah, the Code of Jewish Law dictates criteria for establishing the Messiah's identity (Mishnah Torah Kings 11:4):

"If a king arises from the House of David who meditates on the Torah, occupies himself with the commandments as did his ancestor King David, observes the commandments of the Written and Oral Law, prevails upon all Israel to walk in the way of the Torah and to follow its direction, and fights the wars of God, it may be assumed that he is the Messiah.

If he does these things and is fully successful, rebuilds the Third Temple on its location, and gathers the exiled Jews, he is beyond doubt the Messiah. But if he is not fully successful, or if he is killed, he is not the Messiah."

Over 1,000 years before the attributed birth of Jesus, it was recorded in the Tanach:

• Numbers 23:19: God is not a man, that He should be deceitful, nor the son of man, that He should repent. Would He say and not do, or speak and not confirm?

Psalms 146:3: Do not rely on princes nor in the son of man, for he holds no salvation.

We have 25,000+ archaeological discoveries to support the people, places, customs and cultures mentioned in the Bible to give us confidence that it is a historically accurate book.

Now that is hilarious Jason. Very hilarious.

I already addressed this exact point is my history blog; btw I am still waiting for you make a comment on it. Let me explain why this argument fails. Homer's Odyssey describes the travels of Odysseus throughout the Greek islands. The epic describes, in detail, many locations that existed in history, even mentions kings and different cultures. But should we take Odysseus, the Greek gods and goddesses, one-eyed giants and monsters as literal fact simply because the story depicts geographic locations accurately? Of course not. Same deal with the Bible. Naming sites and such do not make a document overall historically reliable, we do not assume Shakespeare characters really existed. In fact there is much archaeological evidence against the bible that the term “biblical archaeology” has been discarded by professional archaeologists and Syro-Palestinian archaeology has been suggested by some practicing in the field as a more appropriate term.

We have the amazing internal consistency of the Bible, a book written by 40 different authors from 3 different continents speaking 3 different languages over a period of 1600 years that is absolutely consistent from Genesis to Revelation. No human effort could produce that sort of consistency especially on subjects as controversial as heaven, hell, God, the meaning of life, morality, etc.

I have read books and testimonies of dozens of scholars who will say that there are indeed inconsistencies in the bible. I personally do not know how someone can read the four stories Jesus’ bad weekend on how he died and afterwards as consistent. What I find even more interesting the lack of evidence of such stories, such as Matthew says the dead walked amongst the living in the streets of Jerusalem for all to see, and yet not a single person mentions this once (and that is not something people ignore).

//absolute consistency especially on subjects as controversial as heaven, hell, God, the meaning of life, morality, etc// “absolute consistency” hello, there are abut 38,000 different denominations of Christianity, each claiming to know how to correctly interpret Scripture and yet come up with different interpretations and concepts of heaven, hell, the Trinity, morality, etc. I have seen and heard bible scholars, people who claim to have excellent knowledge of scripture, say it is morally right to bash children against rocks. Do you agree? Some Christians say there is no hell, some say there is limbo, some say jesus was not god or even divine, some say only white people are saved, some say witches should be burned at the stake (even to this day in Africa), and so on and so on. Please don’t give me that “consistency” talk.

Furthermore, there are several instances of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible that preceeded the understanding of its time by more than 2000 years in some instances. This further points to the Bible's Divine Authorship.

This is called literal analysis, where you can make anything in a book of fables appear however you wish. You can make the Hobbit look like a scientific book. I recognize your chart, used by Ray Comfort (boy do you take this banana guy seriously), there is a site that refutes each claim, but I will take a swing at it (maybe I will add a few to the article later).

My first note is that this chart has no reference or recorded evidence, not even in history, of the scientific consensus making such claims this chart says. Note, science is an ongoing process to discover new things, but religion always remained fixed, even to the point of making claims that contradict proven facts, such as the age of the earth. According to you and this chart, the Bible is proof that the authors knew about underwater mountains… well what a great achievement that is. The author (supposedly being the all-knowing creator of the universe) did not know about plate tectonics, but would rather say that certain foods are unclean and diseases were caused by demons.

Bearing in mind, accuracy on one point does not show overall accuracy. Job 38:22, for example, says that snow and hail are kept in storehouses. Genesis 2:5-6 contradicts the water cycle. Genesis is still incorrect about a global flood, due to the fact there is not enough water on this planet to flood itself.

Also, I have seen Muslims use this exact sort of thinking to prove the Quran accurately predicted the speed of light or the earth being round. Of course they are wrong, but the BIGGER problem for both Islam and Christianity is that neither of these holy texts produced any scientific breakthroughs of their own. Nowhere in either of the texts will you find a scientific article for space travel, cure for malaria, or anything.

I will bet you Jason in 100 years, if Christianity is still around, Christians will being saying “See the Bible accurately predicts evolution.”

But lets examine each of these.

Flat earth: At no time did scientists claim the earth is flat, it was common knowledge before Isaiah time the earth was not flat. A flat earth was preached by the church, even to this day. We even knew the earth was not flat long before Columbus. Sailors and fishermen would travel off beyond the horizon where they were supposed to “fall off the edge,” but these men were back in time for lunch. There is some suggestion that the Egyptians knew of the earth's spherical size and shape around 2550 B.C.E. (more than a thousand years before Moses). The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who was born in 532 B.C.E., defended the spherical theory on the basis of observations he had made of the shape of the sun and moon (Uotila 1984). If this information was known by educated Greeks and Egyptians during biblical times, its use by Isaiah is nothing special. It also shows whoever made this chart did not do their homework or is intentionally dishonest right at the start.

Free float in space: wrong, the verse says the earth hangs upon nothing. This is false because the earth does not “hang” nor does it appear over nothing. The definition of nothing is non-existent. However, beneath the earth are open space, cosmic dust, stars, and more. THAT is not “nothing.” Even if it means free float, the earth is not “free” since it is caught in the gravitational pull of the sun.

Invisible creation: Atoms are not invisible, if they were we would never observe them under a microscope. Plus, far back as Aristotle, philosophers were already concluding the existence of atoms, but as four elements. Over time, this philosophy changed and got more complex.

Blood as the source of life. Jason, it is a no-brainer that a tribe of people who sacrifice animals on a regular basis would figure this out. It does not take divine revelation to figure this out. BUT, is blood the source of life? What about animals that have no blood or circulation system but are still alive, like the jellyfish? Even plants don’t have blood or a circulation system, but they are alive.

I have heard an argument: if you remove all the blood in your body, you will die and thus the bible is right that blood is the source of life. So what? If I kept my blood but removed my brain I will still be dead. Well, blood is still in me, why am I not alive? What if you remove my ATP, I will still have a blood, brain, heart, and all my vital organs, but I will still be dead. In fact, take away the ATP from plants or bacteria and they are dead. So there you have it: blood is not the source of life.

Plus, if this is scientific foreknowledge or divine revelation, it is a terrible one. Where does blood come from? Your bones. If you do not have bones, then you have no blood. So blood is not the source of life. Last point, go back to the The Code of Hammurabi from Mesopotamia (about 1727 B.C.E., before Leviticus was written) has a phrase which translates, "to pour out his life-blood like water." In the Enuma Elish, blood was an essential ingredient which mankind was created from. Ugaritic and Egyptian sources also note the importance of blood (Meyers 2000)

Flat water ground: Scientists did not claim the ocean floor is flat. It does not take a scientist to figure this out. Ever been to Greece? Perhaps the Caribbean? Or even a reef? You can see an uneven surface, even swimming in such areas will reveal this. A simple observation of islands shows land rising from the waters and going back in. For Joshua, the “roots of the mountains” does not say anything explicitly about underwater mountains, just he root or base of the mountains.

Disease and washing hands: reading the whole chapter, it talks about sacrificing pigeons and masturbation and semen. This is Biblical foreknowledge at its best? If you read the next verse, it tells you how to cure someone by sacrificing two turtledoves or two pigeons. This is not medicine, this is voodoo. It says nothing about viruses, bacteria, or anything.

Water cycles: Attributing a requirement of some special knowledge to account for this verse assumes the ancient Hebrews were idiots. Knowledge of a spherical earth is ancient, and with it no edge for water to spill over. It is theologically reasonable to assume that God is not constantly creating new water (Gen. 2:3). It is easy to see mists rising from waters and rain coming from clouds. A water cycle would be difficult not to deduce.

Wind blows: The jet streams are winds that circumnavigate the earth from west to east. They do not go in a circuit from north to south. They are rather a single ambiguous line that represents wind, ignoring on what it says in interpreting what is left very wide brush search that it might represent any atmospheric phenomenon. But let’s read what it actually says.

The book starts with Ecc 1:1 –“The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.” So you get the idea, these are the words from a preacher in Jerusalem. A few lines later we come to what the creationists claim to have a divine scientific insight. But lets read on to 1:4 –“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever.” This is false. The verse is claiming that the earth abideth forever, when we already know it will not. The earth will not abideth forever; the earth’s lifetime is finite.

Moving on to 1:5 –“the sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.” First of all, the sun is not a “he.” Second, the sun does not “hasteth” anywhere. The sun’s apparent movement is due to the rotation of the earth. The sun is not hasting around anywhere. This verse is suggesting that the earth is fixed and everything else in space moves, hinting a geocentric worldview.

Creationists claim “only the divine creator who created the jet streams would have known of them at that point of time and he decided to include that knowledge in the Bible.” What a fascinating line of reasoning. What else can we use to prove using this creationist’s logic? Well, Tolkien wrote about hobbits almost 100 years before the discovery of homo florensis (a hobbit human), therefore “only the divine creator of the hobbits would have known about them at that time and he decided to include that knowledge in The Hobbit.”

For further evidence of the Bible's Supernatural origin and trustworthiness, please see the link here.

You already gave me his link before. What I can say abut this site already shows my point. It is a site of conspiracy theories written by a religious right individual(s). I’m surprised it does not include Chemtrails, Vaccine Hysteria, Homeopathy, Area 51, a living Elvis, and such. I think I will make a special blog or an article in the near future about this site and other sites like it.

Also, I looked through it and nothing in it shows any supernatural origins. Some example are misleading such as David. According to the Bible, David’s kingdom consisted of a united Israel and Judah along with other kingdoms he conquered—Syria and Hamath to the north; Moab, Ammon to the east; Philistine to the west; and Edom to the south (2 Samuel 8:3-13; 10). Surely such a vast empire would have left immense archaeological evidence of its existence. The date normally ascribed to King David’s reign is 1005-970 BCE. And although no one doubts the existence of King David, there is no archaeological evidence for his kingdom beyond his existence. As archaeologist John Laughlin noted: “[T]here is little in the overall archaeological picture of the tenth century BC that can be connected with David.” Whatever evidence there is points to the fact that the story about the grandeur of David’s empire is a myth of a fictional golden age created by later writers. David’s “vast” empire is a myth. If David was indeed king, he never ruled over the vast regions described in the Bible.

As for the prophecies, as I already discussed these can easily be fulfilled in 5 simple stages. But the site says that the prophecies could not have been invented after Jesus, but it completely backwards: perhaps Jesus was invented to fit these prophecies. Evidence for this can be found here and here. The external evidence is also flawed, this site addresses some of them.

Michael, the Bible makes it clear that this is not an intellectual issue. The Bible makes it clear that God will give you over to a depraved mind if you do not repent of your sin and continue to refuse to believe in God and choose to willfully deny His existence and the forgiveness provided to you through Jesus Christ. Romans 1:28-32 says, "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

I love it when people use this argument, because it shows they have given up on engaging in an intellectual exchange, so they claim it is not an intellectual deal because they cannot step up to this level. Make no mistake Jason, THIS IS AN INTELLECTUAL ISSUE. If your head hurts from thinking too much about this stuff, just say so. If not that, then the problem is that your faith demands that you should not think about your beliefs. This is why Martin Luther said “reason greatest enemy of faith,” because he knew damn well a thinking person can see through the crap. Here is something else he said:

*"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians.”

*"Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason."

*"Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets."
[Martin Luther, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148]

*"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason...Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed."

[Martin Luther, quoted by Walter Kaufmann, _The Faith of a Heretic_, (Garden city, NY, Doubleday, 1963), p. 75]

You can read more quotes from Luther here.

As Dr. House once said “If you can reason with religious people, they would not be religious.”

Finally, that bible quote shows how much you have been fooled and don’t think about this that much. Tell me Jason, how difficult is it to slander anyone how does not agree with you? I rather find it pathetic that people bring such verses to the conversation because it hints they would rather not think but rather just toss around scripture willy-nilly. When a Muslim does exactly what you just did, and fails to convince a skeptic, what makes you think your attempt will be any better? This is why Jason I simply ask for something more. It is not much, while I remain open to all sides I cannot take them seriously until they provide evidence.

For God to give someone over to a depraved mind is a very scary place to be and hopefully something that you seriously consider. That is not a place I want you to be. I can provide you with evidence, arguments and reasons to believe in Jesus Christ but ultimately you won't ever believe in God or the Bible unless God, in his mercy, opens your eyes and mind to come to that place of belief. The Bible says that "God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble", so my greatest encouragement to you would be to humbly come before God and ask Him to show you His truth. Confess your sins to Him, ask Him to save you from hell and put your trust in Jesus Christ's death on the cross as payment for the sins you have committed against God. When you do this, God will grant you everlasting life and begin to open your mind to the truth in His Word.

If you want me to believe in Jesus, first you have to take the first basic step and provide proof of historical facts for him. Remember to leave a comment on my blog.

To claim I never will believe the Bible is disproven by the fact I did once upon a time.

As for the rest, not even you know what you are selling me. You provide me with promises you cannot prove true to begin with, your basically selling me an invisible product. You claim you are trying to save me, you along with the Muslims, Jews, etc. All of them can quit the pleading and just try to provide some sort of proof. I’m waiting.

You say I should humbly come to God, basically you are asking me to accept something exists without evidence and seek it out. By that logic, you can do the same thing with aliens, Big Foot, fairies, etc. This is what cryptozoologists do when they go hunting for the Loch Ness monster. They have no proof it exists, but they spend their lives searching for it anyway.

Continuing to claim you want to save me from hell is feeble. This video at least shows were the concept of hell comes from.

I hope and pray you take the time to consider the things I wrote in this response and don't just respond with empty arguments and criticisms. Why don't we spend some time focusing on Jesus Christ, the Bible, or God, since those are the things that really matter anyways.

I will be glad to move on, I just want to know that my points have been made. You may pray for me Jason, but I will think for you. I have read and considered each of your points, and I have explained why I do not find them convincing. In the future, if you want to convince me, please provide proof.
Thanks for the advice, and if I may, I have my own advice for you: Be skeptical, think about all things. Doubt is okay, doubt is humble. Stop taking things on faith, faith should not be used by grown adults in the 21st century. Use your head.