So do you believe in God?

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If you cannot determine the veracity of the bible in the first place then what good is it for the text within to be consistent with itself? Or for a religious leader to preach their interpretations of the message? I've read many Dr. Suess books...is it reasonable for me to believe that Horton really heard a who or that there is a cat in the hat - it would certainly be consistent with the writings of Suess.

The Bible will always pass your third test. Firstly, it is ambiguous and can be retrofitted to fix apparent inconsistancies. Now that it has become virtually undeniable that the earth is billions of years old instead of 6,000, the interpretation of the word 'day' in the original text is questioned. When common sense and some elementary math show that Noah's ship could not possibly have housed all terrestrial animals the length of a cubit is called into question. The commonly accepted length of a cubit, as reported in Webster's dictionary, is 18 - 22 inches. I've done the math and it don't work.

Secondly, the Bible is a remarkable study of human nature. Man has not changed so much in the last 2,000 years - the Bible's observations of man's nature applied to people then and it applies now. Of course the Bible conforms with current man made reality.

 

the simple facts that nunsbane points out, just goes to show the bibles worldhistory dosnt fit with the rest of the worldhistory, the fact that Christians today has to twist several words in the bible to make it fit today clearly show this.

the 7 days of creation is twisted into periodes of time, do to the fact of the earth being far older then the bibles roughly 6000years. Both jews and chatholics sets the date of creation some 3765 years ago i think a Danish christian scholar estimated it to 3767 in 1500-something.

The creation of Adam in gods image, is twisted into not being a physical image, but an image of the soul, to explain human evolution.

Womens roles as mens servants is quitly ignored or again tried to be twisted as to they are not really under the man. Its BS god directly punish the Eve and all women after her, for the whole fruit tasting.

Rules in the old testemony are one by one being ignored as they dont fit in.

The whole Noah story, is just crazy. there are several billions of land dwelling species, yet they should all fit on one boat in pairs of two...cant be done, seconly the species would die out to do in breeding anyhows. thirdly, a worldflooding would leave masive geological evidence, do to the impact on nature it would have.

and these are just some of the silly stuff in the bible that dont fit with what we know today. Most religions creative myths dont hold with what facts we have today.

 

Since "sola scriptura" is a demand of evangelical Christians alone - and not one of the Catholic Church-, it stands to reason that it is not important for Catholics whether or not the Pope's statements are consistent with the Bible. Remember, the basis of catholic doctrine is the scripture along with the oral tradition as inspired by the Holy Spirit.

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/profess3.html#RELATIONSHIP

No Catholic would take the Bible literally. The very idea is amusing.

 

Nunsbane and Equester:
You both demonstrate a striking lack of understanding of linguistics, history, and the Bible here, but mostly linguistics.

 

I understood your post NOG. Is it unreasonable to ask what good it is for the Bible to contain text which is consistent within itself if the Bible is fictitious in the first place? Or to point out rather obvious reasons why the Bible will always pass your third test?

My response to your post was straight forward enough, the lack of understanding is not on my end.

 

The problem with the concept of a God is that it relies singularly of the faith that the said god exists. This can mean that unless proof is found, some people will never belive in God (I happen to be one of them). There is too much coincidence and chance (or outright storytelling) on most accounts of divine action for them to be concidered as proof in my opinion.

 

That is still inconsistent with evolution, though. Genetic record shows no bottleneck of two humans in the H. sapiens history (whoever ate the apple?). Nor for all the species supposedly present on the ark.