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What is the difference between a terriorist and your girlfriend?
- With terrorist, there is a chance of negotiation.

Archaelogical evidence "has wiped out the historical credibility of the conquest of Ai as reported in Joshue 7-8" - Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1988 p. 24

Daniel says that when Belshazzar was killed, Darius ascended the thrown. Yet, history shows us it was Cyrus the Great.

The Joshua account about the sun. How come no other record mentions this?

Deuteronomy 14:11-18 tells us bats are birds.

For more internal contradictions, how about the census in Ezra 2? Or in Nehemiah 7? As Thomas Paine once said about these verse "What certainty, then, can there be in the bible for anything?" Which is the problem with the Bible, you need PERFECT accuracy to say it is the Inspired Word of God.

Matthew 2:16 talks about Herod's order to kill all the male children in Bethlehem who were 2 and younger. Yet, no where else is this mentioned (not just in the Bible, even among ancient historians of Herod).

Pretty much all the miracles which occurred during the death of Christ are not reported ANYWHERE else in the world. A crowd of dead saints come to life and no one, not even Philo-Judaeus who lived in Jerusalem at the time, see fit to mention this? Or did god make sure they didn't mention it so that the Bible would seem more miraculous?

The New Testament itself was not cannonized until 405 CE! Books attributed to Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Paul, Andrew, Bart, Judas Iscariot, and Pilate are excluded. In the days of the early Church, many Church writers quoted these noncanonical books, yet now...?

No one even knows about the canonization of the Old Testament. Most are considered anonymous by scholars, for a reason. The Pentatauch is attributed to Moses, yet, it contains an account of his death and burial? What the hell?! Not to mention cities and regions that Moses supposedly mentions were not named until centuries after the death of Moses.

You, as a Protestant, don't accept many of the books that the Catholic Church does. The Greek Orthodox Church, for example, includes the Prayer of MAnasseh, Plasm 151 and 3 Macabees!

Mark 16:9-20 do not appear in any of the early copies of this gospel. These forged verses are the only post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in Mark.

1 John 5:7 (which I bet is in your Bible) did not appear in 1 John until the FOURTHEENTH CENTURY! It is missing from all early Greek manuscripts and from the fifth century Latin Vulgate translation.

The New Testament is in GREEK! Jesus spoke Aramaic. Thus, all his words are translated. Do you trust the translators?

We have no original documents. Most of the complete gospels we have are fourth century documents. Copies of copies.

Maybe I'd like to base my life on something other than a single book. Perhaps logic.

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"A mass of tears have been transformed to stones now, sharpened on suffering and woven into slings"
Zack de la Rocha
Rage Against the Machine

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Re: Russia in WWII

"Hey, we butchered Poles! Thats OK."
- DT.

If Hitler had been eliminated, many other things could've gone very, very wrong. Of course, we can speculate all we want...

As for faith, I don't know where I stand. I used to believe, but in the early teens I forgot it at some point.
But I don't want to pass judgement on either side. If I've done so earlier, I'm sorry.

The bible has many good things in it, but also other things that were tailored for the times they were written.

Why Omega wants to debate every single objection people can muster against the bible is beyond me. Nothing good comes out of that. If people "tick you off", as you put it, buy a sandbag. It'd do you a lot of good.

I am curious, since you are the (self) proclaimed debater here, why you would take up this to debate, when some of you retorts have been, 'Because God said it was okay it was moral...'.

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Has something happened in the real worl that has shaken your belief system???

No, I just got ticked off with people making statements that they did not, and apparently CAN not, back up.

I can see them there. Can anyone else?

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

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"A mass of tears have been transformed to stones now, sharpened on suffering and woven into slings"
Zack de la Rocha
Rage Against the Machine

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"How do you define fool?"
"I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination."
- CJ Cherryh, Invader

Let's start with the beginning: There are two version of the creation of humans. One in which Adam and Eve were created together and equally, the other in which Eve came from Adam's rib.

Oh, and I don't think God created bacteria or viruses. Where did those come from?

Here are some cool stuff I inferred from Anthropology class.

1.The Bible says that man and woman are supposed to be monogamous, but there is no biological evidence to support it. Naturally monogamous animals, such as some species of birds, do not have sexual dimorphism. That is, the male and female of those species have the same body size. This is not the case in sexually promiscuous species because of male competition and females choosing which males they like better (sexual selection), and so males that are bigger, has a longer tail, brighter feathers, etc, get selected over time. Gorillas are 50% dimorphic (females are 50% smaller than males), gibbons are 0%, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans are 15% dimorphic.

2.Not only that, although chimp males are fiercely protective of their females, 10% of newborns in one community were sired by outside sources. Studies have also found that 10% of newborns in vastly different human cultures were not sired by the husband.

3. There are two body types for hominids so far: robust and gracile. Robust simply means thicker bones, very thick jaws, and a heavy-set body. Gracile are what humans are. Assuming Adam and Eve were gracile, humans cannot have robust characteristics. Yet it exists. There's something called a saggital crest, a bone formation which runs lengthwise down the skull in some robust species for the attachment of jaw muscles. My T.A. in the Anthro class had a very tall friend who has a small saggital crest. She says it is pretty obvious if you feel his head (she did), and this guy got a scholarship for having it. There was also another guy in my class who says he had a saggital crest.

4. Europeans and people from the rest of the world have differences in the skull. It is possible (and quite obvious if you read the above) that Neaderthals, who lived mostly in Europe, interbred with anatomically modern humans, since there was a long period when they existed together (ending at the appearance of art), although there is still no confirming fossil evidence for it.

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"There comes a time when the mind takes on a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap."
--Albert Einstein, on intuition.

No, there aren't. Chapter one of Genesis goes into no detail whatsoever on the creation of Adam and Eve. It simply says that they were created on the sixth day. Chapter two goes into the details. There can be no contradiction where there is no overlaping information.

As for the rest, pure opinion, having nothing to do with the Bible and any possible internal contradictions.

The premise of the Fall is that good can only be discerned with the knowledge of evil, hence the tree.
So it follows that obedience to God is good (then disobedience is bad);
and the punishment of disobedience is death;
and death is bad;
but Adam and Eve don't know death or evil;
so how can they understand WHY they shouldn't disobey God?

Imagine for a second that you don't know what evil means. God tells you, "don't eat from this tree or you will xyz." (xyz=death) So, since you only know good, how would you know disobedience wouldn't result in good?

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"There comes a time when the mind takes on a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap."
--Albert Einstein, on intuition.

1) This is a flaw in the original writing. Thus, if the Bible can be wrong, it clearly is not inspired by god, for he is perfect.

2) This is a flaw in the copying from the original. Thus, if there can be one flaw, the entire Bible loses its credibility because there can be others.

3) The writers were idiots. Since the Bible is god's word, that means god is an idiot.

My first post, however, which Omega deemed irrelevant, is irrelevant for one reason: it shatters his faith. He asked for internal contradictions because his mommy and his daddy and his preacher taught him the Bible is perfect. I provided him those internal contradictions found through centuries of higher criticism by enlightened scholars. He cannot refute them. If he ignores them, he can maintain his faith in the Bible, faith in god, and thus his entire view of the world. If he acknowledges them, he must try to refute them, will either look EXTREMELY stupid (nothing new there) or have to accept that the Bible is a book. A very good book, but a book. Thus, he'll have to change his entire world view at 15 (which I did, but I'm strong). He will have to either lose his faith in Christianity or become an Enlightened Christian (a contradiction in terms, I'm sure) which means he'll have to accept basic scientific facts and base his belief around logic. It's possible, I assure you, but for someone as devout and yet unintelligent as Omega, it will be a difficult road to hoe. I pity him, I do, but, he asked for it.

Omega, if you feel you are in time of need, just call upon the name of the lord and he shall save you! Or shall he....?

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"A mass of tears have been transformed to stones now, sharpened on suffering and woven into slings"
Zack de la Rocha
Rage Against the Machine