George wrote:
> I have said many times - including the sentence immediately following the
> statement you just caricatured - things such as
>
> "History is important - we can't claim that Christianity would be true
even
> Jesus never lived or if he died in bed at a ripe old age."
But you pick and choose what history you think is important. We can't have
some history be important and other history unimportant just because it fits
our theological perspective better that way. If Scripture does teach false
history, then we should know about it. To allow the Bible to be true while
teaching a false history seems absurd in the highest to me.
>
> You keep misrepresenting my view as a rejection of all historical
evidence. I wish
> you'd stop it.
No I don't. I wish you would listen to what I am saying. I place the
emphasis on the word 'all' in the above sentence. You don't reject ALL
historical evidence but you do reject MUCH historical evidence. You can't
have a true book teach falsehoods. Period. And you keep saying it isn't
teaching the whole truth. That is why you think I misrepresent your position
because you give lip service to some parts of the history being actual fact
but then always allow other things not to be true and then say the Bible can
be true even if it teaches untrue things. If it teaches falsity, then
logically it is false. You feel that some subjective lessons you can extract
from those historically false stories makes it ok for those stories to be
false. (And I am not talking of the parables so let's avoid that
red-herring.)
> > THat can only be debated if one thinks that Jehovah's revelation from
the
> > beginning to the end is true.
>
> You have it backwards. How we decide whether Yahweh's revelation is true
is by
> evaluating the understanding (by which of course I mean more than just
intellectual
> correlation of facts & theories) it provides of life & the world.
And this illustrates why I find your position untenable. If we don't
evaluate it based upon objective, historical fact then we are evaluating it
based upon what we feel, or upon 'auras' that we see around it, or simply
because our parents taught us that it was true and our parents could never
lie or be wrong about such a matter. Bahai, Islam, Shintoism, Buddhism etc
all provide an understanding of life and the world--they are just different
understandings. Why should anyone accept the assumption that the Christian
understanding is the true understanding? A Bhuddist can say: " How we decide
whether Buddha's revelation is true is by
evaluating the understanding (by which of course I mean more than just
intellectual
correlation of facts & theories) it provides of life & the world."
The muslim can say:
How we decide whether Mohammet's revelation is true is by
evaluating the understanding (by which of course I mean more than just
intellectual
correlation of facts & theories) it provides of life & the world."
The Bahai, the Hindu, and the animist can all state the same thing with
straight faces.
Everyone can play this meaningless game of
my-religion-has-the-true-understanding-of-life. Give me evidence that
Mohammet is wrong--objective evidence. Give me evidence that Christianity
isn't wrong--objective evidence. But don't tell me that God inspires
falsehood. If he does inspire falsehood, then IMO he is not to be trusted.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
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