Prove God Exists...

Originally posted by Ushgarak
What the heck is this? Do you know anything about what you are talking about? Academic history is exceptionally sceptical about its sources, and the older they get, the more sceptical they are. There is an entire branch of academia dedicated towards trying to work out what parts of ancient historians like Tacitus and Livy can possibly be corroborated in any way- because they are so completely unsourced. The truth is the total opposite of what you are saying here. NO-ONE is taking these things at face value. Scepticism is the default position. The scepticism the Bible gets is the same as due to any source.

There is also shedloads of evidence for evolution in general, and 'humans came from apes' is a made-up thing ignorant people say. It's abut common ancestors. You're just flailing here.No-one accepts anything because of fancy language. Evolution is accepted because it is scientifically backed in demonstrable, evidenced ways.

It is true that all ancient texts are heavily scrutinized for accuracy and authenticity. I'm not debating that. However, secular texts are given far more weight in legitimacy than religious texts, in my opinion. Most undergraduate history classes do not discuss textual criticism of the original sources. Ancient history is presented as undisputed fact in these classes. The life and teachings of Plato or Aristotle are given more credence than the authors that penned the Old Testament. In fact, many probably give more credence to Homer's Iliad than Moses (credited for writing the first 5 books of the Old Testament).

In sum, I believe there is a bias when secular scholars attemt to offer criticism of religious texts and its original sources.

Generally the supernatural aspects of historical stories do get discounted, and the religious bias gets considered in the writing (similarly to how national allegiances get considered). The Bible is partly used as a historical document, but it is very much seen that there are a lot of fictional aspects, because if isn't solely meant as a historical work, it is meant as a spiritual one, and there isn't any evidence for the supernatural claims.

In that way it is similar to the Iliad. Although I would say the Bible gets a lot more credit as a history than the Iliad.

The only parts of the Bible that secular historians would consider somewhat reliable in mapping a legitimate history of the Hebrew people would be the list of kings, including the reigns of David and Solomon. Also considered would be the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people. They consider most other parts myth and legend.

Originally posted by Tattoos N Scars
It is true that all ancient texts are heavily scrutinized for accuracy and authenticity. I'm not debating that. However, secular texts are given far more weight in legitimacy than religious texts, in my opinion. Most undergraduate history classes do not discuss textual criticism of the original sources. Ancient history is presented as undisputed fact in these classes. The life and teachings of Plato or Aristotle are given more credence than the authors that penned the Old Testament. In fact, many probably give more credence to Homer's Iliad than Moses (credited for writing the first 5 books of the Old Testament).

In sum, I believe there is a bias when secular scholars attemt to offer criticism of religious texts and its original sources.

Maybe in very poor quality undergrad classes, but that's nothing to do with proper History. Even people studying Classics or Literature rather than history know that we can't even be sure Homer existed, let alone treating the Iliad as some sort of historical work, which I am not aware of anyone doing (people trying to find the 'real' Troy were considered nutjobs throughout the centuries).

Plato and Aristotle were philosophers, not historians. Any credence in what they say is simply based on people agreeing with their logic. That's nothing to do with historical sources.

Meanwhile, there is very serious historical study attributed to the authorship of the Old Testament Bible- I'm not a classicist but even I have run into that- the P source and the J source etc, likely writing centuries apart. The Moses thing is given no credence because there's no evidence for it.

Originally posted by Star428
Take the articles in links below for example:

http://www.creationsciencetoday.com/

http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/creation.shtml

They both make a clear case for creation being a much more plausible explanation for our existence than evolution but the fact the links has "Christianity" or "creation" in them means that atheists will automatically dismiss them as invalid sources. Yet they expect us Christians to blindly accept what some scientist says about evolution being a so-called "fact" just because that scientist uses a bunch of fancy-sounding terms and uses some other scientist as a source to back it up. Of course, that scientist he uses as a source also uses another scientist as his so-called "proof" and so on and so on. LOL. No actual proof is ever shown. They just expect people to blindly accept it as fact "just because". LOL.

At this point it's like watching the "Little Engine That Could" struggle and struggle and you just want the thing to succeed for the ordeal to be over.

You chug on.

Originally posted by Tattoos N Scars
The only parts of the Bible that secular historians would consider somewhat reliable in mapping a legitimate history of the Hebrew people would be the list of kings, including the reigns of David and Solomon. Also considered would be the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people. They consider most other parts myth and legend.

So, which parts.of the Bible would you like to be considered reliable, and which parts do you accept would at least need one more source to corroborate?

Originally posted by Bardock42
So, which parts.of the Bible would you like to be considered reliable, and which parts do you accept would at least need one more source to corroborate?

LOL. He doesn't have "to like" certain parts of the Bible to be "considered reliable". There is quite a bit of proof that the entire thing is:

http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/b_proof.shtml

Christianity is NOT a blind faith contrary to what many people think. It is the only religion in the world which can prove itself. There's tons of different types of proof-historical, scientific, witnesses, etc,- that verify it is based on fact.

At this point I'm not sure you understand what "proof" even truly means.

Want proof?.....
Jesus Christ has existed. 👆

Originally posted by BeyonderGod
Want proof?.....
Jesus Christ has existed. 👆

😂

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Prove it.

Originally posted by BeyonderGod
Discovery channel already did. 👆

One's a flesh and blood mortal human, and the other is a deity/son-of-a-deity/ancient fairy tale. I fully believe that only one of those may have actually existed.

Originally posted by BeyonderGod
Discovery channel already did. 👆

Fight your own fights.

The fact we have to put up with this troll is downright sad.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
One's a flesh and blood mortal human, and the other is a deity/son-of-a-deity/ancient fairy tale. I fully believe that only one of those may have actually existed.

So you're one of those heretics that things Jesus was spirit-only? g_grin

Originally posted by Bentley
So you're one of those heretics that things Jesus was spirit-only? g_grin

Sounds like he means Jesus was just a man, not divine in any way.

Originally posted by Bentley
So you're one of those heretics that things Jesus was spirit-only? g_grin