Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Oh, I've "read a word" of the bible. The question is: Do I have to read *all* the words.

wait that was a joke right?
Seems like logical, common sense....that if you want to truly criticize something you need to understand it.
Reading all of it would be a good start.
I mean, could I have criticized that comment if I only read 3 words of it.

It's really quite simple. If I make a statement like "the bible contains inconsistencies", clearly it's possible to make that statement without having read it from beginning to end. It would suffice if I had found one clear inconsistency somewhere in the bible. Likewise, in order to reject homeopathy it's enough to know how the underlying principle supposedly works. If you come to the conclusing that this underlying principle is nonsense, reading a 1000+ page volume about the intricacies of homeopathy - which are all based on that underlying principle - won't change your mind either.

What I said was that the bible can be used to support any claim. Maybe I should have added the qualifier "literally" or "virtually". It's obvious that these old texts contain passages that are open to interpretation - you only have to find a few of these passages to know that there is a basis for the claim I made.

^ I'd appreciate if you stopped building straw man arguments against me. 

I am applying the scientific method. I'm not making any claims that would require me to read the bible in full.

Maybe you're really not able to understand. In any case, we made our points.

The scientific method is also about being specific.I already demonstrated that there are some claims you can make about a book which don't require having read it in full. I would love to hear a specific answer from you for a change, instead of generic accusations and ridicule.


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - July 18 2010 at 05:32

^ I have no intention of making any claims about the bible which would require me having read it in full - so I have neither the time nor the intention to read it. It's not a single book anyway - it's a collection of documents from different authors (as you already said yourself). I'm interested in knowing more about these books, when they were written, by whom they were written and how they were modified by scribes etc.. I get that information from scholarly analyses of the book, not from reading it myself.

Incidentally: It's not even a requirement for Christians to have read it in full.

And BTW: There's hearsay, and there's expert witnesses. I think that scholars who have been studying the bible for all their live and are teaching at respected universities (respected by Christians, too) qualify as experts. And let's keep in mind that this is not a formal trial, but a half-way serious forum thread.

^ This is beyond ridiculous. It seems like you're suggesting that no scientist would bother to read any books on any subject. Especially when it comes to historical documents, we don't have any proof of anything. If anything, we can compare different historical documents who we assume to be independent and compare the historic facts mentioned. This is what scholars typically do when they analyze the bible. I don't have the time to do that myself.

And as far as your facile analogy with Kafka is concerned: Of course I would not reject the bible without having read a single line of it. But I did. I JUST DID NOT READ ALL OF IT. If one was to read one work of Kafka and then decide that he didn't like Kafka, would you still take offense and declare him a prejudiced, quick to judge fool? How much of his entire body of work would you say is required to read before one is allowed do say that it's not for him?

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ This is beyond ridiculous. It seems like you're suggesting that no scientist would bother to read any books on any subject. Especially when it comes to historical documents, we don't have any proof of anything. If anything, we can compare different historical documents who we assume to be independent and compare the historic facts mentioned. This is what scholars typically do when they analyze the bible. I don't have the time to do that myself. And as far as your facile analogy with Kafka is concerned: Of course I would not reject the bible without having read a single line of it. But I did. I JUST DID NOT READ ALL OF IT. If one was to read one work of Kafka and then decide that he didn't like Kafka, would you still take offense and declare him a prejudiced, quick to judge fool? How much of his entire body of work would you say is required to read before one is allowed do say that it's not for him?

That's not what i said at all; where did you get that from?
This is not  about liking, Mike; this is about being able to make qualified statements. That's something completely different. If you want to make qualified statements about Kafka you have no choice but to read his whole works; else you are making a statement about a specific work of his only.
As to having no proof about historical documents at all: Of course the credibility of historical sources has to be part of a qualified analysis too; no doubt about that. But you refuse to read the document you make qualified statements about in the first place. That's to argue ad ignoramus, and you can't honestly tell me that this is the right way to argue.

Repeated because I'd like a response: