You dont seem to realize that the bible was written by men. There is much more than meets the eye in the bible, which is why you need research and a keen eye. The real value of the bible does not lie in its literal interpretation, as rickthestick2 knows. This final statement makes me think that you never quite got what Erebus and I were up to here. (note: "come on!" is not a valid argument) I guess the only thing I have left to convince you is this cat:

Ha, "More than meets the eye". Anyways i think schopenhauer is right to a certain extent (i didn't fully go into your guys arguement). The bible is meant for a higher spiritual meaning. This meaning is called "The Word of God", and i 100% sure that the Word of God does not, cannot, and will not contradict itself. Without the Word of God the Bible is just a book.

Right. The Cat. QED.

I understand the point you are trying to get; you're asserting that the Bible itself was written by men a long time ago, and there's really nothing divine about its inspiration, as the contradictions show.

This forum isn't set up to discuss something as weighty and scholarly as the Bible. I'm in the rickthestick camp and with enough time (not using Yahoo! answers) I will find the proper answer for everything. I agree that the "star" that lead the astrologers wasn't really a "star" as in a giant burning gas ball of fusion. So obviously you can't take that literally. But I don't call it a "contradiction" either (nor would I say that redish blue vs. purple is a contradiction either)

Like I said, however, I am going agree to disagree for the sake of brevity. My 10 minutes of Yahoo! answers was the result of the time I had between my eating of pasta and going to the gym (well it was probably more than 10 minutes, you don't want to work out right after eating). I (bold)will(/bold) spend more time looking at the evidence, and I will come to my own conclusions. I'm not (italics)wishing(/italics) anything away. Though I wish I knew how to change fonts and stuff in the quick reply box.

The existance of 'contradictions' does not in any way prove that the Bible was not inspired by God. If God did in fact inspire the Bible (and I believe He did), then He left the actual writing in the hands of man. This has resulted in some imperfect explainations, interpretations, etc- The Bible says we 'prophesy in part and see in part', this does not mean that things that are prophesied, seen, written down in the Bible are not inspired, just delivered by a perfect God through and imperfect channel. I believe the Bible is both God-inspired AND written by men.

If you told a friend to write down your thoughts and he didn't express your feelings EXACTLY how you meant for him to, that would not mean you didn't 'inspire' the writings, just that your friend didn't understand everything quite perfectly. In the same way, any argument that small contradictions disprove the Bible as God-inspired are far short of convincing.

The 'contradictions' that I have seen in the past have all been easily explained by difference in perception of the eyewitness, mis-translations of small details, and the inability of human language to accurately describe God. Small contradictions or differences in eyewitness accounts are not thrown out by police investigators with the assumption of lies, in fact, there are always small contradictions in multiple eyewitness accounts. The best way for investigators to get a complete picture of events is to have at least 2 or 3 eyewitness accounts- this is why there are 3 gospels to depict the events of Jesus' life. Each one saw things the others didn't, and from a somewhat different perspective. The fact that there are so few contradictions, and no substantial (major factual) contradictions in the gospels is amazing concidering they were written down by unlearned fishermen (except for Luke, I believe he was a doctor) years after the events took place.

I don't believe that you can interpret everything in the bible literally, there is a big difference between image-based prophesies and historical events. I personally believe that most historical events depicted in the Bible are literal (I don't know if the days in creation are literal or figurative, however), while other things (revalation, daniel, etc) are figurative prophesies. Both are inspired by God, and both have been channelled through imperfect people.

That's my take on the subject.

Unfortunately, my life is too stinkin busy right now to research and respond to every contradiction that has been presented in this argument. If you want a great in-depth defense of Christianity and faith, read 'The Case For Faith' by Lee Strobel.

I know I brought this subject up and its a weeks old...but I agree...there is a God but everyone needs to realize that if there isnt a God....how should I believe George Washington was the 1st President of the U.S. how am i suppose to know that and all i see is art of him where is the real pic huh....its hard to trust in history if you cant believe in the Bible why believe in history....

I am a bit late to this thread but it seems to have gone very smoothly so I will make a late entry anyways. I have, like most people, have given a considerable amount of thought to this and I hope you will give my viewpoint some thought.

God & The Universe According to Me....

To begin I would like to define a few terms, please do not take this as talking down to you, it is merely to ensure that when I use a word you will know what I understand the word to mean, and therefore have a better understanding of what I mean.

Definitions:
- Atheism: I would define atheism as the non-belief or rejection of god, gods, and/or theology in general. I personally view atheism as a complete rejection of the idea of religion, rather than just a casual non-belief. I think in many ways it is intellectually dishonest for people without true conviction of non-belief to call themselves atheists in much the same way a Catholic would view a person whose parents were catholic but has never been to church, yet proclaim themselves a catholic. In short an atheist is someone who believe in no higher power whatsoever in a what you see is what you get sort of way.
- Agnosticism: I would define this as the belief that we as people do not have enough information to concretely prove or disprove the existence of god. In effect an agnostic does not believe or disbelieve any reasonably sensible religion, they simply feel that to assert that one is more or less correct than another is without logic or proof. I also believe that you can take part in a religion while being agnostic, that is where faith would step in. I think to be agnostic and have religion you have to be intellectually honest with yourself and others. As long as you are able to distinguish logic and faith you can have both.

Conclusions:
I firmly believe that a great deal of the people who believe themselves atheist have mislabeled themselves and are actually Agnostic. I personally consider myself agnostic, and I believe it is the result of a very logical thinking pattern(opinion). At the same time I would readily recognize that their are certain problems that are not easily solved by logic among the most notable and universal are love and religion.

If you read nothing else read this next paragraph:

I think far to often people use religion as a crutch and a universal explanation. I currently look at math and science as the method we should use to explain our universe in tangibly meaningful ways and god and religion as the method to be used for explaining our universe in intangibly meaningful ways. When you want to understand how the universe was created, and you simply say "God did it" you don't really have an understanding of how it was made...you just know who did it. But science truly attempts to understand how it was made. But at the same time when you want to truly understand why we are here, to look to science and say "To perpetuate our species" you don't really understand why we are here, you understand our biological urges but the true meaning of life is something more deep and meaningful than a simple biological explanation of lust, and I would think most people would agree.

For anyone who is wondering there are several things many people think have yet to be explained by science but in fact most people are very far behind the times when it comes to current scientific theory. There are a number of things science can currently explain that people either don't know about or have an old/incomplete understanding of...for instance:

1. How our universe could exist from nothing within the realm of science.
2. How life can spring forth from non-life.
3. How and why nature is capable of coming up with amazing "technologies" well before people did.
4. A number of other scientific missconceptions, for instance "gravity is a force" = false, "time passes at a constant rate" = false, and "the big bang has no hard evidense" = absolutely false.

Yes, There is God and He is one. Proof, Where there is a creation there is a creator!

I completely respect your beliefs but that is in no way a proof. You use the word creation as the cause of the universe so you can justify it having a creator.

The correct way of looking at it is the universe exists, this much we are all sure of I hope. How it exists is the question we are examining. So by saying it is a creation you have already jumped the gun and made the assumption.

In mathematics this is a violation of proof methodology known as "Begging the Question". Essentially "Begging the Question" is when you assume the thing you are trying to prove in your proof. It would be like trying to prove the correct answer to a multiple choice quiz with the following logic.

"Of choices A, B, C, and D we know that B, C, and D are false because A is true."

This begs the question, if you know A is true then why did you go to all of this trouble? Why not just explain why you already know A to be true.

If a god made the universe, that god must have had the entire universe in its mind first, making such a god more complicated, and therefore more improbable to create, than the universe itself.

If a god is more improbable than the universe, then we can do away with the god explanation (for we must always choose the simplest explanation that fits the evidence) and come to the conclusion that the universe was a random event, likely a vacuum fluctuation.

So I don't believe in a creation god, and don't require such a being for any other purpose, so I don't believe in a god.

Also, if there is a god, it would be very disappointed with the amount of pointless killing done in its name. Religion is either destructive or isolating and neither is good for society.

i think it just between the brain.

i would like to compare it with the following.
when you are completely fine but start to think that your knee is hurting but it isnt but you start thinking about it very strong soon enough your knee will hurt.

so very early years back someone saw a weird creature or a misformed man and he tought its a God. but it wasnt just a wrong created manlike thing. but he (or she) starts to think of it real hard and told it to others. and soon enough there were believers.


but like i said before, i think that this is a never ending discussion, same discussion as "are there aliens", "wich was 1st egg or chicken", "is a falling tree supposed to make sound when there is no man who can hear it?" etc.