Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamingZword
Should I answer your moronic post? nah it's not worth it.
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Your ad hominems are accumulating. In the intelligent debate world (which I guess no one claimed this is) that would mean you don't have arguments stronger than the hope to insult your opponent. Rather, you apparently think the following ad hominems should be part of the argument, such as,
<<moronic posts>> (Timmy)
<<a poor atheist, just spouting mountains>>
<<a rookie atheist>>
<<bitter and angry>>
Oh, and remember, you are <<skeptical about my reasons>> for not believing, as if I'm either too dumb to know why I quit, or that I am lying about it.
But shouldn't it be very easy to make a pro-literalist argument on a literalist Christian board without simplistic ad hominem? I'm sure that all believers here would approve of any rebuttal that tries to defend their faith, no matter how irrelevant, incorrect, or debunked the point is. For example, I'm sure believers think this is a relevant piece of data:
<<we have 5,800 ancient Greek manuscripts, far more than any book in history>>
That is demonstrably true and researchable. But more significantly, and equally accepted is that over 90% of those 5,800 ancient Greek are dated from 9th Century or later. That's great if you want to know what the bible looked like to 10th century monks. But what did the bible look like in the early 3rd century?
No one knows, and the true believer probably doesn't think that's even a problem, either.
1. How many manuscripts do we have believed to be written contemporary with the Apostolic Age? Answer:
zero. The oldest surviving manuscript is a credit card-sized
scrap dating from
circa 125 AD (a scrap, a.k.a. miniscule, from the gospel of John.)
2. How many complete NT manuscripts do we have from the 2nd or 3rd Centuries? Answer:
Zero, none.
3. When is the earliest surviving complete manuscript of the New Testament? A: 4th Century, Codex Sinaiticus.
4. The HIGHEST rate of textual variations exist between earliest manuscripts (ie 4th Century and earlier) and not as much in the later manuscripts. (Makes sense that quality control kicked in at some point.) But what texts were used from the Apostolic Age up to the 4th Century? No one knows, and that is what scholars spend their lives trying to reconstruct, using later manuscripts.
Reconstruct? Why would an onmiscient, omnipotent god need to have ANY of his Holy, Infallible Word RECONSTRUCTED by a bunch of professional scholars using previously lost pieces of burnt, torn, and miscopied papyrus and vellum, a process that continues to this day? The gods did a lousy job (if any job at all) of preserving and protecting what was originally written. Neither did the gods leave or imply any information about which authors and writings were supposed to be included as NT canon and which were not--the god left all that up to religious men (ie, Catholics) to figure out the clues at best they could. (Oh yeah, that process was also according to the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit, so as to arrive at a perfect, inerrant result for 21st Century mankind.) The confusion and disagreements about what was probably "original" or probably "not original" continues to this day. It makes better sense to many of us (those who are not required by an ancient story to accept its claimed truth,) that the bible is rather a collection of religious writings collected by fallible ancient religious men. There are supposedly 200,000 to 300,000 textual variants among those 5,800 ancient Greek manuscripts. Of course, a textual variant can be either insignificant or significant--but it's a fact that ancient copyists often tried to "fix" obvious and perceived blunders made by the previous copyists. So instead of having anything like an "original copy of a copy," scholars spend much time trying tease out which manuscripts are a correct copy, a corrected copy, a corrupted copy, or a copy of an incorrectly-corrected copy! Nice infallible, inerrant Word Of God the bible literalists decide to stake their lives upon, and are therefore forced to adopt a unique type of "religious reasoning" --a kind of reasoning method you would reject in any other aspect of natural life--anywhere except the Religious Beliefs Department, deep inside the brain. BTW, the True Believer arguing method is uncannily identical thing among fundamentalist Muslims.
Speaking of biblical oopsies, FlamingZ, Does the Holy Apostolic Bible contain the following 16 scriptures?
Mat 17:21,
Mark 7:16,
Luke 17:36,
John 5:4,
Acts 8:37,
Romans 16:24,
Mat. 18:11,
Mark 9:44,
Luke 23:17,
Acts 15:34, Matt. 23:14,
Mark 9:46,
Acts 24:7,
Mark 11:26,
Acts 28:29,
Mark 15:28.
My Revised Standard Version contains none of the above--it merely skips them. The best selling bible in the world, the NIV also does not contain any of the above--verses omitted since they came from relatively late manuscripts. The JKV however, does contain all the above verses. I'm sure literalist Christians will still claim THE BIBLE CONTAINS NO MISTAKES. So, let me guess---only the
correct bible
that has no mistakes, is the one that has no mistakes.
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