Biblical rebuttals

--amadeus--

One of the accusations thrown by theists is that unbelievers are simply uneducated. If we knew more about the bible we would believe. Now the bible being what it is it is strewn with verses that you can use to argue against a wise, all knowing and interventionist god.

My favourite is from the book of genisis, chapter 19, veses 30 - 38:

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father."

33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

36 So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab [g] ; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi [h] ; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

So Lot's daughters get thier father drunk so that they can have sex and get pregnant by him :eek: I think that breaks a couple of teh 10 commandments!

Are there any other good rebuttals that you know of?

Pompey Magnus

So God decides to slaughter the population of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sexual activities yet he saves Lot's family who were into incestual rape and I believe earlier Lot offered his daughters to a crowd so that they could rape them. What strange standards God has.

There are plenty of inconsistencies in the Bible, the problem is that Christians always manage to basically rewrite the passages to say something that to any neutral observor would think it doesn't say.

Off the top of my head some rebuttals I can think of include how Jesus is said to be descended from David, however the line to David is through Joseph who was supposedly not related to Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke we see Mary describe Joseph as Jesus' father. Was Jesus descended from David through Joseph or wasn't he? He can't be both.

Another passage that can be rebutted was when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He goes off to pray whilst the disciples slept and the Gospels provide quotations of what Jesus said and what he did. What I want to know is how does anyone know what he said, all the witnesses were asleep. Yet somehow we get detailed quotations of exactly what he said.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Exodus 35:1-2 wrote:

And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the LORD hath commanded, that ye should do them.

Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.

And thou shalt not kill....?

Galvasean

It will be interesting when PDN gets wind of this thread. It's all looking a bit one sided at the moment..

anti-venom

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain



28If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

29Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.


Is this clearly not saying that if a man rapes a girl then he must pay her father and then marry her?

seamus

anti-venom wrote: »

Is this clearly not saying that if a man rapes a girl then he must pay her father and then marry her?

Only if he gets caught.

If he gets away with it, then clearly he's fine.

Asiaprod

Gaviscon wrote: »

It will be interesting when PDN gets wind of this thread. It's all looking a bit one sided at the moment..

Agreed

Zillah

My favourite part of the bible is when God sends two she bears to tear 42 children to pieces for making fun of Elijah.

Could a biblical apologist please address the above.

MrPudding

Zillah wrote: »

My favourite part of the bible is when God sends two she bears to tear 42 children to pieces for making fun of Elijah.

Could a biblical apologist please address the above.

Not a biblical apologist but I will have a go at it:

1) God works in mysterious ways?
2) Question not the lord your god, you are as vermin and not able to know or understand his holy purpose?
3) Cos he felt like it?
4) Who doesn't like bear on child rending action?

Take your pick.

MrP

Zombrex

I am currently having a good old hand bag fight with PDN over 1 Kings 7, the bit of the Bible that gets Pi wrong.

It says that a metal cast of 10 cubits in diameter would produce a circumference of 30. Which it wouldn't, it would produce a circumference of 31 if you stuck to whole cubits.

PDN is now claiming that the engineers could have produced a base of 9.6 cubits, which would allow the circumference to be approx 30. And to avoid confusion the Bible authors rounded the bases up to full cubits when describing the lengths.

Which is perfectly true, but total nonsense as an explanation when placed beside the other possibility, the Bible got it wrong.

but i guess if you believe the Bible can't get it wrong, any explanation, no matter how unlikely, will be acceptable to you. The mind of a "rational" believer.

CerebralCortex

Asiaprod wrote: »

Agreed

I'll have to counter that and say I disagree.

--amadeus--

I like the NT ones - most of the contradictions and nonsense I have heard have been in the OT, which makes it easier to make a counter argument. The lineage I had heard before but not the garden of Gethsemane.

Any others?

Pompey Magnus

Other NT rebuttals I can think of:

Christian Claim: Jesus is God.

Rebuttal: Ask them to show where Jesus himself actually makes this claim. He actually never does, other people said he is God but he himself doesn't. Some people at the time thought Jesus was John the Baptist, they were wrong. Other people thought Jesus was Elijah, they were wrong. Yet others thought he was another of the dead prophets, they also were wrong. Then we also had people who thought he was God. Given the poor judgement of their peers I don't see why these people should be any more likely to have been correct in their guess.

Christian Claim: Christians have always believed Jesus was God

Rebuttal: Christianity has been divided from the very beginning on virtually every important question on Jesus. The current orthodox belief that we have today was only one of a large number of competing beliefs. One important rival belief was Ebionite Christianity which was prevalent in Jerusalem and among Jewish Christians in the early centuries after the death of Jesus. This faith taught that Jesus was just a man and regarded the claim of his divinity as blasphemous.

Christian Claim: Jesus was exceptionally moral and good, he saved the adultress from death by stoning.

Rebuttal: This event did not actually happen. It is not found in any of our oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of John and was not mentioned once by any of the Greek commentators of the Gospels for centuries. It is a fictional event created by a random Christian scribe long after the original Gospel was written.

Christian claim: The Gospels are reliable and accurate accounts of the life of Jesus

Rebuttal: There are more differences between our existing manuscripts of the New Testament than there are words in it. There are hundreds of thousands of differences between the manuscripts, usually differing on minor details but sometimes differing on extremely important details. We don't know what the original Gospels said as we only have the later copies. There is also numerous examples of Christians tampering with the Gospels to improve them and to cover up embarressing flaws.

Christian Claim: The Gospels are reliable because they agree on alot of details down to the smallest point, this means there are four eye witnesses whose stories match.

Rebuttal There is no evidence to suggest that the Gospels were written by eye witnesses, the authors themselves never make any claim to being present at the events they describe. Also the reason they agree on details is because Matthew and Luke plagarised from the Gospel of Mark. It is easy to get details to agree when you already have an account of the events sitting in front of you.

Christian Claim: If Jesus didn't rise from the dead then why were all his apostles willing to be martyred rather than abandon him?

Rebuttal: There is no good evidence to suggest that any of the apostles were martyred, except for Stephen (who never even met Jesus) and James.

PDN

Gaviscon wrote: »

It will be interesting when PDN gets wind of this thread. It's all looking a bit one sided at the moment..

Happy Days.

Actually there are plenty of Biblical passages that cause real difficulties to most thinking Christians. What amazes me is that atheists so rarely touch on them and instead pick the silliest hills of beans on which to fight.

amadeus wrote:

One of the accusations thrown by theists is that unbelievers are simply uneducated. If we knew more about the bible we would believe. Now the bible being what it is it is strewn with verses that you can use to argue against a wise, all knowing and interventionist god.

My favourite is from the book of genisis, chapter 19, veses 30 - 38:

So Lot's daughters get thier father drunk so that they can have sex and get pregnant by him I think that breaks a couple of teh 10 commandments!

Are there any other good rebuttals that you know of?

Do you actually understand what a rebuttal is?

Of course Lot's daughters broke several of the commandments - that is the whole point of that passage! It is describing the illegitimate and sinful origins of the two nations that were descended from Lot's daughters and were bitter enemies of the Jews - namely Ammon & Moab.

I'm not quite sure how you think that rebutts anything. The fact that two women broke several of the commandments is hardly an earth-shaking revelation to anyone, or a rebuttal to any tenet of Christianity.

Charco wrote:

So God decides to slaughter the population of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sexual activities yet he saves Lot's family who were into incestual rape and I believe earlier Lot offered his daughters to a crowd so that they could rape them. What strange standards God has.

The Bible simply says that God decided to punish Sodom and Gomorrah for their sinfulness. It does not say they were punished specifically for their sexual activities. Lot was saved because he believed the warning from the angelic visitors and fled the city before destruction arrived. Lot himself was obviously a weak and sinful person (as well as a crap parent), but his faith saved him.

You might not like this message, but it is untrue to refer to it as an inconsistency. The message that sinful men and women can be saved by putting their faith in God runs through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

Charco wrote:

Off the top of my head some rebuttals I can think of include how Jesus is said to be descended from David, however the line to David is through Joseph who was supposedly not related to Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke we see Mary describe Joseph as Jesus' father. Was Jesus descended from David through Joseph or wasn't he? He can't be both.

Joseph, as the husband of Mary, was the legal parent of Jesus. If Jesus had been illegitimate then Joseph would be Jesus' legal father but not his biological father. The same would apply in the case of a miracle such as a virgin birth. Now, as an atheist you will no doubt find it more likely that Mary slept with another guy rather than that a virgin birth occurred - but either way your example fails miserably as a rebuttal.

Charco wrote:

Another passage that can be rebutted was when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He goes off to pray whilst the disciples slept and the Gospels provide quotations of what Jesus said and what he did. What I want to know is how does anyone know what he said, all the witnesses were asleep. Yet somehow we get detailed quotations of exactly what he said.

So Jesus talked to His disciples afterwards and told them what he prayed? Big deal!

Come on guys, you can do better than this!

Ikky poo 2 wrote:

And thou shalt not kill....?

God bless the internet! Where else could I get the opportunity to speak to someone called Ikky Poo?

Plenty of nations have laws forbidding murder but mandating capital punishment. Uncomfortable for a pacifist opposed to the death penalty like myself? Yes. But a rebuttal? Not in this universe, Ikky Poo. Go and wipe yourself clean.

anti venom wrote:

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain

28If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

29Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

Is this clearly not saying that if a man rapes a girl then he must pay her father and then marry her?

Yes, in the rough justice of nomadic societies many centuries ago a girl who had lost her virginity was considered disgraced and unmarriagable. This even applied to the unfortunate victims of rape who were frequently reduced to beggary and prostitution in order to survive.

This commandment, ordering the rapist to pay a dowry and then to marry his victim, was actually a great improvement on what happened in surrounding cultures.

Today we look at it from a different culture and cringe - but it hardly serves as a rebuttal of anything.

Zillah wrote:

My favourite part of the bible is when God sends two she bears to tear 42 children to pieces for making fun of Elijah.

Could a biblical apologist please address the above.

Hey, that's one of my favourite parts of the Bible as well! You very theatrically put your own spin on the story. Let's remove Zillah's embellishments and explore a different interpretation that remains faithful to the text.

It is a time of religious conflict and sectarian violence. A large crowd of young men (the Hebew word refers to any young male) form a mob and start abusing an elderly man about his baldness. Try to understand how the Bible speaks to situations that reoccur throughout human history. For me this reminds me of how, when I was a teenager, I was followed by a group of teenagers through Belfast city centre. As they subjected me to sectarian taunts I wondered when the first kick or punch would come. I was not brave enough to turn and confront them - I just hoped against hope that things wouldn't get worse (they did get worse and I was hospitalised). Other readers who are gay might think of that time a group of guys stalked them while making homophobic remarks.

The elderly man, although massively outnumbered, bravely turns round and curses the young men. What will happen now? Will they beat him up? Maybe even kill him? The reader waits with bated breath.

Then, out of the woods, two bears appears. They ignores the bald old man and head straight for the mob of young men. In a wonderfully comedic scene the bears manage to tear (ie maul or scratch) 42 of the young man. There is no mention of anyone being killed or "torn to pieces". Such an interpretation could only be produced by someone who has never watched the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. What kind of bears could kill 42 young men in a single attack? Anyone who suggests such a thing is guilty of antiscience!

Now, as we listen to the story, all of us who have ever been bullied or intimidated by a mob can't help smiling at the thought of these 42 young hoodlums squealing with fear as, scratched and bleeding, they run away from the bears.

The story is about rough, but extremely poetic, justice. Quite what Zillah thinks it rebuts is anyone's guess.

Wicknight wrote:

am currently having a good old hand bag fight with PDN over 1 Kings 7, the bit of the Bible that gets Pi wrong.

It says that a metal cast of 10 cubits in diameter would produce a circumference of 30. Which it wouldn't, it would produce a circumference of 31 if you stuck to whole cubits.

PDN is now claiming that the engineers could have produced a base of 9.6 cubits, which would allow the circumference to be approx 30. And to avoid confusion the Bible authors rounded the bases up to full cubits when describing the lengths.

Which is perfectly true, but total nonsense as an explanation when placed beside the other possibility, the Bible got it wrong.

but i guess if you believe the Bible can't get it wrong, any explanation, no matter how unlikely, will be acceptable to you. The mind of a "rational" believer.

So, because you're getting your ass kicked in this debate on the Christianity forum you try to bring it over here where you think you might find a more sympathetic response from a home crowd? Coward. :pac:

Asiaprod

PDN wrote: »

Happy Days.

Actually there are plenty of Biblical passages that cause real difficulties to most thinking Christians. What amazes me is that atheists so rarely touch on them and instead pick the silliest hills of beans on which to fight.

Would love to hear which Biblical passages cause real difficulties to most thinking Christians

So, because you're getting your ass kicked in this debate on the Christianity forum you try to bring it over here where you think you might find a more sympathetic response from a home crowd? Coward. :pac:

I love it. *runs of to get popcorn and a comfy chair*

PDN

Asiaprod wrote: »

Would love to hear which Biblical passages cause real difficulties to most thinking Christians

You want me to help them?

The atheists are those who proclaim themselves to be rational and educated. Surely they can come up with the answers unaided?

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

So, because you're getting your ass kicked in this debate on the Christianity forum you try to bring it over here where you think you might find a more sympathetic response from a home crowd? Coward. :pac:

Well its hard not to get ones ass kicked on the Christianity forum because if one bothers to stay around arguing their point long enough rather than simply running away when challenged, then get the inevitable circling of the wagons that you guys love to do and the barrage of charges of being argumentative or an atheist troll

Debating an unorthodox position on the Christianity forum becomes more of an endurance test, how long can one hold back the insults and jibes, than an issue of winning a structured debate.

Luckily for me it is a slow day in the office :pac:

--amadeus--

Of course I know what a rebuttal is. It's the act of refuting an argument through contrary evidence. Specifically the charge that an athiest lacks understanding of a just, loving and interventionist god because we don't know or haven't studied the bible. What I was loking for in this thread were biblical examples that could be used in debate, particulalry with the evangalistic types that knock on my door.

Interesting response to teh Lot story. The context you've put it in makes the story more redily defensible. Just goes to show what out of context quoting can do! That said I'm not sure of teh relevance of historic tribal enminity to 21st century living...!

Two things - having done a little more reading - that strike me as badly inconsistent:

- Why do we have conflicting accounts of Jesus's lineage? And why draw a line from David through Jospeh when there is no physical linkage between Jospeh and Jesus (adoption may have been useful for social reasons but surely if the phrophesy was for a decendant of David they didn't mean an adopted son?)

- Why did John the Baptist baptise Jesus? My understanding wa sthat his baptism was to remove sin so why have a sinnless son of god batised?

Asiaprod

PDN wrote: »

You want me to help them?

The atheists are those who proclaim themselves to be rational and educated. Surely they can come up with the answers unaided?

Got ya, I will lure them over by asking the same on the other side of the fence.

Zillah

PDN wrote: »

Quite what Zillah thinks it rebuts is anyone's guess.

I never said anything about rebuttals, merely that its a great example of some of the horrible content of the Bible.

Hey, that's one of my favourite parts of the Bible as well! You very theatrically put your own spin on the story. Let's remove Zillah's embellishments and explore a different interpretation that remains faithful to the text.

Ok, well lets look at the content itself:

23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

I couldn't be bothered researching your assertion on the translation so lets assume they're "young males". I'm not quite sure what "tare" means, but this is a pair of angry bears. BEARS.

Now, as we listen to the story, all of us who have ever been bullied or intimidated by a mob can't help smiling at the thought of these 42 young hoodlums squealing with fear as, scratched and bleeding, they run away from the bears.

Scratched?! Was this a pair of cartoon bears or something? What strange planet do you come from where BEAR ATTACKS end up with scratches?! As opposed to, y'know, the usual sort of maimed death, disfigurement and face tearing horror.

The story is about rough, but extremely poetic, justice.

The story is about violent despotism.

pH

PDN wrote: »

So, because you're getting your ass kicked in this debate on the Christianity forum you try to bring it over here where you think you might find a more sympathetic response from a home crowd? Coward. :pac:

Asiaprod wrote:

I love it. *runs of to get popcorn and a comfy chair*

Just to be clear, as well as PDN's trolling in A&A, his personal insults are now not just tolerated here but applauded? Or is there some new rule whereby adding a pacman smilie makes it all OK?

Zombrex

Asiaprod wrote: »

Would love to hear which Biblical passages cause real difficulties to most thinking Christians

I would have thought it would be painfully obvious by now that there is no such thing, a true believer can make anything acceptable to their position given enough time and creative energy.

Young boys become young men become a mob of yobos.

Joking about a bald man becomes terrorizing him with the threat of violence.

Two bears taring apart a group becomes bears slightly crazing a mob who was about to beat up an old man.

An act of savage violence becomes "poetic justice"

A man being made pay compensation to the father of the women he raped becomes an "improvement"

And my personal fav, 10 becomes 9.6

And so on and so on....

Asiaprod

pH wrote: »

Just to be clear, as well as PDN's trolling in A&A, his personal insults are now not just tolerated here but applauded? Or is there some new rule whereby adding a pacman smilie makes it all OK?

No I believe you misunderstand. If I thought that I would be the first to point it out. If Wicknight believes that, let him say so and I will be happy to take it further.

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

Joseph, as the husband of Mary, was the legal parent of Jesus. If Jesus had been illegitimate then Joseph would be Jesus' legal father but not his biological father. The same would apply in the case of a miracle such as a virgin birth. Now, as an atheist you will no doubt find it more likely that Mary slept with another guy rather than that a virgin birth occurred - but either way your example fails miserably as a rebuttal.

Well if he was the legal parent of Jesus then fine, but this means Jesus was not descended from David.

As for the virgin birth prediction there is the question which won't go away of whether this was a mistranslation from Hebrew into Greek. The phrase used to specifically describe a virgin in Hebrew is betulah, the phrase used in Isaiah was almah which may or may not be a virgin.

MrPudding

PDN wrote: »

So, because you're getting your ass kicked in this debate on the Christianity forum you try to bring it over here where you think you might find a more sympathetic response from a home crowd? Coward. :pac:

Yeah. It really looks like you kicked his ass* on that debate. :rolleyes:

MrP








*And by kicking ass I mean not kicking ass at all.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

PDN wrote: »

God bless the internet! Where else could I get the opportunity to speak to someone called Ikky Poo?
:

Wow, someone needs an ego trip! I was simply responding to a title and now I'm being told I have to go take a shower...?

Incidently, I'm anti-death penalty too - why did you assume I wasn't? Now, I'm not theologian, but if the Exodus verses I quoted can be rebuked in a mature manner without condescention and some sort of conceited air, then please let me hear it.

(FTR - I'm not athiest, either, in case you have a thing against all athiests. I'm assuming it's not a requirement of posting on this thread...?)

Mark Hamill

Zillah wrote: »

Scratched?! Was this a pair of cartoon bears or something? What strange planet do you come from where BEAR ATTACKS end up with scratches?! As opposed to, y'know, the usual sort of maimed death, disfigurement and face tearing horror.

Maybe they where koala bears .

MrPudding

Zillah wrote: »

I


Scratched?! Was this a pair of cartoon bears or something? What strange planet do you come from where BEAR ATTACKS end up with scratches?! As opposed to, y'know, the usual sort of maimed death, disfigurement and face tearing horror.

Do we have to explain everything to you guys? The bears were sent by god, right? Obviously, using his limitless powers, he was able to, in real time, moderate and control the amount of damage the bears were inflicting as well as carry out on the spot healing as required. Guys, this is pretty obvious stuff.

To sum up..... god did it.

MrP

PDN

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Maybe they where koala bears .

For two of them to tear 42 young men into pieces in a single attack they must have been super ninja mutant transformer bears!

For those who are interested in real science rather than pseudoscience:

Science Direct wrote:

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0379073806005548
Fatalities due to animal bites, the vast majority of which are associated with dogs and big cats, are relatively uncommon and rarely described in the literature. Especially rare are fatal bear attacks on humans. We herein present a forensic investigation of a fatal assault, involving numerous bites on a 42-year-old man in Finland by an European brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos).

Alaska Science Center wrote:

http://www.absc.usgs.gov/research/brownbears/attacks/bear-human_conflicts.htmThis graphic shows the percentage breakdown of each class of injury. We see here that nearly half of all encounters result in no injury at all. Of the 11% fatalities (56 deaths) brown bears were responsible for 86% (48).

Here is a report of a real-life bear attack, along with a photograph of the scratches that a black bear (neither a koala nor one of Zillah's mutant killer bears) inflicts during a mauling: http://news.aol.com/article/bear-mauls-boy-father-in-tennessee/96818

You guys crack me up.

--amadeus--

The entertainment is free and it's a pleasure

I am interested though to know if you can knock back some of teh serious points rather than the jokes?

seamus

PDN wrote: »

For two of them to tear 42 young men into pieces in a single attack they must have been super ninja mutant transformer bears!

For those who are interested in real science rather than pseudoscience:

Difficult enough stats PDN. I see nothing which distinguishes between a bear "encounter" and a bear "attack". I find it hard to believe that someone could be attacked by a bear and suffer no injury whatsoever, unless they subsequently shot the bear, or managed to find a large metal shield to defend themselves with. Neither of which a child in those time would have had lying around.
A bear simply arriving onto a campsite and sniffing around before being scared off, is not a bear "attack". The parable clearly says that the bears attacked the children, so in order for those articles to have any relevance, you need to remove all of the bear "encounters" until you're just left with the out-and-out attacks.

There's also nothing which indicates the age of the people who were attacked. I think it's fair to say that any "little children" who were attacked by a bear are likely to be quickly crippled and even if the bears didn't kill 42, it's unlikely that all 42 would survive without horrific injury. A forensic examination of a single case of an attack on a 42-year-old fully grown man is useless in this case.

Notwithstanding that even what we consider a minor injury (such as a large gash requiring stitches) would have a good chance of finishing off a small child back in those times. So those who weren't killed on the spot would likely have ended up dying in a much more prolonged and painful way.

Of course, all of this depends on how you think the bears got there. If the bears were indeed sent by God after the children were cursed, then it's fair to say that they're on a rampage to do some damage. If the bears incidentally happened to wander out of the woods just after the curse was uttered, then it's likely that they may have just scared the children off.

But of course the latter explanation would require that the story is pointless and would show that cursing the children means that God will do nothing.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Well its hard not to get ones ass kicked on the Christianity forum because if one bothers to stay around arguing their point long enough rather than simply running away when challenged, then get the inevitable circling of the wagons that you guys love to do and the barrage of charges of being argumentative or an atheist troll

Originally Posted by pH
Just to be clear, as well as PDN's trolling in A&A, his personal insults are now not just tolerated here but applauded? Or is there some new rule whereby adding a pacman smilie makes it all OK?

Terrific stuff guys.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Keep circling the wagons!

PDN

seamus wrote: »

There's also nothing which indicates the age of the people who were attacked.

That little snippet invalidates everything else in your post. Since you have conceded that they were not necessarily children, but could equally have been young men, then any argument that is based on children becomes invalid as a rebuttal.

seamus

PDN wrote: »

That little snippet invalidates everything else in your post. Since you have conceded that they were not necessarily children, but could equally have been young men, then any argument that is based on children becomes invalid as a rebuttal.

You misunderstood me. There's nothing in your links which indicates the age of the people involved.

The text provided by Zillah:

23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

The word "little children" here is pretty clear, is it not?

Even to take the typical, "Oh you can't be sure" argument of the Hebrew word referring to any young male, I think it's fair to assume that a "young male" in biblical times refers to any person under 14 years of age.

Substitute "small child" with "young adolescent" in my post and it remains valid.

Trying to argue that somehow it's more likely that they were all full-grown young males is a typical denial exercise of moving the goalposts. Next you'll be trying to claim that people lived to hundreds of years old back then and a "young male" is anyone less than four centuries old.

Notwithstanding, your scientific links are still useless here. If you can find me a link detailing injury rates for bear attacks (which actually involve aggression and some form of "charging" from the bear) where the human(s) involved is completely unarmed, then you might be onto something.

MrPudding

PDN wrote: »

For two of them to tear 42 young men into pieces in a single attack they must have been super ninja mutant transformer bears!

But they were sent by god to do a specific job. When god sent them he knew there was 42 protagonists involved, for a start he knows everything and he was responding to a specific cursing so might have checked to see what was needed before hand. Why would he send bears that were not up to the job?

PDN wrote: »

For those who are interested in real science rather than pseudoscience:


Here is a report of a real-life bear attack, along with a photograph of the scratches that a black bear (neither a koala nor one of Zillah's mutant killer bears) inflicts during a mauling: http://news.aol.com/article/bear-mauls-boy-father-in-tennessee/96818

And here is a listing of death by bear in North America:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade

So what? I will allow that all bear attacks are not fatal or do not result in catastrophic injury if you will allow that sometimes they can.

PDN wrote: »

You guys crack me up.

The feeling is most definitely mutual.

MrP

Doctor DooM

PDN wrote: »

That little snippet invalidates everything else in your post. Since you have conceded that they were not necessarily children, but could equally have been young men, then any argument that is based on children becomes invalid as a rebuttal.

To be fair PDN... If I found out god sent bears to attack 42 of the most nasty people in Dublin because one of his followers cursed them, I would still be fairly outraged, whether they were 4 or 104.

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

For two of them to tear 42 young men into pieces in a single attack they must have been super ninja mutant transformer bears!

Fron one of your quotes I notice it says that the average brown bear encounter is 22 times more dangerous than an encounter with a black bear. The children in this case would have been attacked by a Syrian Brown Bear.


"Brown/grizzly bears are incredibly more dangerous than the other 2 species"

"Of the 11% fatalities (56 deaths) brown bears were responsible for 86% (48)."

The Syrian Brown bear is larger than the grizzly bears mentioned in this study by the way.

These are massive, muscular beasts. They have powerful arms with six inch claws. If a child is attacked by one then it will experience worse injuries than a few scrathes. You urge us to use science, do you really think it likely that a brown bear (the most agressive of the bear species) can attack a group of children with its sledgehammer-like arms and ferocious jaws and yet not kill any of them?

Flamed Diving

:pac:

Zillah

This is now the bear attack thread.

--amadeus--

And despite a series of posts he hasn't addressed the (many) serious points, just fixated on defending bears...

Looks like bible rebuttal works!

Zillah

There really is a lot of circling of the wagons though

aidan24326

It really is bizarre to me that a religion that claims itself to be a kind loving religion holds up as it's holy book a book that contains an extraordinary amount of violence, murder, rape and plain nastiness, not to mention it being riddled with contradictions. It's like the script of some really bad gorefest of a movie where the hero of the hour spends much of his time killing for fun. If the god of the bible was a real person he'd be up in front of the international crminal court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity!

BrianCalgary

aidan24326 wrote: »

It really is bizarre to me that a religion that claims itself to be a kind loving religion holds up as it's holy book a book that contains an extraordinary amount of violence, murder, rape and plain nastiness, not to mention it being riddled with contradictions. It's like the script of some really bad gorefest of a movie where the hero of the hour spends much of his time killing for fun. If the god of the bible was a real person he'd be up in front of the international crminal court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity!

No real different from a society that holds itself up as being tolerant and loving yet every newspaper reports the killings and violence that happen evryday in our cities.

Biblical accounts just show that no matter what man's heart is evil because he kills and rapes and taunts. Even God's people are guilty of the same.

Just today our weapons are more sophisticated, yet the heart has not changed.

BTW we get annual bear maulings in our neck of the woods. First off a bear only attacks if it feels that it is in danger or if it is a she and feels her cubs are in danger. A bear attacking a crowd of people just doesn't happen because th ebear understands when it is out numbered. So for two bears to come out and attack 42 people is really not natural.
Also with 42 people about the bears would be pretty easily beaten off with only a few being injured, and the few would suffer some nasty gashes to be sure, but death would not be imminent. Few bear attacks end up in death.

Flamed Diving

BrianCalgary wrote: »

No real different from a society that holds itself up as being tolerant and loving.

Which society would that be?

Pompey Magnus

BrianCalgary wrote: »

BTW we get annual bear maulings in our neck of the woods. First off a bear only attacks if it feels that it is in danger or if it is a he and feels her cubs are in danger. A bear attacking a crowd of people just doesn't happen because th ebear understands when it is out numbered. So for two bears to come out and attack 42 people is really not natural.
Also with 42 people about the bears would be pretty easily beaten off with only a few being injured, and the few would suffer some nasty gashes to be sure, but death would not be imminent. Few bear attacks end up in death.

Would 42 children easily fight off a grizzly bear that charges at them?

Dades

The Bible wrote:

23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Ah, here we are. The finest [sic] minds on Boards, debating the 21 century terminology of bear attacks as they relate to an obscure passage in book we all believe to be fables.

Frustrating as the responses may be in the Christianity forum, that doesn't make a "which biblical passage is the most oppressive" type thread any more worthy, or even relevant to the A&A forum. Perhaps the OPs intentions were light-hearted, but it seems the thread now simply mirrors the Christianity versions in point scoring and tediousness.

Yawn. (Yes, I am sleep deprived)

--amadeus--

The sleep deprivation gets worse as the kids get older!

FWIW I agree that the conversation has sunk down a bit of a rabbit hole with the whole bear thing.

But my original idea was to get some examples of either blatant contradictions or "unholy" behaviour from the bible so that the next time I am told by a door knocker that I only reject god because I don't understand and that the truth and answers to every question lies in the pages of the good book. It's not about "finding oppressive verses" it's about finding the flaws in an argument through investigation and critical comment.

On that basis I welcomed PDNs contribution because (in the finest survival of the fittest way!) he was showing which arguments were weak and which were strong. If that's not suitable for A&A I'm not sure what is?

PDN

seamus wrote: »

The word "little children" here is pretty clear, is it not?

It is only clear that a 17th Century translation used those words. If we allow it here then we should also allow Creationists to argue their points according to 17th Century scientific theories and ignore eveything that has been discovered since.

You can certainly, on the basis of the words 'little children', argue that the King James Version of the Bible is not infallible - an argument where I will happily support you.

I think it's fair to assume that a "young male" in biblical times refers to any person under 14 years of age.

On what basis can you make that assumption? The word na'ar can simply mean a young man. Can you quote a source that demonstrates that it applies to under-14s? Or are you just plucking numbers out of thin air?

Trying to argue that somehow it's more likely that they were all full-grown young males is a typical denial exercise of moving the goalposts. Next you'll be trying to claim that people lived to hundreds of years old back then and a "young male" is anyone less than four centuries old.

That is a rather sad substitute for rational argument. There are no goalposts to move since the Bible never said they were children in the first place.

Notwithstanding, your scientific links are still useless here. If you can find me a link detailing injury rates for bear attacks (which actually involve aggression and some form of "charging" from the bear) where the human(s) involved is completely unarmed, then you might be onto something.

I can give you the rates for documented bear attacks where two bears killed 42 people. Zero, zilch, nada.

sink

PDN wrote: »

I can give you the rates for documented bear attacks where two bears killed 42 people. Zero, zilch, nada.

Interesting that you are willing to use modern statistics to argue your point when necessary. When they go against your beliefs you refute the applicability of modern statistics or other known facts.

CPT. SURF

Bears don't kill people, rappers do. I seen it in a documentary on BBC2.


Rappers who do not believe in the lord of course. (people who believe in god do not kill people, duh!)

Dades

CPT. SURF wrote: »

Bears don't kill people, rappers do. I seen it in a documentary on BBC2

CPT. SURF - stay on topic please.

This issue of bear attacks has been ignored too long in the minefield that is the world of biblical rebuttals.