Is there a God?

[Attempted Socialism]

Yes, of course I have. I have also read Amstrongs A History of God and Muhammad. All in physical copies, though this shouldn't matter in this day and age, but I like the implicit acknowledgement that since I do have these books in my home library, I must then be correct.

Perhaps I conflated ethnic, tribal and religious discrimination. I'll get back on this if I can find a clear source.

You’ve read a Qur’ân with commentary and explanations to go along with it?

That shouldn't be necessary, but yes. There are a lot of cultural references that I wouldn't get on my own, so luckily the book included it.

Or did you just get your reasoning from izlamverybad.com?

That sounds like a digital version of the Quran. No, as you already know, since you asked, I have the physical copy of "Islam is very bad" -- also known as the Quran.

[The Archregimancy]

In fairness to Insaanistan, he's more or less correct here. There's a fair amount of sexism by modern standards (not by the standards of the day, mind; but that's a separate issue), but no real racism (religion-based discrimination, yes, but not racism), and no race-based slavery. Race-based slavery is largely a post-medieval invention.

The unspoken bit at the end of that last sermon is "There is no superiority of an Arab over an non-Arab, nor is there any superiority of a non-Arab over an Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a white over a black. Nor is there any superiority of a black over a white. So long as you accept Islam."

Muhammed (PBUH) is no more personally responsible for the subsequent racism of many of his later followers than Jesus of Nazareth is personally responsible for the Confederate States of America.

Sexism, again, not there. Slavery, spoken against. The “unspoken bit”, not really, which we can see from the Qur’ân and Hadith.
Other than that we largely agree.

I think it's important to draw a distinction between modern sexism and historic sexism on this point. By the standards of the early 7th century, the Koran is remarkably progressive, and takes great care to protect women from many of the more problematic traditions of pagan Arabia. Unfortunately, things have moved on a bit. Regulating women's role in society on the basis of what was progressive in the 7th-century Hejaz does potentially present problems in the 21st century.

Similarly, on slavery, the Koran allows manumission, stresses that slaves have rights, bans the enslavement of free men and women in almost all circumstances, condemns the prostitution of female slaves, and calls upon slaveowners to care for their slaves. It would also be fair to note that Muhammed (PBUH) clearly envisioned that, in an ideal Islamic society, slavery would eventually cease to exist. Again, these are remarkably progressive positions for 7th-century Arabia (indeed, would have been progressive in the American South well into the 19th century). At the same time, he clearly accepted that it was more realistic to regulate slavery rather than ban it outright; and - however inappropriately - those passages in the Koran that regulate slavery have often been used to justify its continued existence.

[Insaanistan]

You’ve read a Qur’ân with commentary and explanations to go along with it?

That shouldn't be necessary, but yes. There are a lot of cultural references that I wouldn't get on my own, so luckily the book included it.

Or did you just get your reasoning from izlamverybad.com?

That sounds like a digital version of the Quran. No, as you already know, since you asked, I have the physical copy of "Islam is very bad" -- also known as the Quran.

And which verses prove Islam is bad?

[Insaanistan]

Or did you just get your reasoning from izlamverybad.com?

*puts that web address into the search bar, finds nothing*

Damn.

Sorry, bud. But I’m sure someone will make that soon.

[Attempted Socialism]

That shouldn't be necessary, but yes. There are a lot of cultural references that I wouldn't get on my own, so luckily the book included it.
That sounds like a digital version of the Quran. No, as you already know, since you asked, I have the physical copy of "Islam is very bad" -- also known as the Quran.

And which verses prove Islam is bad?

You know the long quote you ignored an hour ago to ask if I had a physical copy? You can revisit it at your leisure.

[Insaanistan]

Sexism, again, not there. Slavery, spoken against. The “unspoken bit”, not really, which we can see from the Qur’ân and Hadith.
Other than that we largely agree.

I think it's important to draw a distinction between modern sexism and historic sexism on this point. By the standards of the early 7th century, the Koran is remarkably progressive, and takes great care to protect women from many of the more problematic traditions of pagan Arabia. Unfortunately, things have moved on a bit. Regulating women's role in society on the basis of what was progressive in the 7th-century Hejaz does potentially present problems in the 21st century.

Similarly, on slavery, the Koran allows manumission, stresses that slaves have rights, bans the enslavement of free men and women in almost all circumstances, condemns the prostitution of female slaves, and calls upon slaveowners to care for their slaves. It would also be fair to note that Muhammed (PBUH) clearly envisioned that, in an ideal Islamic society, slavery would eventually cease to exist. Again, these are remarkably progressive positions for 7th-century Arabia (indeed, would have been progressive in the American South well into the 19th century). At the same time, he clearly accepted that it was more realistic to regulate slavery rather than ban it outright; and - however inappropriately - those passages in the Koran that regulate slavery have often been used to justify its continued existence.

I have a slightly tweaked version of your views. Let’s start on slavery: the way Allah goes about slavery in the Qur’ân is similar to the way He goes about alcohol. The Qur’ân at first just said that the negative effects of alcohol were more than any possible benefits. The Qur’ân becomes stricter on alcohol over time until finally banning. Why? Alcohol drinking was common at the time (Hamza and Ūmar both used to drink). Going cold turkey would have been impossible for many. Many sahabah would later remark

Had Islam at first completely outlawed alcohol, none of us would have become Muslim!

Slavery is done similarly. Make it harder to own slaves. Encourage freeing or marrying slaves. Ban capturing new ones. Show by example through Muhammad (pbuh) buying slaves just to free them despite being poor. And the Qur’ân finally condemning it without naming it, saying people belong only to Allah and not to men.
The leader of what was then Yathrib (who was pretending to be Muslim), upon seeing Muhammad (pbuh) had made it to the city, said to his slave

Run and hide. [If he sees I have a slave] I may be obliged to free you to prove my devotion.

In both, people found, or rather, created their own, loopholes. When ibn Battuta was in the Golden Horde and asked why they were Muslim yet drank, they claimed the Qur’ân never made an explicit rule against fermented horse milk alcohol.

[Insaanistan]

And which verses prove Islam is bad?

You know the long quote you ignored an hour ago to ask if I had a physical copy? You can revisit it at your leisure.

Wow. I’ve looked at it for 10 seconds and I’ve already noticed the misquotes and taking things completely out of context. I’ll give you guys the REAL story when I’m done with school.

[VoVoDoCo]

Well I can only really speak from the perspective of an ex-Christian. If Allah or Vishnu or whoever wants me to believe in them, they know my number.

The biggest reason to believe in any god is faith. But there is nothing that has been shown to me that one cannot believe in based solely on faith. You can believe anything based on faith. You can believe God doesn’t exist based on faith, you can believe that everything is a God based on faith, you can believe that one God exist based on faith, You can believe that contradictory religions can both be 100% true based on faith, etc. And this doesn’t apply to Just religion. You can believe that whites are superior, deforestation is good, the earth is flat, etc. solely on faith. So it is a unreliable method for establishing truth, and therefore people who are interested in believing in as many true things as possible and not believing in as many false things as possible, will disregard faith in favor of a more trustworthy epistemology.

So we should use reason. What would the universe look like If the Bible was 100% True? The sun would spin around the earth, The moon would give off its own light instead of reflecting the sun’s light, the earth would be 7000 years, goats would give birth to striped calf if they looked at striped sticks while having sex, there would’ve been evidence for a Global flood, Incest would never lead to genetic malfunction (we are led to believe this due to some of the events of our creation and the flood), etc.

There’s some things that we might guess would be true if god exists, such as us being genetically unique and therefore being closer to the image of God rather than being genetically similar to chimps, imperfections in our own design not existing, cancer in animals that pre-date the alleged fall of man never existing because the fall of man was what let death and sin into the world in the first place, etc. but that’s all speculation.

We can never prove that God doesn’t exist. But this world looks exactly like one would imagine if it was the result of nature and Physics. The way our bodies formed look exactly like one would think they would After an imperfect unintentional series of small changes.

Historical evidence is scant. Just about all the books of the Old Testament, in a decent chunk of the New Testament, have unknown authors. We don’t know how close to the original source material the books are based off of, in that we have no original manuscripts. Put in chronological order, the new testament stories become more and more extravagant in their details of Jesus’ divinity, which is what you would expect to see if it was a legend that was growing and growing. In some instances it gets details out right wrong. There is no extra biblical evidence for the census that Mary and Joseph had to travel to do, there is no extra evidence of the slaughter of the Israelite children the Jesus escaped, there is no extra biblical evidence that Pontius pilate was as kind hearted as he was portrayed in the Bible (He was much more vicious) The list goes on.

So is there a God? Maybe. We certainly can’t disapprove it, anymore than we can disapprove the universe is a simulation. Maybe God is just lying To us. Maybe the world is under the influence of evil spirits that make us not see the universe the way God intended us to see it and I just doesn’t care enough to fix that. In any case, I do not believe that God exist. I’m open to being convinced though.

[Nec Terram]

Let’s focus on Muhammad (pbuh) for a sec: Part of his last sermon was “There is no superiority of an Arab over an non-Arab, nor is there any superiority of a non-Arab over an Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a white over a black. Nor is there any superiority of a black over a white.”

Nice cherry-pick. We both know this is not the impression you get from reading the Quran, which doesn't just accept but requires slavery, sexism and racism to be committed.

Muhammad’s rules of war:
“1. Do not kill any child, any woman, or any elder or sick person.
2. Do not practice treachery or mutilation.
3. Do not uproot or burn palms or cut down fruitful trees.
4. Do not slaughter a sheep or a cow or a camel, except for food.
5. If one fights his brother, [he must] avoid striking the face, for God created him in the image of Adam.
6. Do not kill the monks in monasteries, and do not kill those sitting in places of worship.
7. Do not destroy the villages and towns, do not spoil the cultivated fields and gardens, and do not slaughter the cattle.
8. Do not wish for an encounter with the enemy; pray to God to grant you security; but when you [are forced to] encounter them, exercise patience.
9. No one may punish with fire except the Lord of Fire.
10. Accustom yourselves to do good if people do good, and to not do wrong even if they commit evil.”

Why do you lie?
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran ... /long.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran ... rance.html

Before prophethood, Muhammad (pbuh) freed the few slaves he had, and treated them very well. When he married Khadijah, he immediately freed all her slaves. During prophethood, he bought slaves just to immediately free them and ordered his followers to do the same if able. He made it so if you hit a slave, insult a slave, or treat a slave badly you have to free them. Islam gives one rewards for freeing slaves. The Qur’ân condemns slavery by saying all people belong only to God and no one else.

Was this before or after be specifically endorsed slavery and clearly states that slaves are property, to be raped, abused or killed as you please?

Crazy evil laws? In the words of Amaar when his father caught him sneaking out to listen to Muhammad (pbuh) and his dad said Muhammad (pbuh) was spreading dangerous ideas:
“Dangerous ideas? That no man should starve? That rich should help the poor? That the strong should not oppress the weak? Are these dangerous ideas? That women should not be forced into marriage but rather allowed to choose or refuse? Why only tonight he said ‘Stop the burial of newborn girls’!”

Again, nice cherry-pick.

Dude, literally one of the ten commandments is do not murder (English Bibles frequently translate that verse to "not kill" but in Hebrew it has the connotation of "murder).

Yeah, and then orders genocide, murder for every crime, and the slaughter of women and children. Though I, again, prefer this revised emphasis to the original Biblical.
Mosaic law mandates genocide, rape and other warcrimes, that's not really up for debate.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html

The Israelites bathed regularly, as advised by the Law of Moses, washed their hands before every meal, advised by the Law of Moses, quarantined sick indivduals, also according to the Law of Moses, and the meats that were forbidden for consumption were suceptible to dangerous parasites like swine.

First, blatant lies. Second, irrelevant. In 2 Kings 20, figs cures death. In Psalm 103, the fictional Jehova character is the only one to heal diseases. There's no advice about germs, or nutrition, or soap. If a deity wrote the Bible, it is a deity who wanted humanity to die in pain from diseases that are easily cured in modern times.

I haven't seen anything about geography, nor biology.

Yet in just a bit you'll tell me you doubt I've read this book. In Genesis 8, Mount Ararat is higher than Mount Everest. In Psalm 194 the Earth is a flat disc so the fictional character Jehova can watch all the world at once. In Leviticus 11, bats are birds. And of course, all of Genesis is an insane compilation of stories we know are 100% false (Such as photosynthetic plants being chanted into existence before the sun or the flood myth).
Some of these errors, such as the flat Earth, were known around the time the Torah was being finalised. It's not that I ask you to go back to an originalist reading of these texts, it's just that we know that an originalist reading will ask you to be a dumber, crueler and more evil person.

And history is subjective anyway. Who's to say that the first "humans" were or weren't named Adam, meaning the first, and Eve, meaning mother of all.

Given the hundreds of thousands of years between the first humans (Who evolved in groups, that is, there were no singular first man or woman) and the development of the languages in the region, we can say for certainty that the Bible is wrong on this one as well. That's not up for debate.

I doubt you have even read the Books of Moses. Tell me your source of these claims of mass murder, warcrimes, and encouraging murder and rape. They didn't punish everything with death, only murder and adultery (which includes rape). They used slavery as a form of punishment, which lasted only for seven years. The typical punishment was replacement and a fine of equal cost.

The blatant lies about Biblical slavery is so debunked, a Youtube video will suffice to educate you on the topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFmC6BD1B4

What began as a thread by someone saying they were confused, has become theists and atheists attacking each other. Literally, the concept of faith implies believing something regardless of the lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary. On top of that, an omnipotent being can neither be proved nor disproved by nature as such a being can do whatever they want however they want.

Well, we can't disprove all hypothetical omnipotent, non-interventionist deities, no. But the good thing about the Abrahamic god is that it is said to have done some very specific acts, such as creating the world in a very specific way, flooded the Earth, interacted with various people etc. At the same time we can trace the development and revisions of this deity, from polytheistic roots to the version we see in the Torah, Bible and Quran. Since we know this deity was made up by humans and we know the acts it must have done to be the deity it says it is didn't happen, we can be certain this particular deity does not (And indeed, cannot) exist.

You yourself are cherry picking. When you referenced Matthew 10:34 you completely ignored the fact that Jesus was telling his disciples it would be uncomfortable to follow him. Similarly in Luke 12:51.
Nowhere in (KJV) 2 Kings 20 does it mention figs.
(KJV) Psalms 103:3 "Who [the Lord] forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;" is one verse in a list of benefits the Lord gives.
There is no Psalms 194.
Seriously? The classification of bats as birds is what gets you?
Having analyzed the annotations in the SAB, I noticed a flaw in the argument: the mountain tops weren't visible, thus it can't rest on the top of Ararat. First, curvature of the Earth would have prevented Noah from seeing the Himalayas from the mountains of Ararat. Second, a large portion of the ark would have been underwater, allowing it to rest on the mountain, while the actually mountain wasn't visible. It's why large vessels don't enter shallow water.

But seriously, you won't convince anyone, and this thread is pointless.

[VoVoDoCo]

Blatant lies, but I like how your version of Mosaic law doesn't emphasise mass murder, warcrimes, murdering your neighbour, raping your neighbour, enslaving your neighbour, murdering your neighbours livestock, punishing everything with death, and giving shitty advice on health, geography, history and biology.

Dude, literally one of the ten commandments is do not murder (English Bibles frequently translate that verse to "not kill" but in Hebrew it has the connotation of "murder). The Israelites bathed regularly, as advised by the Law of Moses, washed their hands before every meal, advised by the Law of Moses, quarantined sick indivduals, also according to the Law of Moses, and the meats that were forbidden for consumption were suceptible to dangerous parasites like swine. I haven't seen anything about geography, nor biology. And history is subjective anyway. Who's to say that the first "humans" were or weren't named Adam, meaning the first, and Eve, meaning mother of all.
I doubt you have even read the Books of Moses. Tell me your source of these claims of mass murder, warcrimes, and encouraging murder and rape. They didn't punish everything with death, only murder and adultery (which includes rape). They used slavery as a form of punishment, which lasted only for seven years. The typical punishment was replacement and a fine of equal cost.

Slavery wasn’t just a type of punishment. And the seven year thing is a little misleading. That referred to Hebrew slaves only and can be found in Exodus 21 from verse 1-11. That’s where you get the seven-year thing. Although you could trick them into being your slaves for life if you gave them a wife and children and they wanted to be with their families. You could hold the family hostage and force the Hebrew to become your slave forever whom you can pass on to your children. They would get a nail pierced through the ear, like cattle to signify the permanence of the relationship

Verse 20 through 21 says that it is OK to Kill your servant as long as they do not die immediately. If it takes a day or two to die, then it is OK because the servant is the masters money.

Leviticus 25 verses 44 through 46 talks about how to deal with slavery of the Gentiles. For them it was slavery for life, and you could even be passed on to your children.

As far as encouraging rape goes, look at Deuteronomy chapter 22. Starting in verse 23-24, it says that in cases of adultery happening in the city, the man in the woman should be put to death. Rape wasn’t even considered a possibility, because the Bible says that she could’ve cried out for help. Those of us who have been sexually assaulted or know somebody that has, know that there are plenty of reasons why a woman wouldn’t cry out for help. She could be in shock, she could be drugged like lot was in Genesis, he could be threatening her or her family, he could’ve shoved some thing down her mouth, he could’ve knocked unconscious, there are plenty of reasons why a woman would not cry out for help, she could be too young to know what was happening since the Bible doesn’t specify different sex crimes for different age groups, etc

Versus 28 through 29 specifically saying that if a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, then he is to pay the father 50 shekels of silver. That is the bride price for sexual assault victims. He can never divorce her.

And it wasn’t just murder and rape which got the death penalty. First of all as I explained above, rape didn’t always get the death penalty, or the woman got it because it was assumed that she would’ve cried out for help if she was “really” being raped. The rapist was only punished with the death penalty if the woman was a virgin betrothed to another man. And it had nothing to do with violating her, it had to do with violating his property.

As far as other uses of the death penalty:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_a ... _Testament

I’ll come back later. That was just a quick link that I found. I’m pretty sure all of the things that it list get the death penalty, but it may be worth fact checking them on individual basis. But at the very least it wasn’t just murder and rape they got the death penalty. Plenty of other stuff that you killed that was unjustified.

EDIT: I added a little bit to the slavery part. Also I am using voice to text so if something repeats or sounds weird and you can’t tell what I was trying to say just let me know

[VoVoDoCo]

Also, really the Questionable morals of God don’t impact whether not he exist. But I still think it’s important to discuss when we’re talking about whether or not we should believe in God.

Sometimes the first step towards critically examining God is when we realize that we have a completely subjective moral disagreement with him. Once that barrier is down it’s easier to examine other aspects of the narrative.

Just thought I would put that out there.

[Kowani]

*puts that web address into the search bar, finds nothing*

Damn.

Sorry, bud. But I’m sure someone will make that soon.

Well...

[VoVoDoCo]

Sorry, bud. But I’m sure someone will make that soon.

Well...

And it’s not even in bad faith. It has a link, just like it does with the Bible and I think even the book of Mormon, dedicated to Pointing out things that are good. It’s not a hit piece. It’s just a verse by verse analysis of a book that is supposed to be perfect and seeing if it is as perfect as it says. A pretty fun read.

[Insaanistan]

Well...

And it’s not even in bad faith. It has a link, just like it does with the Bible and I think even the book of Mormon, dedicated to Pointing out things that are good. It’s not a hit piece. It’s just a verse by verse analysis of a book that is supposed to be perfect and seeing if it is as perfect as it says. A pretty fun read.

Especially for me, considering nothing they put there is actually right. Again, I’ll get to this later,

[VoVoDoCo]

And it’s not even in bad faith. It has a link, just like it does with the Bible and I think even the book of Mormon, dedicated to Pointing out things that are good. It’s not a hit piece. It’s just a verse by verse analysis of a book that is supposed to be perfect and seeing if it is as perfect as it says. A pretty fun read.

Especially for me, considering nothing they put there is actually right. Again, I’ll get to this later,

Absolutely nothing? You’ve read all their links and all their arguments? And you know not a single one of them is right? Kind of a bold argument I’ll give you that.

[Insaanistan]

Especially for me, considering nothing they put there is actually right. Again, I’ll get to this later,

Absolutely nothing? You’ve read all their links and all their arguments? And you know not a single one of them is right? Kind of a bold argument I’ll give you that.

Sorry, let me rephrase: from what I can tell from the decent number of verses they claim show Isla, is terrible, I have seen nothing but misquotes, terrible translations and/or giving no context whether in a conscious attempt to demonize Islam or simply out of ignorance.

[VoVoDoCo]

Absolutely nothing? You’ve read all their links and all their arguments? And you know not a single one of them is right? Kind of a bold argument I’ll give you that.

Sorry, let me rephrase: from what I can tell from the decent number of verses they claim show Isla, is terrible, I have seen nothing but misquotes, terrible translations and/or giving no context whether in a conscious attempt to demonize Islam or simply out of ignorance.

Fair enough. I’ll wait for your response Jonathan.

I meant *then. But I hope I fucking guessed your name right lol

[Insaanistan]

Sorry, let me rephrase: from what I can tell from the decent number of verses they claim show Isla, is terrible, I have seen nothing but misquotes, terrible translations and/or giving no context whether in a conscious attempt to demonize Islam or simply out of ignorance.

Fair enough. I’ll wait for your response Jonathan.

I meant *then. But I hope I fucking guessed your name right lol

Yeah, my name’s not Johnathan. One of my cousins or uncles probably is named John, though. Let me think...

[VoVoDoCo]

I mean that's a big question.

There is absolutely no evidence in favour of such a thing, and mountains of evidence against pretty well every specific god ever proposed, so it would very much appear not.

1. I haven't seen much evidence besides "we can't see it so it doesn't exist," so have you seen something else?

The most common evidence given for the Christian God can also be used to support the existence of other gods and the truth of other religions, or it seems to rely on fallacies... evolution seems to disprove an intelligent designer...

2. The most commonly given evidence for the existence of the Christian god is Christ's time on Earth and the miracles he performed. I believe those happened if only because Luke wrote about them from the perspective of a neutral outside observer and returned much the same results as the faithful around Christ.

3. Evolution doesn't disprove an intelligent designer unless you look at (as an example) the Bible from an anally literal standpoint, and the fact that it uses metaphor and literary devices proves that as kind of dumb. God is literally described as omnipotent. There's no reason that Big G couldn't have just set up the system fourteen billion years ago with expectations it would produce the exact results we see today. Besides, humans are described as being made in God's image (at least in mind), and wouldn't you agree that a perfectly-designed world would be boring?

4. And you literally can't disprove the existence of something outside of a system from within that system, as you can't observe outside of it. If I'm in a sealed, fixed box I can't prove there's a guy standing just outside the box juggling a ball.

1. Well considering the agnostic atheist position is simply, "I am not convinced there is a god," no positive evidence is really necessary. I don't need to provide evidence as to why I am not convinced. I don't even need to provide evidence to believe and argue that other people shouldn't be convinced. Also that's a strawman. There are many atheists that have an epistemology that revolves around post-positivism, methodological naturalism, and skepticism, and isn't simply lacking transcendental object permanence.

2. How do we know that Luke wrote that book? How do we know the version of Luke we have today is compatible with the original source material? How do we know it wasn't a second third fourth nth hand account of events? What about when it contradicts other books? Such as:
Last words of Jesus:
Matthew 27: The last words of Christ: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?".
Luke 23: The last words of Christ: "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit".
John 19: The last words of Christ: "It is finished".

Or how about according to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1). According to Luke, Jesus was born during the first census in Israel, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). This is impossible because Herod died in March of 4 BC and the census took place in 6 and 7 AD, about 10 years after Herod's death.

There's also a host of contradiction is books other than Luke that are allegedly just as divinely inspired, but I'm curious, why single out Luke?

3. It's impossible to absolutely disprove an intelligent designer. It's unfalsifiable. That'd be like if I told you that my religion teaches that the universe was created by an intelligent being just last Thursday, but with the appearance of being 13.8 billion years old. You couldn't possibly disprove it. The fact that this belief of mine is unfalsifiable is a weakness, not a strength. If something is falsifiable then it is observable, testable, maybe we can at least make some predictions with it. But because it can't be falsified, and it can't be observed in such a way as to meet even a lenient burden of proof, then it simply isn't worthy of consideration. Arguments asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, simple as that.

4. Debatable, but let's assume you're right with no caveats. That's why the only honest position to have is one of agnostic atheism or agnostic theism. Simply believing in a deity is one thing, but to claim actual "knowledge" that a deity does or does not exists is to risk speaking with more certainly than is justified.

But like I said, your point is debatable. If we presume the laws of logic to be true, a presumption I'm happy to make, then we can CAN disprove certain religions, if not certain gods. The law of non-contradiction states that contradictory ideas cannot both be true in the same way and at the same time. We may not be able to absolutely disprove the existence of YHWH, but we can disprove the religions that give YHWH so much reverence by revealing internal contradiction within the scriptures and external contradictions with reality.
Just the trial of Jesus is rife with contradiction:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Contradic ... rucifixion

We don't even need to talk about the failed prophesies (which contradicts the idea of divine guidance in writing the scriptures), accounts, contradicting genealogies, etc. To me, that's sufficient to "disprove" Christianity, if not YHWH. Though even if the contradictions could be alleviated, that wouldn't prove that the now harmonized gospels were speaking the truth. If would only mean they got their stories, true or false, straight.

Which as already stated, the bible consistently fails to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk

[Punished UMN]

Skeptics' Annotated Bible/Quran and Rationalwiki are not reliable sources of scholarly textual criticism. Most of the "contradictions" listed are easily explainable.

[VoVoDoCo]

Skeptics' Annotated Bible/Quran and Rationalwiki are not reliable sources of scholarly textual criticism. Most of the "contradictions" listed are easily explainable.

Well for starters, here’s some contradictions I mentioned, I wonder what your take is:

“Last words of Jesus:
Matthew 27: The last words of Christ: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?".
Luke 23: The last words of Christ: "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit".
John 19: The last words of Christ: "It is finished".

Or how about according to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1). According to Luke, Jesus was born during the first census in Israel, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). This is impossible because Herod died in March of 4 BC and the census took place in 6 and 7 AD, about 10 years after Herod's death.”

But as far as your point about the skeptics annotated series and rational wiki, no one said that they were scholarly sources in and of themselves. But:
A. Let’s not gate keep. You don’t have to be scholarly to have legitimate criticisms.
B. Both of them utilize horizontal reading, Which is a technique that scholars use to compare and contrast different text for discrepancies, among other things.
C. Typically the contradictions argument is only effective against biblical literalists. So if that’s not what you are, then yeah there are decent things that can explain away some of the contradictions. It’s those that believe in the concept of sola scriptura Then I had to take heed of the contradictions.

[Punished UMN]

Skeptics' Annotated Bible/Quran and Rationalwiki are not reliable sources of scholarly textual criticism. Most of the "contradictions" listed are easily explainable.

Well for starters, here’s some contradictions I mentioned, I wonder what your take is:

1) “Last words of Jesus:
Matthew 27: The last words of Christ: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?".
Luke 23: The last words of Christ: "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit".
John 19: The last words of Christ: "It is finished".

2) Or how about according to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1). According to Luke, Jesus was born during the first census in Israel, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). This is impossible because Herod died in March of 4 BC and the census took place in 6 and 7 AD, about 10 years after Herod's death.”

3) But as far as your point about the skeptics annotated series and rational wiki, no one said that they were scholarly sources in and of themselves. But:
A. Let’s not gate keep. You don’t have to be scholarly to have legitimate criticisms.
B. Both of them utilize horizontal reading, Which is a technique that scholars use to compare and contrast different text for discrepancies, among other things.
C. Typically the contradictions argument is only effective against biblical literalists. So if that’s not what you are, then yeah there are decent things that can explain away some of the contradictions. It’s those that believe in the concept of sola scriptura Then I had to take heed of the contradictions.

1) is easily explainable by the fact that not all of the Apostles were present at the Crucifixion and were therefore relying on different witnesses, and 2) is easily explainable by the likelihood that information was added to the gospels later, possibly by multiple authors.

3) It's not gatekeeping to ask that they use the same criterion as scholars.

[VoVoDoCo]

Well for starters, here’s some contradictions I mentioned, I wonder what your take is:

1) “Last words of Jesus:
Matthew 27: The last words of Christ: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?".
Luke 23: The last words of Christ: "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit".
John 19: The last words of Christ: "It is finished".

2) Or how about according to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1). According to Luke, Jesus was born during the first census in Israel, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). This is impossible because Herod died in March of 4 BC and the census took place in 6 and 7 AD, about 10 years after Herod's death.”

3) But as far as your point about the skeptics annotated series and rational wiki, no one said that they were scholarly sources in and of themselves. But:
A. Let’s not gate keep. You don’t have to be scholarly to have legitimate criticisms.
B. Both of them utilize horizontal reading, Which is a technique that scholars use to compare and contrast different text for discrepancies, among other things.
C. Typically the contradictions argument is only effective against biblical literalists. So if that’s not what you are, then yeah there are decent things that can explain away some of the contradictions. It’s those that believe in the concept of sola scriptura Then I had to take heed of the contradictions.

1) is easily explainable by the fact that not all of the Apostles were present at the Crucifixion and were therefore relying on different witnesses, and 2) is easily explainable by the likelihood that information was added to the gospels later, possibly by multiple authors.

3) It's not gatekeeping to ask that they use the same criterion as scholars.

1&2. I agree those are reasonable explanations when we assume it written by fallible human beings. But then were the many debates that took place during the early church to make sure that the we canonized the right scriptures ultimately in vain? We don't know many of the authors, and even the ones we actually have good reason to claim knowledge of authorship (namely Paul's letters) aren't without opposition. So how do we know they're trustworthy at all? It's been known for a long time that the bible hasn't had its long life without being adulterated. What level of certainty can we have in the texts?

So you're right. The idea that the books were written by fallible human beings does explain some discrepancies. But that doesn't strengthen the case for Christianity. It leaves it just as weak. The two main positions are:
A. The bible is god inspired.
B. The bible is a collection of observations and beliefs (of which we have no clear evidence as to how faithful they are to the original source material) of imperfect (largely anonymous) people who's writings have clearly been corrupted.

A is troublesome if we are to believe that God would get details mixed up. B is troublesome if my eternity is at stake and I might burn in hell for not being convinced by contradictory testimonies of unknown authors. Just because contradictions can be cleared up (which tbh you haven't actually cleared them up, you've just given a possible explanation for the contradictions not definitive evidence but it doesn't really matter) doesn't mean that the theology is cleared up.

3. I agree. But you didn't ask anybody to use the same criterion as sources. You just said "X sources are not reliable sources of scholarly textual criticism. Most of the 'contradictions' listed are easily explainable."

Who's "they" when you say, "they (should) use the same criterion as scholars?" You mean Rationalwiki and Skeptic's Annotated should use use the same criterion? Do you have a preferred criterion? Those specific sources horizontal reading, which is common in scholarly circles to compare texts. Or do you mean that the people (including myself sadface.jpeg) using them as sources should use the same criterion as scholars? Because I've done that in the past, I just didn't in that post. I don't think that's a big deal, since I was just posting a list of contradictions to see what people think. Again, those contradictions are not a problem to people who don't believe the bible is irrerant, but that leads me to objections that go beyond contradictions.

[The Liberated Territories]

"We can't know, but leaning no."

It's one of those questions whose ridiculousness is its own premise. Sure we don't know that the Earth is secretly run by a subterranean lizard cabal, but we can probably be assured it isn't due to lack of hard evidence.

[VoVoDoCo]

"We can't know, but leaning no."

It's one of those questions whose ridiculousness is its own premise. Sure we don't know that the Earth is secretly run by a subterranean lizard cabal, but we can probably be assured it isn't due to lack of hard evidence.

Yeah. "Why should we believe in God NSG?" Well, what are the possible reasons to believe? There's faith, but we should set higher standards for ourselves than merely taking it on faith. The physical evidence (the authors having divine insight into facts of the universe they would not have known about for example) have never been vindicated in any meaningful way. So that leaves historical evidence... left by many unknown authors of unknown biases with experiences we can't test that were jotted down in some initial document that is long gone.

As of now, there's no reason to believe that I can see.