Christianity And The Basic Bible Test

@tpaine
I have also encouraged you to start by reading Aquinas http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/index.htm

It will take you at least 3 years to read and digest.

Then, you can start asking the RIGHT questions.

Jesus/God is Immense and cannot be trivialized.

@tpaine
Aquinas asked and answered thousands and thousands of questions. A good researcher like you should start from what other researchers have done in the past.

Otherwise you risk asking questions that were answered (beautifully) 850 years ago. Not good for your reputation as a scientist/researcher.

Well, my philosophical leaning are on the naturalistic side (metaphysical naturalism), but am a student of everything and anything. Am currently doing a degree in Cosmology in Manchester University but I also study philosophy, science, history, literature, jazz, gardening. I worked for many years as a mathematician/engineer but now my fulltime job is in Information technology (IT) with a financial Institution.

Was a Christian but abandoned the belief system when I was about 16/17 years old, for freethinking and rationalism.  What motivates me particular is the pursuit of truth and the eradication of pernicious belief systems that retard human progress.  In order words, I am passionate for truth from a purely heuristic perspective. For we appreciate nature better and our place in it when the quest for such knowledge is objective and unbiased. Secondly, I hate to see human progress retarded by wilful ignorance, such as we see with the opposition to stem cell research and the teaching of evolution. In summary my motivation is truth and science is the only reliable epistemic method we have for revealing the truth.

This comparison seems flattering, but believe those are really great intellectual giants and am nothing compared to them. But the important thing is to realise the great men now and past and lean towards them, or start climbing on their back in the hope that you may one day see further by standing on their shoulders. 

between, I would also like to add Darwin, Voltaire, David Hume in that list.



In this sort of forum, it is hard to expound in depth about one development, but will try to hit just the main points. Here we go:


I was about 10 years old when a certain realisation of gross unfairness and injustice dawned upon me on reading the bible. This was an account in the old testament where Moses massacres many thousands of Midianites. As a 10 year old, I found this profoundly disturbing and no amount of prayer or lecture from our bible intructor coude assuage the sense of betrayal I felt. That day, something in me broke and was determined never to take anything again at face value. I also learnt never to trust the so-called intructor, teachers, preacher etc if I myself could get hold of the material and read and understand it for myself. Ever since then, I have been on a quest to understand the origin of religion and why so many people find it enticing

Five of six years later another question stirred up in my mind. And that was the question of the origin of sin. According to the classic christian tradition, sin originated from god's own kingdom, when some angels were so bad as to commit sin in god's own house. It then occurred to me that the first sin was not committed in on earth but in heaven, in god's own backyard. Why was god not able to stop sin in his own house? And that the sinning angels were cast out of heaven onto the earth.

As if that was not bad enough, we are told that also that angels have been being cast down by god ever since. Can you imagine the scenario; god matching up and down the corridors and looking for those bad angels and pushing them off into the abyss of the earth.

It then occurred to me that if this was true then this must be a very incompetent god and that his promised salvation would never solve the problem of sin since he has never been able to solve it. He has tried with the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah etc but sin persists.

By this point, I was majoring in the sciences at high school and found the naturalistic explanations a lot more intellectually satisfying. And then I learnt about the theory of evolution. Well for me this was the death knell to by christian belief.  From then on, none of the biblical explanation seem satisfying. I realised the Genesis accounts were myths, the Flood account was also myth (stolen from the Babylonians - the Epic of Gilgemesh) and that most of the bible was factually inaccurate. If this book was really the work of a god, then the least you could say about him was that he was very incompetent, indeed.

When I came to England to study, I was exposed to a wealth of new ideas and material and that essentially killed off any sympathies I had for christianity.



Hard to answer this one. I think you really ought to direct this one to a christian. Today, there are more than 30000 christian denominations, all professing to be the real heir to Christ. None of them meets my standards for truth.


Science is essentially the human enterprise dedicated to the unveilling and revealing of the hidden aspects of nature - of uncovering knoweledge about reality. It is also the most reliable method of discoverying knowledge, as proven by its tract record.  Just think of all th eartifact of science and technology at our disposal today. Is there any of these that is the fruits of non-science, say faith, or superstition?

How does believe in the afterlife advance the human condition? How does believing that someone rose from the dead advance the human condition?

Humans have pulled human out of disease, poverty, natural disasters thanks to science and technology, not due to prayers and supplications.

I don't know this one. Ave just started looking into this recently. All I can say for now is that there are various types and notions of truth; Objective truth (for example, say that the earth is more than 3 billions years old is an approach to objective truth. Or that evolutions is responsible for the diversity of life on the planet)

Most forms of truth should have a valid method for verifying it.  My rule of thumb is that any claim for truth must be capable of being demonstrated to be so.

For instance, to say reincarnation is true, it must be capable of demonstrating that it is so. Otherwise, the statement falls into the realms of propositions.


This is  a massive subject. I would try and summarise it in a few sentences. About 500 to 2000 million years ago, nothing but unicellular life throve on the earth. Then from about 300-400 millions years ago, multicellular organism began to appear and more complex body plans started emerging in a period called the Cambrian explosion. Then nearly all existing life was nearly wiped out in the end-Permian extinction event 250mya. But life has rebounded, hence you and I are here. Ask yourself, why is life so resourceful and tenacious. How did it all start again after such a close brush with total extermination.


All belief systems founded on faith, supersitions and cults of authorities such as religions and totalitarianism. Reason should be the basis for evaluating all human propositions. When we depart from the path of reason, we step into the realm of darkness and superstitions.

@rednow
I am a scientific theist who believes that science does NOT  answer ALL things. There is a place for science and a place for God - even though God is immanent in His Universe.

I believe that to limit knowledge only to that we can get from the 5 senses is to deny the complete truth about man ( and woman).

Have any of you guys watch the movie “Bruce Almighty” at all

Anyways that’s besides the point, here’s a quick chip in - will follow up later.

Mull this over. For starters, our sensory organs have a threshold – there is more that meets the proverbial eyes better still more than it presently can see.  There is a limit that our degraded and degenerated brain/body can process, as with Man’s imitation - the computer; without a beefed up specs, too much data crunching can overload and blow it up.  There is also the need to be wary of GIGO. Robocop was and is susceptible to malfunctioning

It is confidence that permits a Creator to make a creature and literally let it loose to free-will caprice and self-whim(s) without any sense of insecurity and knowing well that “Yeah I can handle it”.

Christianity is not about religion but rather about relationship and fellowship

Imagine a talking and philosophy furniture thinking it knows it all than the Carpenter ,

@tpaine
Must say part of the text is/was subtly obfuscated?
Having admitting that. Can you be more specific or detailed on which is unambiguous and which was vague?

tpaine, redsun, imhotep, its an interesting topic you guys got here. I am a fervent believer in this fact that science was created to understand God the more. Science does not in anyway invalidate God, rather, God can invalidate science since so many things are beyond scientific explanations. For starters, why is it that the smallest unit of the human body, the cell, is so complex and difficult for science to comprehend its creation after all this while?

Of a truth, scientists know the components/consituents of a cell, yet, they are unable to bring all those components together in a lab to form a cell. Why? The day i will stop seeing atheists and no-God proponents as stupid is when they are able to create a single and simple cell.

For outright unbelievers and full atheists, why don't you ask yourself whether the statue of liberty in America came their by accident or was formed from a big-bang or whether it was created by a sculptor? If your answer is that it was created by design, why do you look at the abysmally complex world and they conclude it came by accident or that it was not created? Look at the faces of past American presidents on that Mount in America? Did erosion fashion their heads to now look exactly like the faces of past presidents or it was by design? Anything that makes sense happens by design not by accident.

May be a little quiz for my evolutionists friends: have you asked yourselves when you as a human will eventually  turn into say a lizard? After how many billlion years? What will you evolve into in the future, a tree?, a goat? i need to know? When will evolution stop and what will orchestrate its halting?

If you cannot prove what you believe in and then you start referring things to hundreds of millions and billions of years ago, then you must be simply deceiving yourselves. Where you there?


Let me correct an impression. Christianity does not surpress gifts, talents and abilities. it rather sharpens them. It does not suppress freedom of expression and leaves room for good discourse. Its only the Catholic church that does not leave room for intellectual discourses and we have since on this forum declared  them as non-Christ-teachings-people. In Pentecostal churches, you can question and you are challenged deeply to rational and intellectual discourse. great inventors and discovers and scientists have been christians and no doubt attributed their feats to a firm belief in God. so what are you talking about reasoning suppression? May be islam allows for reasoning subjugation also.

Thanks be to God, we have a well documented history of the mission of Jesus Christ to the world. Facts have it that his existence changed the world. You will understand him better when he comes to make his abode with you. cheers!

What are your questions? Put them on lets discuss.

huxley? your questions will become very boring. can't you open a thread  for each one of them?

cgift, 

To help you make your mind, why don't you look ate Question 10.

Question (10) was discussed here http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=112557.msg1952665#msg1952665

Just answer this one question, giving biblical as well as other historical references;

7) Which of these dates is likely to be the date of Jesus' birth; before 4BCE  or after 6CE?

Check this one out: http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-113449.0.html

I still do not get it Huxley, what does this prove, whether or not I know the exact date that Christ was born shows nothing.

Huxley get this right, there exists no disparity within the content of God's WORD. The Bible in itself never dated the life span of King Herod, neither did it date the reign of cyrenius. You are the one with the dating problem. The Bible ascertains their era, but you are the one with the problem trying to place a time line on them, you go figure out your problem.

I thought you were going to show me the verse in scripture where it was written that Herod died on so so date and that cynerius reigned so so date, scripture does not give those dates, either your dating system is wrong or you just have not gotten your facts right.

A word of advice, this is no way to approach scriptures, it will benefit those who first believe that 'He is' and He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

Answers to some of the Questions:


3) Which Book of the Old Testament contains the following words; "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death." ?
 
Exodus 21: 17.  How many Christians know that there is such a barbaric injunction in their holy book? Why do they not observe this law?  Jesus warns against the abandonment of the laws in Matthew 5. So why should this one not be observed?


4) Which OT character sacrifice his daughter to the Lord, after the Lord help him defeat his enemies?

Jephthah, in Judges 11.  I wonder what moral lesson can be drawn from this barbaric act!

5)  When was the book of Daniel written?

The book of Daniel presents itself as having being written in the 6th century BCE, during the reigns of the Babylonian rulers Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and the Persians Cyrus and Darius. From that point in time it presents itself as predicting events in the ancient Near East during the 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. But strangely, whenever Daniel talks about the 6th century it is vague and inaccurate and when it talks about the second century it is quite detailed and exact. This gives some idea as to the time of composition.

With regard to the 6th century, the book of Daniel opens with;

1  In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it.

2  And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.


But in fact Jehoiakim reigned for eleven years: it was only in the first year of his son and successor Jehioachin that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, captured it, and "carried off the treasures of the House of the Lord" (2 Kings 28:8-13). The author of Daniel is quite weak on the facts about the 6th century BCE, and continues to be so in  his account of the fall of Babylon to Persia in the year 539. He writes that "Belshazzar king of the Chaldaeans was slain, and Darius the Mede took the kingdom" (Daniel 5:30). But it was Cyrus the Persian who conquered Babylon (Ezra 1:1); there was never a king Darius the Mede. The author of Daniel confusedly imagines him in place of Darius the Persian, who succeeded Cyrus' son Cambyses in 521 BCE. The author of Daniel also confusedly imagines that Cyrus succeeded Darius (though in fact Darius succeeded Cyrus' son), and imagines that Balshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar (5:11) though he was in fact the son of Nabonidus. Nabonidus, in turn, was not related to any of his predecessors, including Nebuchadnezzar; so the author of Daniel was ignorant even of the lineage of the ruler, Belshazzar, in whose court Daniel was said to be "chief of the Magicians" (5:11).

Thus it ought not surprise the attentive reader of the book of Daniel that modern critical scholars of the bible are unanimous in their conviction that Daniel "actually comes from the 2nd century BCE", and that its pretence of coming from the 6th century BCE is literary fiction intended to impress its readers with the supposed accuracy of its foreknowledge of the next several hundred years. (Source: Who wrote the Gospels, Randel Helms)

6)  What combination of animals were taken into the ark? How long was the flood event? What type of bird was sent out by Noah?

Two of a Kind:

Genesis 7: 7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

Genesis 7: 8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

Genesis 7: 9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
Genesis 7: 15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
 
Seven of a Kind:

Genesis 7: 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

Genesis 7: 3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.


The Forth Days Flood Account

Genesis 7: 4  For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
Genesis 7: 12  And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7: 17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
Genesis 8: 6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:


The One Hundred and Fifty Days Flood Account

Genesis 7: 24  And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Genesis 8: 3  And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

Genesis 8: 4  And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

Genesis 8: 5  And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

What kind of bird (raven or dove) was sent out?


Genesis 8: 7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

Genesis 8: 8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;

Genesis 8: 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

Genesis 8: 10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;

Genesis 8: 11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

Genesis 8: 12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.


7) Which of these dates is likely to be the date of Jesus' birth; before 4BCE or after 6CE?
 
Matthew claims Jesus was born in the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. Luke claims Jesus was born during the census conducted by Quirinus the governor of Syria. But Quirinius was not governor until 6 CE, a 10 year  gap. So when was jesus born?

8-) Who were the administrative rulers of Syria in the 1st century CE?

The Romans

9-) How did Judas Iscariot died?
 
He either hung himself as in one account of stabbed himself and burst open his guts, as in another account.

10-) When was Jesus crucified? On the day of passover or the day before passover?

One bible account says the day of passover, while another says the day of passover.

11-) Are rulers of countries ordained by God?

Romans 13 says the rulers of countries are ordained by God. So God has got to be held responsible for rulers like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Sadam etc.

Anyone to try the rest of these questions?