If it cannot decide what is true and what is not, then it's untrustworthy. You cannot claim anything about what the book describes, least of all that Jesus existed.
Another analogy sometimes used by apologists is comparing the resurrection contradictions to differing accounts given by witnesses of an auto accident. If one witness said the vehicle was green and the other said it was blue, that could be accounted for by different angles, lighting, perception, or definitions of words. The important thing, they claim, is that they do agree on the basic story–there was an accident, there was a resurrection.
I am not a fundamentalist inerrantist. I’m not demanding that the evangelists must have been expert, infallible witnesses. (None of them claims to have been at the tomb itself, anyway.) But what if one person said the auto accident happened in Chicago and the other said it happened in Milwaukee? At least one of these witnesses has serious problems with the truth.
-- Dan Barker
These aren't matters of mere detail. The contradictions, inaccuracies and errors within the bible can't just be glossed over with your scoffing and your huffing and puffing and your pretentious handwaving. The bible makes truth claims, upon which Xianity itself precariously sits. It makes these claims to justify Xianity itself into existence. The bible's inability to paint a coherent picture is not just minor quibbles separate from an externally verifiable truth. In a car accident, there are crushed cars, injured people, maybe even a dead body, regardless of the eyewitnesses. The bible is literally the only thing that justifies Xianity, Xian belief, and the Jesus character himself. Xian belief itself is dependent upon it, otherwise it collapses. And it does.
If there is a diversity of opinion, then no opinion is more authoritative than any other. Least of all yours. You don't get to claim that it's all interpretation and opinion and perspective, and then say that mine - or anyone else's - reading of it is invalid.
Having done all that, you then dismiss me as a "fundamentalist" reading. Except, the fundamentalists will tell you that you are not the true Xian, while you're telling them that they're not the true Xian. Neither of you can prove your case. Neither of you can justify your position as being more correct than the other.
“I get many tweets from Christians saying I should keep my beliefs to myself, but I never see them tweeting that to other Christians. Weird.”
-- Ricky Gervais
However, what we do know is that for many hundreds of years the church itself held these beliefs to be true. You're forgetting, I don't believe any of this crap. But Xians do. They have for hundreds and hundreds of years. This is not my reading, this is theirs. Pretending this is an error on my part is disingenuous and dishonest. Your view is the one that is novel and new. Yours is the heretical view. And is only achieved by going to extraordinary effort to ignore most of the bible as little more than poetry and fable.
For hundreds of years, nobody needed "lenses" (seriously, that is one of the most empty, pretentious words of our time). They knew what was true. The introduction of "lenses" puts the reader in charge, not the writer. Which, of course, is deliberate to sustain belief in things that no longer stand up to scrutiny. When you use "lenses," you're looking through a preferred distortion, not at the reality.
For 1300 years, the church knew that the creation story was literally true. The Earth was flat. The flood happened. Humans lived for 900 years and people eating a magic fruit unleashed Pandora's curse on the world. The church punished Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno, because they had the knowledge of the bible. They had the Truth™. They knew the Earth is the center of the universe, and the sun, moon and stars go around it. Not because some atheist on the internet deliberately misread it that way, but because it was divine knowledge. It's only among apologists of the last hundred years of so that this has become "metaphor."
But metaphor doesn't help you. If your book is full of metaphors and allegories, then we are justified in concluding that your god and your savior are metaphors too. Again, you can't have it both ways. You can't claim that it's not literally true, and then claim that the people in it are and really did come back from the dead and fly up into space, and expect me not to metaphorically laugh in your face.
Everyone who used the bible to describe the world got the wrong answer. Everyone who used the bible to describe history got the wrong answer. Everyone who used the bible to justify their morality got wrong answers. And you come along and act like it's just me? Are you even for real? Am I on Candid Camera?
Some part of the bible has to literally be true. Which parts are literally true? Be careful. If Adam isn't literally true, then neither is Original Sin. If Adam didn't literally exist, then the genealogy from Adam to Jesus is false, and Jesus is the direct descenant of a myth, and therefore a myth himself.
Not only that, I'm not a fundamentalist at all, because I don't care what's in the bible. You see, you're misunderstanding or misrepresenting. I'm as okay with it being fable and poetry as I am with it being taken literally. Because if your book is full of musings and legends that are open to interpretation, then it's unreliable and we need not concern ourselves with the metaphorical creatures within any more than we concern ourselves with Aesop's talking hare and tortoise, or Swift's Lilliputians. If, however, it's to be taken literally, then it's flat out wrong. If it's a mixture, then it's clearly the case that the believer themselves gets to manufacture this threshold for themselves, from their own moral intuitions, and therefore makes themselves authoritative over their own god. If you get to decide for yourself which parts of the scripture are true and which aren't, which rules apply and which don't, which descriptions of your god's nature are accurate and which aren't, then you are the author of your own god.
You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible—and then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely upon our own intuitions to rightly guide us in this world; rather, we must depend upon the prescriptions of the Bible. You are using your own moral intuitions to decide that the Bible is the appropriate guarantor of your moral intuitions. Your own intuitions are still primary, and your reasoning is circular.
-- Sam Harris
I don't even care which. But the fact even you believers can't figure it out is indicative. The fact you all use "faith" to resolve and defend it is truly an indictment of both the purported truth of the beliefs, as well as "faith" itself.
What's clear is that you've never read much of anything I've ever written, because I can - and do - argue it both ways for exactly this reason. But it's much easier to attack selectively, isn't it? If you pretend that I'm a bible literalist, then you can claim victory by echoing the old weak-ass "it's a metaphor!", "it's interpretation!" canards and enjoy the reward of the endorphin buzz as you defended your god from the heathen.
What you're tacitly trying to say, while pretending that I don't understand it, is that only a Xian analysis is valid. That is, you can't validly criticize it unless you believe it. That if someone doesn't believe it, it can only be because they don't understand it. That there is no valid way to both understand it and not believe it. That there is some special knowledge that only the believer possesses that makes it somehow valid in a way the non-believer can never access. That you must believe it first, then you can understand it, and then criticize it. That if it sounds horrible and immoral, well, it's not that it is horrible and immoral, you just must not have understood it (i.e. unfalsifiable). That belief precedes truth. Which is obviously idiotic and irrational. We never demand that for anything except things that are false.
Words have specific meaning to all who understand the words. This applies to Bible words as to all others. Any literate person can understand what the Bible says and therefore what it means. Understanding the Bible doesn't require a special "anointing" from god.
-- Darwin Chandler, former Xian preacher (40 years)
Muslims tell me the same thing about Islam, by the way. That my criticism of Islam is invalid because I don't really understand it, because if I really did understand it, I would believe it. Needless to say, I don't accept it from you any more than I accept it from them.
Critical Theorists even have a word for it: Authentic. A claim or voice is only "authentic" if it agrees with the presuppositions of Critical Theory. Otherwise, it's False Consciousness or Internalized Something, or "pick me." Again, unfalsifiable, as Critical Theory remains unassailable. There's no valid way to criticize Critical Theory.
D'Angelo's essay doesn't talk about disagreements or debates, but only about those who practice social justice, and those who, “resist it.”
-- Dr. Lyell Asher
I don't care what you think of my criticism. I will not criticize on your terms. You want me to criticize "intelligently" and you have appointed yourself to be the arbiter of that vaguely defined term. That is, for me to criticize in a way that suits you, that you will accept. You want me to dance for you, to perform in a manner that pleases you. I decline. Especially since it seems clear that you won't accept anything I say without me already believing it.
You are making yourself authority over your doctrine, and pretending you are the one I must answer to. I do not recognize that authority, and I reject it entirely. This is fairly typical - as mentioned, believers also judge their own god and decide what its commandments, instructions and actions really mean, in spite of their plain reading.
When you're unhappy, you can call it not-"intelligently" and make it my fault you don't like it, without ever actually having to justify this. This is once again dishonest. I don't care what you think. Especially when I have good reason to suspect I know this doctrine better than you. I don't answer to you.
I unreservedly reject your false authority. The fact that what I'm saying displeases someone who believes in baseless magical nonsense is actually motivation for me to keep doing so. When a superstitionist is concerned about others hearing what I have to say, then it seems like it's something I should keep at. There's a vulnerability, a weak spot that I'm inching towards. (You should probably learn not to tip your hand.)
Here's a little hint for you: much of my own analysis is influenced by bible scholars. Literal bible scholars. Dan Barker, Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, John Loftus, David Fitzgerald, Robert Price, David Madison, and others. Many of these people believed it until they understood it. They studied it to become more devout, then figured out through study it was false. This is actually one of the most classic pathways out of religious belief. It's so reliable that it also works for other religions, such as Islam.
"The road to atheism is littered with bibles that have been read cover to cover."
-- Andrew L. Seidel
So while you're busy pretending that this is just me, just some random nut on Tumblr making stuff up for no reason, this is little more than a way for you to go after what you perceive to be a "little fish." Except this one isn't as little as you think. And bites back.
Here's another little hint: you are not my audience. You are the subject matter. I'm not here to convince you. You are beyond the reach of reason, because you have worthless, empty "faith". My audience is the unconvinced, who are doubting and can be persuaded. Or who will awaken at 2am two years from now suddenly remembering something that now puts a crack in their "faith." And those who already don't believe but don't have their voice, haven't found the words or the courage to say so and why. Xianity is already collapsing, that's simply an objective fact. One of the contributing factors is mentalities such as yours, which clearly erode the sacred nature of the beliefs, and reposition the believer as authoritative over the "divine." I've said before, the believer themselves will tell you that their religion is false, all you have to do is listen to them. Amplifying your voice does more for my cause than for yours.
May I remind you, it's not my fault your ideology is incoherent, inconsistent and nonsensical. By your own admission, the authors themselves made it this way. Which is obviously inevitable considering none of them were there. It's trivially and uncontroversially the case that the bible is known to not be eyewitness statements, known to contain forgeries and lies (even the authors admit to it), and known to have been written decades or more after the supposed events. If you're unaware of that, you should look into it.
It's not my fault the bible says what it does. It's not my fault the bible endorses slavery, commands killing people for no reason, and offers a warrant to the believer to commit any immoral deeds while still reserving a place in paradise. These aren't mere "interpretation." These are what the bible says. Divine moral guidance that your god got wrong. Indeed, believers are betting their entire "afterlife" on the last one.
I'm just the one pointing it out. You're having a go at me, but your agitation is misplaced. You need to direct that were it belongs: your ideology. You need to be asking yourself why you believe it, how good the evidence is, and how you can justify putting your "faith" in this one book knowing what's in it and where it came from. To do that you should actually know where it came from.
I HAVE AN EASTER challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born.
Believers should eagerly take up this challenge, since without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. Paul wrote, “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.” (I Corinthians 15:14-15)
The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul’s tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened.
Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture–it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be set apart in parentheses. The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted. Fair enough?
If you cannot even say what happened on the most important day underpinning Xianity, then you have no right to make any claims about Xianity at all. Or have a go at me about it. Do this, then come back to me. If you refuse on the basis of "interpretation" or "perspective," then you've already conceded the point to me about its unreliability.
That is, the unreliability of literally the only source of the claims of Xianity and Jesus.
The crusade here is yours. You came to me, remember? I was doing my thing, and you took it upon yourself to insert yourself into my Inbox. You seem determined to have me Tumblr the way you want me to. I have done no such thing to you. I don't care what you do. But you are extremely concerned about what I do on my Tumblr, and I think you should probably consider why. What anxiety, what twinge in the back of your mind has been awakened, and why you're acting out so aggressively to try and silence both it and myself? It's not my job to alleviate you of that. It's not my obligation to protect your beliefs from you figuring out that they're false. You chose to react the way you did to my blog, and you don't get to blame me for your reaction.
So, don't try that crap with me, I'm not that gullible. Least of all the obvious lie that I'm propagating "anti-semitism." It's interesting how you came back again, and despite having the opportunity this time to present your evidence for this assertion, and yet you didn't even bother, you just made that empty, and obviously false, claim again. Y'all aren't particularly good with that whole "evidence" thing, are you?
Hell, despite sending me multiple paragraphs of just.... stuff... not only did you not factually refute anything I've said as incorrect, you didn't even identify anything I've said as being incorrect. Or "anti-semitic." Is everything you do and think so lacking in substance?
You even opened with the classically dishonest "oh, everything is so wrong that I'm not going to bother telling you how any of it is wrong." You couldn't even be bothered justifying one thing, one single thing. You had my undivided attention and you just could not be bothered demonstrating even the most basic of intellectual honesty, even the simplest demonstration of not being an indolent, pernicious time-thief.
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
-- Christopher Hitchens
You don't get to whine at me about criticizing "intelligently" when you've spent all your time with me clinging desperately to the Ad Hominem fallacy like the Titanic's doorframe. You've wasted two Asks just whining at me and making empty accusations without justifying any of them. You offered nothing substantive, or even particularly coherent. You never cited or linked to anything I've said, much less showed why it's incorrect or "anti-semitic." You just threw your existential baggage at me and hoped I would carry it for you and feel obliged to pander to your angst. I don't put much stock in the opinions of those who won't - or can't - articulate a valid point or argument. And I sure don't comply with their authoritarian demands.
"If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, 'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.'"
-- Christopher Hitchens
You don't have the intellectual high ground here.
We're done. I'm not wasting more time on someone as intellectually vacuous as you, who brought literally nothing. You might have an eternity to piss away, but I don't.
