Response To DD’s “What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means” Pt. IVHere, here, and here, I've responded to DD's post, What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means (WBIRM). DD has responded to those responses, and I think now would be a good time to revisit DD's original post that prompted my responses in the first place. There's quite a lot going on in DD's original post, so let's try to strain the pertinent arguments from his personal opinions. DD makes 4 claims in WBIRM that I feel the need to respond to:
Reason, Intellect, Religion, & BeliefI feel the need to clarify a few things. In general — but in this post especially — when I say belief, I refer specifically to the belief that God exists as described in the Bible. When I say believer or saint, I refer specifically to those who have believed and known God, and henceforth accepted the provision of the Gospel: Jesus Christ. Unless in the pre-stated context of Roman Catholicism, when I say the church, I refer to the body of believers and saints spread across the world.
The biblical definition of a believer is one whose spirit has been regenerated by God. Does this mean that any person who utters with their mouth "I believe" is regenerated thusly? Certainly not. Although the church is the body of believers, not every person who attends church believes. In fact, the Bible grimly suggests the opposite, and such is borne out by the testimonies of former Christians everywhere. The difference between being a member of the church and simply attending church is precisely this matter of regeneration. Again, belief refers to something that actually happens to the subject in the spiritual realm. Anything less than this is a mere puffing up of the religious mind.
Response To DD’s “What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means” Pt. IIIThis is my third response to DD's "What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means."
Response To DD’s “What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means” Pt. III've reread DD's arguments a few more times, and I'd like to give them more thorough address, mostly to show why I think they are not justified by a solid foundation of logic, or historical fact. As we noted yesterday, DD's first objection to Jesus' response to the Sadducees as described in Matthew 22 was that,
..Jesus tells the Sadducees that they are wrong because they do not know the Scriptures… then proceeds to “correct” them by declaring that “at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven”—which is not written anywhere in the Old Testament Scriptures!
In that post, DD also introduced the unsupported claim that,
..the Sadducees believed in the idea that the dead continued to exist as disembodied spirits…
I'd like to stop here and see if perhaps DD's claims contain any assumed premises or historical inaccuracies. I believe they do.
A Chat With The Chaplain?On a thread at DA, I remarked that,
..improving the condition of the human species and doing things for the
benefit of our fellow living beings is what true religion is all
about,
to which the Chaplain from An Apostate's Chapel replied,
What is the basis of this proposition?
The following post intends to perfunctorily answer her question. Let's refer to the idea that true religion entails improving the
condition of the human species and doing things for the benefit of our
fellow living beings as the Good Will Hypothesis (GWH).
Public Challenge To Atheists: Why Believe In What Can Only Prove False?Every now and again I meditate on the fact that the atheist / naturalist / materialist position cannot be empirically vindicated. By atheist / naturalist / materialist position, I mean the Epicurean idea that death entails the complete and final cessation of consciousness – that after we die, there will be no more thought, no more experience, no more anything.
One of the many disadvantages of this world view is that no other option can potentially befall it other than falsification. That is to say, even if this position is correct, we can never prove it, for how could we ever be conscious of the cessation of consciousness to prove that such was indeed the case? You need consciousness to prove anything, and indeed, the atheist / naturalist / materialist position cannot be empirically vindicated. It can only prove false, because if even one iota of consciousness continues in any form after death, the idea is effectively bunk.
And so the challenge is for any atheist, naturalist or materialist to satiate my curiosity by reasonably or at least politely answering the following questions: Why believe in an idea whose only possible empirical verification is disproof? What of the hypocrisy in committing yourself to a position that claims to rely on proof as the highest measure of truth when the position itself cannot possibly be proven?
False Argument #17: Bible Claims Those Who’ve Never Heard Of Jesus Go To HellFor the past three days I've been spending way too much time on an atheist forum where over a dozen commenters have taken me strongly to task on this issue. Yet strangely, when asked for scriptural support, they offer nothing but the standard verses relating to salvation.
I agree that the Bible says Jesus is the only way to God. Does this mean that those who have never heard of Jesus go automatically to hell? My atheist opponents cry an emphatic yes.
But even a basic Bible education disproves this idea. If this interpretation is correct, then Moses, Isaac, Abraham, Daniel, Isaiah, David, Solomon and ALL of the other Old Testament figures would ALL be in hell, correct? Yet scripture clearly indicates otherwise, and each of these people lived and died before Jesus ever walked the Earth.
Jesus Never Pooped: or, A Better Way To Conduct ExegesisExcuse me for making a generalization here, but I've noticed that atheists tend to approach the Bible much like creationists tend to approach literature on evolution. Certain atheists (for example Richard Dawkins) are publicly fond of bashing creationists for dodgy scholarship, and rightfully so. For example, many of us know how some creationists are overly fond of emphasizing select passages from Darwin or Dobzhansky to support their arguments, while selectively de-emphasizing other passages that might weaken their argument. What's less recognized is the extent to which atheists and skeptics do the same thing (for example Richard Dawkins) when quoting the Bible or the Founding Fathers to support their cases for atheism.