No Proof the Bible is untrue.

[JoeyKnothead]

From one of the threads...

Not one human has ever proved anything in the Bible to be untrue. The truth remains in spite of all attacks against it. On the other side of the coin, the words of the Bible apply perfectly to all mankind, while opposing the perversions of unbelieving minds.

I'm gonna pass over the whole 'perversions of unbelieving minds'. I'm just gonna trust this writer had nothing but love in his heart when he said it.

I will though, say the ToE pretty much put the kibosh on the whole creation thing. Eh?

[justifyothers]

From one of the threads...

Not one human has ever proved anything in the Bible to be untrue. The truth remains in spite of all attacks against it. On the other side of the coin, the words of the Bible apply perfectly to all mankind, while opposing the perversions of unbelieving minds.

I'm gonna pass over the whole 'perversions of unbelieving minds'. I'm just gonna trust this writer had nothing but love in his heart when he said it.

I will though, say the ToE pretty much put the kibosh on the whole creation thing. Eh?

Hi Joey!
Do you have a debate topic?

[Thought Criminal]

[
Do you have a debate topic?

I think there's one hiding in there.

1)Is it correct to say that "Not one human has ever proved anything in the Bible to be untrue"?
2)In what sense, if any, is the Bible true?

TC

[JoeyKnothead]

The quote in the OP claims no one has proven the Bible wrong. I say that at least the theory of evolution has done so, backed by the geologic record. The fossils we find are far too old to have come from a creation event posited at six thousand years ago, so...

1- Does the theory of evolution disprove the creation account in the Bible?

2- Does the fossil record, and dates disprove the creation account?

3- If any of the answers to the above are yes, doesn't this disprove at least a portion of the Bible, and thereby negate the quote?

[Rathpig]

From one of the threads...

Not one human has ever proved anything in the Bible to be untrue. The truth remains in spite of all attacks against it. On the other side of the coin, the words of the Bible apply perfectly to all mankind, while opposing the perversions of unbelieving minds.

In the larger sense of things, I think you will find that any theist defending the Bible will be so duplicitous and prone to equivocation that they can "prove" anything. My experience has been that even their definition of the word "truth" is non-standard because they assume the Bible "true" lacking any evidence and expect the critic to prove it untrue. This is of course the opposite of academic inquiry.

The quoted statement is a set-up because it says,

"Not one human has ever proved anything in the Bible to be (un)[Not]true."

This is a strange and purposeful use of a double negative. The real question should be,

Has one human ever proved anything in the Bible to be true?

This is a theistic equivocation because it allows them to set the agenda for the opponent while making the unfounded assumption that the Bible is "true" without having to present evidence. Almost all Christian apologia consists of rhetorical tricks. This is no different.

Don't think that anything you present as "wrong" in the Bible would be accepted in this conversation. It will be dismissed out-of-hand, called "out of context", or equivocated away with magic words such as "new covenant", metaphor, cultural understanding, or "original" Greek/Hebrew.

I was tempted to post one of the several long lists of errors, contradictions, fabrications, and outright fantasies contained in the Bible, but there really is no point. The OP quote is an invalid statement by design.

[Cephus]

The idea that no one has ever proven anything in the Bible to be untrue is hogwash, there are plenty of things in the Bible that simply could not have happened, such as the Noachian flood. There isn't nearly enough water and all of the evidence that such an event would have left doesn't exist. It's a fantasy.

The problem is that people who make claims such as this also go to ludicrous lengths to defend it, up to and including making God a liar. They rely on hand-waving and miracles to explain why the evidence doesn't exist and then simply mindlessly repeat that the Bible has never been proven untrue.

[Rathpig]

I think Andy Partridge of the band XTC said it best,

[center]Dear god,
Dont know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it aint and so do you,....[/center]

[israeltour]

I will though, say the ToE pretty much put the kibosh on the whole creation thing. Eh?

Actually, reconciling Genesis 1 with the ToE helped me discover literature describing the KT impact.

What happened is that when I studied the Day Age theory (Progressive Creationism specifically), I realized that the evolution of life did not happen in the same order as documented in Genesis 1... it was requiring the days to overlap, and according the Genesis 1, they did not overlap. So, I hypothesized there must have been a time when life on the planet was nearly wiped out, but not quite, and that Genesis 1 (Days 5 and 6) were documenting the recovery. I hadn't studied this part of evolutionary science yet. All I knew was that the dinosaurs went extinct all at once.

What I found is that the KT impact killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but dind't quite kill all of the sealife, mammals, and birds that had already evolved... it only killed most of them. Then, according to the fossil record, birds and fish recovered first, then whales, then land mammals, and then finally man appeared... exactly the same order recorded in Genesis 1.

Looking more closely at the wording of the applicable verses, each kind of life was created "according to its kind"... pretty odd wording if there were no kind to create from, but pretty accurate if the earth were already seeded with said life form, as the fossil record documents.

Even more specifically, if you look at God's actual pronouncements, He says the following (translated into English to the best of our ability):

• "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures" -- In a literal sense, this statement doesn't mean there were no living creatures any to start with. The command was to "teem with swarms". Also, note the word "let", as if something stopped it previously --> the KT impact. This wording had always bugged me, but this explained it!
  
  "Let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." -- Before the KT impact, the heavens weren't an open expanse, but were filled with competition to the birds. After KT impact, the heavens were left wide open for the birds, and the fossil record shows an explosion in the bird population, shortly after an explosion in sealife.
  
  "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after they kind" -- sounds like evolution

It is worth noting that whales evolved after birds, and after land mammals, which appears contrary to Genesis, and is a common argument against most Day Age theories. According to the fossil record, whales appeared after the bird population exploded, and before the land mammal population exploded... the exact sequence of events that Moses unwittingly recorded, if Genesis is interpreted as population recovery for birds and land mammals.

Now, I must clarify that Moses knew nothing of this when he wrote it. He was just recalling the story of origins he knew from his egyptian upbringing, but putting God at the center... and because his writing was due to God's inspiration, Moses managed to write words that are consistent with what actually happened in the fossil record. This doesn't make Genesis a scientific treatise, but it justified my faith.

[Cmass]

................What I found is that the KT impact killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but dind't quite kill all of the sealife, mammals, and birds that had already evolved... it only killed most of them. Then, according to the fossil record, birds and fish recovered first, then whales, then land mammals, and then finally man appeared... exactly the same order recorded in Genesis 1. ............etc........

I find it curious that you use bits and pieces of modern science to help support the idea that the bible story is actually true. What criteria are you using to determine when or when not to plug in modern science when discussing ancient myths?

[Zzyzx]

.

I find it curious that you use bits and pieces of modern science to help support the idea that the bible story is actually true. What criteria are you using to determine when or when not to plug in modern science when discussing ancient myths?

The sole (or "soul") criteria used by religionists to decide what scientific information to accept is whether it can be made to sound as though it supports supernaturalism. Any scientific information that disputes biblical claims is ignored, rejected or condemned.

That is known as "pick and choose science" from the same people who bring us "pick and choose scriptures" – just use the parts they like and deny, ignore or "interpret" the rest.

Of course, religionists accept the benefits of science including technology and medicine when needed or convenient – while verbally claiming to reject science. Actions speak. Insincerity and hypocrisy show.