Proving God by proving the Bible

[RBD]

Since the God of the Bible says He cannot be proven nor found apart from His words, such as by physical sight, signs, philosophy, science, etc... then it is not possible to given any proof of the true God in heaven, apart from His words. Indeed, He says such seeking of proof is unbeliefe, vain, and decietful.

1Co 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Luk 16:31And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.


Therefore, the only way to prove God is, and He is the God of the Bible, is to prove the Bible is true in all things. So, without sounding 'preachy' by only using God's words to prove Himself, then we can prove the Bible must be His proof by proving there is no contradiction between any of His words.

Proof that there is a God in heaven, and He is the Lord God of the Bible, is by the inerrancy of His words written by so many men, so many generations apart.

I propose to prove the God of the Bible is true, but proving there is no contradiction of His words of doctrine, and prophecy. If anyone believes there is a contradction, then let's see it. Otherwise, the Bible is perfectly true as written: The Creator of heaven and earth, and all creatures in heaven and on earth, is the Lord God of the Bible.

[bluegreenearth]

Only with unfalsifiable myths, that are in themselves without recorded fact and unbelievable. Reasonable justification of acceptance only applies to verifiable accounts and records of fact, that can be believed.

Since the Bible has recorded facts and claims, that are verifiable, then arguments about unfalsifiable books do not apply.

No one can honestly and intelligently declare any book of verifiable factual record a myth, unless all the claims are first proven untrue and only fantasy.

Does not apply to any book of verifiable records, which certainly includes the Bible, that contains more record of ancient history, than any other book in ancient history.

The Bible contains both falsifiable and unfalsifiable claims. Many of the claims about the existence of particular historical people and places are falsifiable. The claims about the existence of the god and the occurrence of various supernatural events are unfalsifiable.

Here is where the Bible is first treated honestly. It's not an unfalsifiable book, but a book of unverifiable claims mixed with verifiable records of fact. With most of the writing being falsifiable.

The book itself therefore cannot possibly be an unfalsifiable myth, and only the unlearned or biased would even try to imply it, by referring to the Bible as unfalsifiable.

Inerrancy in verifiable books of record, cannot be compared to unerring myth, that cannot possibly be believed.

This is an ill reasoned conclusion based upon wrongly mixing two different arguments. Being proven as fact, so that it must be accepted as true, is not the same as being proven inerrant, and so can be accepted as believable.

Firstly, The verified facts of the Bible demand accepting them as true. The infallible record of true things, demands the possibility of accepting unfalsifiable things as believable.

Infallibility of the factual things, allows for an intelligent acceptance of the spiritual things: the Authorship and Spirit of an infallible book of record, must themselves be accepted as infallible, and certainly can be believed in their authorship of unverifiable things.

Infallible records of proven factual truth, can only be recorded by factually infallible authors and writers.

With the unfalsifiable, the argument is about believability, not about proven fact. And so long as they are accompanied with verifiable things proven infallible, then the unfalsifiable things become believable.

That includes infallibility between the factual and spiritual record. If anything recorded as fact is proven false, or if anything recorded as Spirit contradicts the factual record, then the authorship is in error, and the Author and the Spirit cannot possibly be believed in all things.

That's why the argument of inerrancy for all the verifiable things is important toward believability of the unfalsifiable.

Afterall, if it were just a matter of simply disbelief, without any need to justify it, why all the efforts to find fault in it? I don't have to find fault in the Koran, just to not believe it's author is the true God. I just don't choose to believe it without a second thought about it...

First of all, I never made a claim about the entire Bible being a myth. The fact of the matter is that the Bible contains both falsifiable and unfalsifiable claims. An unfalsifiable claim does not necessarily describe a myth, though it could. Accordingly, you make a false equivalence fallacy by suggesting that unfalsifiability directly implies mythology.

Secondly, your philosophical notion that a claim is meaningful if it can be factually verified is also known as Logical Positivism. It is possible to verify when a falsifiable claim is false, but the problem of underdetermination demonstrates where it is not possible to verify that the claim is true. This is why verificationism was ultimately abandoned in the 1960s.

Thirdly, your concept of "believability" is entirely subjective. An individual is compelled to believe, at least tentatively, by what is convincing to them. However, the evidence and reasoning that convinces one person to believe a claim is true may not be sufficiently convincing to another person. A person who is not convinced by the evidence and reasoning to believe a claim is true cannot make the conscious choice to believe it regardless. So, your argument for "believability" fails to resolve the objection.

And the fact that so many people of science, religion, and philosophy have sought to either verify or disprove the falsifiable record, not only proves the Bible can't possibly be an unfalsifiable myth, but also demonstrates the logic that inerrancy in the verifiable things concludes believability in the unfalsifiable.

The idea that the unfalsifiable claims in the Bible are likely to be true because the falsifiable claims also contained within it have yet to be disproved is a fallacy of composition. For example, consider a book that claims to have compiled hundreds of eyewitness testimonies from various people located in different places at different times to argue for the existence of extra-terrestrial aliens. For the sake of argument, let's establish that what those people had actually observed were top-secret military aircraft, but these eyewitnesses and the book's author have no means to ever discover this disconfirming evidence. Accordingly, the book's claims about the existence of specific people in particular places at particular times are falsifiable while its claims about their encounters with extra-terrestrial aliens are currently unfalsifiable. Even when every eyewitness identified in the book is verified to have existed in those places and at those times, the inerrancy of this evidence does not make it justifiable to conclude that each of them had encountered extra-terrestrial aliens.

Furthermore, the "believability" of the book's unfalsifiable claim is subjective to the individual who reads it. For some people, the inerrancy of the book's falsifiable claims about the existence of eyewitnesses and their testimonies are sufficient to convince them to believe the unfalsifiable claim about the existence of extra-terrestrial aliens. Meanwhile, other people may remain unconvinced, even if they want to believe. Another subset of people might be convinced by the verified facts to believe that at least one of the eyewitnesses encountered extra-terrestrial aliens but suspect many of the others were simply mistaken. So, your argument about "believability" doesn't negate the problem of unfalsifiability.

[bluegreenearth]

If falsifiable does not mean verifiable, then give your definition of falsifiable. We all know what verifiable means.

A claim is falsifiable when the evidence we would expect to find if it is false can be identified and reasonably obtained should it happen to exist.

You apparently have moved away from arguing the Bible is a myth by being unfalsifiable, to now arguing that the proofing of the Bible's verifiable record, is somehow only 'philosophical' in nature, and not verified fact?

Have you gone from arguing the Bible is only a myth, to only another book of philosophy?

So, you are arguing the Bible is now only empirical philosophy, since you can no longer argue it's just unfalsifiable myth.

I never argued that unfalsifiability was equivalent to mythology. Likewise, I never claimed the Bible was only a myth or only another book of philosophy. My argument is that the Bible contains both falsifiable and unfalsifiable claims.

By underdetermination you mean undeterminable philosophy?

No. The problem of underdetermination refers to the fact that no quantity or quality of available evidence at any given time for a claim about the external world will ever be sufficient to determine what belief should be held about it, especially when the same evidence does not function to rule-out one or more of the competing claims. This does not mean an underdetermined claim is false, only that we cannot know if it is true.

However, when a claim is falsifiable, there is at least an opportunity for the collection of evidence to demonstrate if it is false. When the available evidence fails to disprove the falsifiable claim, this outcome provides a justification to tentatively accept it, not as "true" but as the most reasonable explanation in the present moment. In colloquial terms, people often inaccurately refer to such falsifiable claims as being "true" or "proven" when their truth or proof is actually underdetermined by the evidence. Conversely, when the claim is unfalsifiable, there is no equivalent opportunity for the collection of evidence to demonstrate if it is false. As such, the absence of disconfirming evidence would not provide a justification to tentatively accept an unfalsifiable claim as the most reasonable explanation.

Which does not pertain to the Bible record as a whole, nor does it apply to unfalsifiable claims, that are accompanied with verifiable facts. So long as the verifiable remains infallibly true, then the unfalsifiable can be reasonably believed as also true.

In your argument above, the "verifiable facts" are intended to function as supporting evidence for the unfalsifiable claims. However, unfalsifiable claims accompanied with "verifiable" facts are still limited by their inability to be proved or disproved by that evidence. This is why unfalsifiable claims are problematic.

Though any intelligent person must accept the verified record, no one has to believe the unfalsifiable. That's not the purpose here. The only purpose is to prove it's reasonably possible to believe all the Bible, and no one can intelligently say it can't possibly all be true.

The Author of the Bible Himself does not have a particular problem with people choosing not to believe Him, so far as logic is concerned. However, it's a particularly ignorant insult to Him, to say He can't possibly be believed, after an objective reading and intelligent study of His Book. Only the unobjective and unreasonable reader can possibly accuse Him of being decieved, and/or a liar.

I have not claimed it is impossible for someone to believe that all the claims in the bible are true. Belief is a subjective experience. The people who are convinced by the available evidence and reasoning for the claims will be compelled, at least tentatively, to believe the Bible is true while others who are not convinced by the available evidence and reasoning will not hold the belief.

This is the second time you've acknowledge this fact. Which was not first acknowledged, until well after first representing the Bible as all unfalsifiable, and so only another book of unfalsifiable myth. Hence, your continued comparison to the Bible with the myth of a fire-breathing dragon.

Comparing the unfalsifiable spiritual kingdom in the Bible with ET's is at least credible, since the God and His angels, and ET's share in believability among human beings. Although the God and angels are far more believable, at least in terms of a great sample of believers in human history. While God is at least an 8 in believability factor, ET's are about a 4 or 5? But fire-breathing dragons are about 0-1 among human beings, at least with modern rational people. And that is lower in believability than modern fae-folk.

Therefore, comparing the Bible with a mythical fire-breathing dragon fails on two basic factors in a believability argument: The Bible does have verifiable records, whereas the myth does not. And the Bible has the greatest share of believability factor among all human beings, and the myth as little to none.[/quote]

I never claimed the entire Bible was unfalsifiable. That was your misinterpretation of my earlier post. As for the fire-breathing dragon scenario, it was deployed as a simple example to illustrate the concept of unfalsifiability, not as a direct comparison to the Bible. In fact, in my defence, I was careful to disclose in that same post how the fire-breathing dragon scenario was not intended to be directly analogous with the Biblical narrative. Your response above demonstrates where you've either misunderstood my explanation or ignored it.