How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

[otseng]

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:

How can you trust something that's written about god that contradictory, contains errors and just plain wrong at times? Is there a logical way to do so, or do you just want it to be god's word so much that you overlook these things like happens so often through the history of christianity?

The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy.

For debate:
How can the Bible be considered authoritative and inspired without the need to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy?

While debating, do not simply state verses to say the Bible is inspired or trustworthy.

----------

Thread Milestones

• Case study of Hezekiah
• Start discussing global flood / Flood Model summary
• Recap arguments of authority of the Bible
• Start discussing Tower of Babel / Tower of Babel summary
• Start discussing archaeology / Philosophy of science / Origin of alphabet / End of discussion on archaeology
• Start discussing cosmology / Concluding cosmology
• Start discussing Shroud of Turin / Summary top TS imaging theories / Created DefendingChristianity.com and TS subforums / Shroud of Turin summary
• Start discussing Bible and resurrection
• Start discussing the Messiahship of Jesus / Messiahship of Jesus wrap up
• Start discussing Old Testament ethics
• Summary argument of atheism and morality / God basis for objective morality
• Start discussing genocide / Genocide summary argument
• Start discussing slavery / Slavery summary argument
• Start discussing homosexuality / Homosexuality summary argument
• Old Testament ethics summary argument
• Start discussing philosophy / Summary argument on philosophy
• Start discussing creation of universe / Summary argument universe was created

[William]

[Replying to otseng in post #1490]

Many Christians believe the bible tells it, that they will be resurrected to enjoy life in this universe forever...

How do you reconcile the eventual heat death of the universe, with such beliefs?

[otseng]

[Replying to otseng in post #1490]

Many Christians believe the bible tells it, that they will be resurrected to enjoy life in this universe forever...

How do you reconcile the eventual heat death of the universe, with such beliefs?

Everything will be reset and there will be a new heaven and earth:

Rev 21:1
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Isa 65:17
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.

2Pe 3:13
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

[otseng]

With the heat death, the entire universe is at a uniform temperature. Because there is no temperature differences at any two points in the universe, no thermodynamic work is possible. Maximum entropy has been reached.

On the other end of the timeline, at the beginning of the universe, it began in a homogenous state as a dense primordial fireball.

The ‘Big Bang’ is the model for the formation of our Universe in which spacetime, and the matter within it, were created from a cosmic singularity. The model suggests that in the 13.7 billion years since the Universe began, it has expanded from an extremely small but incredibly dense and hot primordial fireball, to the enormous but cold and diffuse Universe we see around us today.

https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/b/big+bang

The theory that best explains the currently observed state of the universe is the Big Bang theory. This theory states that, in the beginning, the universe was all in one place. All of its matter and energy were squished into an infinitely small point, a singularity.

https://www.windows2universe.org/the_un ... story.html

From a thermodynamic point of view, entropy would already be high. Why should this initial high entropy result in the work of creating galaxies, stars, and planets? Whether the universe was very small or very large, if temperature was uniform throughout it, it would not be possible to do any work. You can consider the initial singularity to already be at the thermodynamic heat death.

So, the problem of entropy exists in the initial state of the Big Bang as well. What would cause a high entropy state to expand the universe and perform work? This reason is unknown to cosmologists.

[William]

[Replying to otseng in post #1492]

Many Christians believe the bible tells it, that they will be resurrected to enjoy life in this universe forever...

How do you reconcile the eventual heat death of the universe, with such beliefs?

Everything will be reset

Supporting Simulation Theory, yet again.

and there will be a new heaven and earth:

So - NOT this universe at all then. Another one.

Are the Christians who do not believe your interpretations of biblical script, wrong in their beliefs?

[William]

[Replying to otseng in post #1493]

So, the problem of entropy exists in the initial state of the Big Bang as well. What would cause a high entropy state to expand the universe and perform work?

A simulated program.

This reason is unknown to cosmologists.

And should remain that way. What is known by those physicist willing to pay attention to the mathematics, is that this universe is not self caused, because spacetime in NOT fundamental.

This means that while it is not known what caused this universe to come into existence, it did not come into existence of its own volition.

[otseng]

[Replying to otseng in post #1492]

Many Christians believe the bible tells it, that they will be resurrected to enjoy life in this universe forever...

How do you reconcile the eventual heat death of the universe, with such beliefs?

Everything will be reset

Supporting Simulation Theory, yet again.

Being a programmer by day and by night, I can safely say we are not in a simulation program.

Are the Christians who do not believe your interpretations of biblical script, wrong in their beliefs?

Many Christians do not believe what I believe or even what the Bible states. As for eschatology, rarely do I debate that.

What is known by those physicist willing to pay attention to the mathematics, is that this universe is not self caused, because spacetime in NOT fundamental.

There are even limits to math. At the singularity, math reaches its limit.

In mathematics, a singularity is a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined, or a point where the mathematical object ceases to be well-behaved in some particular way, such as by lacking differentiability or analyticity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_(mathematics)

A mathematical singularity applies to the Big Bang singularity and math and physics breaks down.

Where we find a singularity, it usually means that the model we are using to describe a physical system or a phenomenon breaks down. “Breaking down” is a filler expression for “something is happening here and we don’t know what it is.”

https://bigthink.com/13-8/physics-math-singularity/

To understand what a singularity is, imagine the force of gravity compressing you down into an infinitely tiny point, so that you occupy literally no volume. That sounds impossible … and it is. These "singularities" are found in the centers of black holes and at the beginning of the Big Bang. These singularities don't represent something physical. Rather, when they appear in mathematics, they are telling us that our theories of physics are breaking down, and we need to replace them with a better understanding.

https://www.livescience.com/what-is-singularity

Put simply, singularities are places where the mathematics "misbehave," typically by generating infinitely large values. There are examples of mathematical singularities throughout physics: Typically, any time an equation uses 1/X, as X goes to zero, the value of the equation goes to infinity.

Most of these singularities, however, can usually be resolved by pointing out that the equations are missing some factor, or noting the physical impossibility of ever reaching the singularity point. In other words, they are probably not "real."

https://www.livescience.com/what-is-singularity

The singularities that appear inside black holes pose a big problem for physicists.

None of our measuring devices can show an infinite value. Not only have we never observed it, we don’t know how to observe it—we don’t know how to even give meaning to such an observation. Physicists therefore treat singularities as symptoms of an ill theory in need of a cure. It would be possible to mathematically deal with the singularities.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/a ... ties-real/

Is there an explanation for the Big Bang singularity? No, not even math can be used to explain it.

[William]

[Replying to otseng in post #1496]

Everything will be reset

Supporting Simulation Theory, yet again.

Being a programmer by day and by night, I can safely say we are not in a simulation program.

Your being a programmer creating simulations within the larger simulation, makes no difference to the idea that we exist within a simulated reality experience.
What has you believing otherwise, simply because you are "a programmer by day and by night"?
Do you believe that you skills are on par with YHVH? That since you could not create the vast coding in the order of your choice, in a mere six days, that this gives you confidence The Elohim did not achieve this?

Is there an explanation for the Big Bang singularity? No, not even math can be used to explain it.

The simulation is designed in a manner that limits those experiencing it as a reality, making it difficult to peer through the veil and observe the realm of YHVH from outside of it...
Yet, clearly the mathematics is there to discover and in that, [and not that alone] YHVH wants us to know that we exist within a created thing.

Your argument is obviously designed for those who are materialists, to say "Look! it is evident that we exist within a creation, therefore there must exist a creator!" and we can agree to that much.

However, it is very curious to me that you resist the idea that the creation is a simulated reality. Simulation Theory can explain every religious story ever told, including all the biblical stories.

Furthermore, we are informed by physicists that spacetime, as a fundamental reality, is doomed.
This should be exciting evidence to all theists who enjoy their battles with materialists who deny that we exist within a created thing, yet clearly the idea that the created thing is a simulation finds resistance in those theists...and my question is "why is this the case?"

What about the biblical content and context, has you resisting this idea, otseng?

[otseng]

What has you believing otherwise, simply because you are "a programmer by day and by night"?

I was half joking when I said that. But anyways, this thread is not about us living in a simulation or not. We can perhaps do a head-to-head debate on this after this thread is done.

[otseng]

Another problem with the Big Bang since it originally started from a singularity is that it originally was a black hole. And nothing can escape a black hole.

The singularities that appear inside black holes pose a big problem for physicists. Crossing a black hole’s event horizon is like jumping into a river upstream of a waterfall, at a place where the water flows faster than you can swim. Whatever you do, you’ll end up being pulled down the waterfall. Likewise, whatever falls into a black hole is pulled down into the singularity. And once there, it reaches its end.

The Big Bang is a singularity, too. If you run the expansion of the universe which we observe today backwards , then the density of matter must have been larger the younger the universe was, all the way back to an initial moment where the density must have been infinitely high: it must have been singular.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/a ... ties-real/

Black holes are regions of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. A typical black hole is the result of the gravitational force becoming so strong that one would have to travel faster than light to escape its pull. Such black holes generically contain a spacetime singularity at their center; thus we cannot fully understand a black hole without also understanding the nature of singularities.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spac ... ularities/

We do not observe any black holes in the universe to "uncollapse". Things can enter a black hole, but nothing can escape it. So, what would cause the mother of all black holes, the Big Bang singularity, to uncollapse and allow all the matter of the universe contained in it to escape? Another mystery for cosmologists.

[William]

What has you believing otherwise, simply because you are "a programmer by day and by night"?

I was half joking when I said that. But anyways, this thread is not about us living in a simulation or not. We can perhaps do a head-to-head debate on this after this thread is done.

So when the bible says the universe is a creation, this thread isn't about that? This thread isn't about what the bible says?