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

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

Post #1

Post by otseng »

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:
nobspeople wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:42 amHow 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?
otseng wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:08 am 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.

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

Post #1551

Post by otseng »

DrNoGods wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 1:24 pm If it were a gravity-like "thing" then it may act identically at all points in spacetime with a result of uniform expansion throughout.
I'm not so sure even gravity can act instantaneously, but is also limited by the speed of light.
The speed of gravitational waves in the general theory of relativity is equal to the speed of light in a vacuum, c.[3] Within the theory of special relativity, the constant c is not only about light; instead it is the highest possible speed for any interaction in nature. Formally, c is a conversion factor for changing the unit of time to the unit of space.[4] This makes it the only speed which does not depend either on the motion of an observer or a source of light and / or gravity. Thus, the speed of "light" is also the speed of gravitational waves, and further the speed of any massless particle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity
Gravity isn’t instant, and turns out to propagate at exactly the speed of light.

Gravity isn’t best viewed as a straight-line, instantaneous force connecting any two points in the Universe. Instead, Einstein put forth a picture where space-and-time are woven together in what he visualized as an inseparable fabric, and that not only masses, but all forms of matter and energy, deformed that fabric. Instead of the planets orbiting because of an invisible force, they simply move along the curved path determined by the curved, distorted fabric of spacetime.

This conception of gravity leads to a radically different set of equations from Newton’s, and instead predicts that gravity not only propagates at a finite speed, but that speed — the speed of gravity — must be exactly equal to the speed of light.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... ac2d57fd26

So, no information can travel instantaneously.
But then Einstein showed that time is relative. It changes with speed and in the presence of gravity. One of the ramifications of that is that you can’t have simultaneous actions at a distance. So information of any kind has a finite speed, whether it’s a photon — the light-carrying particle — or a graviton, which carries the force of gravity.

“In relativity, there is a ‘speed of information’ — the maximum speed that you can send information from one point to another,” says University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee physicist Jolien Creighton, an expert on general relativity and member of the LIGO team that first spotted gravitational waves.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sc ... d-of-light

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

Post #1552

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to otseng in post #1555]
I'm not so sure even gravity can act instantaneously, but is also limited by the speed of light.
Yes, but it can act the]same way everywhere in spacetime, without any information being transferred between locations. If two neutron stars or black holes merge to create gravity waves, the waves will travel from that origin in all directions at the speed of light. LIGO measurements show signals from billions of light years away (thousands of Mpc):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_g ... servations

These gravity waves evidently travel through spacetime as predicted by GR, supporting Einstein's spacetime concept. No input beyond the original merge event is needed to have the waves travel in all directions isotropically for billions of light years.

If dark energy exists and is driving the expansion of spacetime, it may not require any kind of "information" to travel from one point to another to "tell it what to do" ... its inherent properties enable it to act the same everywhere, like a negative gravity. So no need for instantaneous transfer of information or violation of the speed of light limit.
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #1553

Post by otseng »

DrNoGods wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 12:42 am If dark energy exists and is driving the expansion of spacetime, it may not require any kind of "information" to travel from one point to another to "tell it what to do" ... its inherent properties enable it to act the same everywhere, like a negative gravity. So no need for instantaneous transfer of information or violation of the speed of light limit.
How do we know the affect of negative gravity is also instantaneous?

As for some sort of self-causal action that is not dependent on an external causation, it is a violation of universal causation.
Universal causation is the proposition that everything in the universe has a cause and is thus an effect of that cause. This means that if a given event occurs, then this is the result of a previous, related event.[1] If an object is in a certain state, then it is in that state as a result of another object interacting with it previously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_causation

Even if self-causation can happen (like some sort of quantum fluctuation), it would be quite surprising that every point in the entire universe is perfectly synchronized at their rate of expansion. We observe nothing behaving like this, esp on this scale and precision.

So, I would add another theological quality to dark energy - uncaused.

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

Post #1554

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to otseng in post #1557]
How do we know the affect of negative gravity is also instantaneous?
I'd argue that nothing instantaneous is happening with spacetime expansion, even if it is uniform across the universe. There's no reason any point in spacetime would need to communicate or get signals from any other point in the universe if it is in a similar category as gravity. If it is some sort of field that pervades the universe, with specific characteristics, those characteristics could determine how it acts regardless of physical location.
As for some sort of self-causal action that is not dependent on an external causation, it is a violation of universal causation.
But universal causation is a hypothesis just like dark energy ... it has never been proven and has the "first cause" problem. However, why couldn't the cause of spacetime expansion (whether or not dark energy is involved) be some initial event that occurred near the formation of the universe and has continued since? We may not know what that event was (inflation, or some other such idea), but can't rule out that the expansion was "set off" by some means and simply continues to this day. In that case it would have a cause even if unknown to us now. Dark energy is just one possible hypothesis that may or may not turn out to be correct. We don't know enough about it to even begin to assign characteristics ... other than the basic idea (ie. some kind of unknown energy) is roughly compatible with an expanding spacetime.
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #1555

Post by otseng »

DrNoGods wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:58 pm I'd argue that nothing instantaneous is happening with spacetime expansion, even if it is uniform across the universe.
I agree that nothing can causally happen instantaneously.
There's no reason any point in spacetime would need to communicate or get signals from any other point in the universe if it is in a similar category as gravity. If it is some sort of field that pervades the universe, with specific characteristics, those characteristics could determine how it acts regardless of physical location.
What field are you referring to? The dark energy itself or another mechanism behind the dark energy? If it's dark energy itself, then it would be a self-causal entity.
But universal causation is a hypothesis just like dark energy ... it has never been proven and has the "first cause" problem.
I think universal causation is an axiomatic belief and not just a hypothesis. This is what we observe everyday and is an underlying assumption of naturalism. There must be some naturalistic cause to everything that we observe and cannot simply say something is a result of self-causation.
However, why couldn't the cause of spacetime expansion (whether or not dark energy is involved) be some initial event that occurred near the formation of the universe and has continued since?
I actually think this is more the case, but without the introduction of a space-time fabric and its expansion.
We may not know what that event was (inflation, or some other such idea), but can't rule out that the expansion was "set off" by some means and simply continues to this day. In that case it would have a cause even if unknown to us now. Dark energy is just one possible hypothesis that may or may not turn out to be correct. We don't know enough about it to even begin to assign characteristics ... other than the basic idea (ie. some kind of unknown energy) is roughly compatible with an expanding spacetime.
And this is why the white hole theory is proposed, as an hypothesis that has less ad hoc explanations and better fits with observed data.

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

Post #1556

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to otseng in post #1559]
What field are you referring to? The dark energy itself or another mechanism behind the dark energy? If it's dark energy itself, then it would be a self-causal entity.
We know little to nothing about what dark energy actually is, or how it came about if it exists, so I was referring to some hypothetical way it may act. We just don't know enough about it yet.
There must be some naturalistic cause to everything that we observe and cannot simply say something is a result of self-causation.
I'm not arguing that there is no cause for dark energy, but that we don't know what the cause is. It could have arisin from some sort of field established near the Big Bang event (if some version of that turns out to be correct), or some other mechanism. Or it could be like gravity in that it was established early on and persisted as a universal "thing" that acts the same everywhere without any need for communication or signaling between locations. Or it could be something else entirely. Still very much an open science problem.
And this is why the white hole theory is proposed, as an hypothesis that has less ad hoc explanations and better fits with observed data.
White holes are still conjecture just like dark energy, and papers like this offer up ideas on what they mght be in the context of a Big Bang type scenario:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9313009805

But apparently they are as mysterious as dark energy. The first paragraph of a Wikipedia article on white holes ends with this sentence:

"This region does not exist for black holes that have formed through gravitational collapse, however, nor are there any observed physical processes through which a white hole could be formed."

Theoretical physicists will be busy for a long time to come, but there is more observational evidence coming in every year and with each new instrument so the pieces of the puzzle should slowly get filled in as time marches on.
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #1557

Post by OneWay »

otseng wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:04 am
Diogenes wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:48 pm This question poses a dilemma for the "Bible based" Christian. If one believes the Bible is the "Word of God" or at least is inspired by God, does it not have to be perfect?

So, presenting and attacking contradictions and imperfections and demanding perfection, I believe, is a strawman. There is no objective definition of perfection and there is no requirement for perfection.
This is written in the bible.
Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Your theory does not line up with the perfect word of God.
Your theory does not line up with the imperfect word of God.

Therefore you are out of line with the word of God.

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

Post #1558

Post by dad1 »

otseng wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:35 am From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:
nobspeople wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:42 amHow 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?
otseng wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:08 am 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.
I would think that a clear difference should be made in whether the bible is in error, or man's idea of what is meant is in error. I would say the error will be on man's side. Since this thread does not want to tolerate Scripture confirming that God inspired the bible, we can take it for granted that it is inspired by God according to Jesus, and the apostles and old testament. That being said, why would anyone insinuate it was not?

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

Post #1559

Post by OneWay »

dad1 wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 1:36 pm
otseng wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:35 am From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:
nobspeople wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:42 amHow 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?
otseng wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:08 am 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.
I would think that a clear difference should be made in whether the bible is in error, or man's idea of what is meant is in error. I would say the error will be on man's side. Since this thread does not want to tolerate Scripture confirming that God inspired the bible, we can take it for granted that it is inspired by God according to Jesus, and the apostles and old testament. That being said, why would anyone insinuate it was not?
Everything is inspired by God in one way or another, even the devils.
Even the atheist is inspired by God. They are inspired by God to be atheist.
Last edited by OneWay on Sat Nov 26, 2022 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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

Post #1560

Post by dad1 »

OneWay wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 1:43 pm
dad1 wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 1:36 pm
otseng wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:35 am From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:
nobspeople wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:42 amHow 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?
otseng wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:08 am 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.
I would think that a clear difference should be made in whether the bible is in error, or man's idea of what is meant is in error. I would say the error will be on man's side. Since this thread does not want to tolerate Scripture confirming that God inspired the bible, we can take it for granted that it is inspired by God according to Jesus, and the apostles and old testament. That being said, why would anyone insinuate it was not?
Everything is inspired by God in one way or another, even the devils.
No. I do not think God inspires devils to hurt people and try to destroy their faith etc. Every good and perfect gift is from above...the rest...not so much.

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