I'm always being told that it's the opposite - that the liberal strands of Christianity are collapsing, and the conservative strands are becoming more popular. I have no idea if this is true or not; it could be a kind of self-serving statement by the conservatives!

There are two very different streams of thought amongst those that are opposed to the dogmas of institutionalised religion: those that believe the only solution is for religion to be destroyed - possibly by its own hand or just by it withering away, and those that hope it can be reformed, to become an inclusive social institution that caters to people's desires for community, ritual and some form of spiritual expression, without requiring them to abdicate their reason and pledge unthinking obedience in order to participate.

The former school of thought reminds me a little of the Marxist view of bourgeouis society: that it cannot be reformed, so any factor that hastens its destruction is welcome, even if that factor is increased levels of cruelty and exploitation. This seems to be a less common view since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but it is still around in pockets.

nunnington wrote:I'm always being told that it's the opposite - that the liberal strands of Christianity are collapsing, and the conservative strands are becoming more popular. I have no idea if this is true or not; it could be a kind of self-serving statement by the conservatives!

Something that I remember thinking when reading Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism was the reasons that Spong gave for not taking a literal view of the Bible seemed to me reasons for rejecting Christianity.

nunnington wrote:I'm always being told that it's the opposite - that the liberal strands of Christianity are collapsing, and the conservative strands are becoming more popular. I have no idea if this is true or not; it could be a kind of self-serving statement by the conservatives!

It's certainly that, but neo-orthodox Christianity's extent could well be exaggerated, as evangelicals make the most noise. Liberal Christianity is getting trounced in the Anglosphere 'cause it doesn't display a fraction of the evangelicals' talent for organization and self-publicity. Affirming Liberalism hasn't been updated in a year!

andrewk wrote:There are two very different streams of thought amongst those that are opposed to the dogmas of institutionalised religion: those that believe the only solution is for religion to be destroyed - possibly by its own hand or just by it withering away, and those that hope it can be reformed, to become an inclusive social institution that caters to people's desires for community, ritual and some form of spiritual expression, without requiring them to abdicate their reason and pledge unthinking obedience in order to participate.

The former school of thought reminds me a little of the Marxist view of bourgeouis society: that it cannot be reformed, so any factor that hastens its destruction is welcome, even if that factor is increased levels of cruelty and exploitation. This seems to be a less common view since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but it is still around in pockets.

Exactly the comparison I had in mind.

It's ends justify means thinking at its purest. In the far-left, it leads to attacks on charities for "collaborating" with capitalism. The dead-eyed extremists manage to conjure moral outrage against folks trying to help other folks. It's a topsy-turvey world where kindness is redefined as wickedness and suffering is a moral good. Want to know the mindset behind mass atrocities? Look no further.

Byron wrote:

andrewk wrote:There are two very different streams of thought amongst those that are opposed to the dogmas of institutionalised religion: those that believe the only solution is for religion to be destroyed - possibly by its own hand or just by it withering away, and those that hope it can be reformed, to become an inclusive social institution that caters to people's desires for community, ritual and some form of spiritual expression, without requiring them to abdicate their reason and pledge unthinking obedience in order to participate.

The former school of thought reminds me a little of the Marxist view of bourgeouis society: that it cannot be reformed, so any factor that hastens its destruction is welcome, even if that factor is increased levels of cruelty and exploitation. This seems to be a less common view since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but it is still around in pockets.

Exactly the comparison I had in mind.

It's ends justify means thinking at its purest. In the far-left, it leads to attacks on charities for "collaborating" with capitalism. The dead-eyed extremists manage to conjure moral outrage against folks trying to help other folks. It's a topsy-turvey world where kindness is redefined as wickedness and suffering is a moral good. Want to know the mindset behind mass atrocities? Look no further.

Which, as I've stated before, is a natural corollary of treating doctrinal assertions uncritically as fact. Every species of doctrine contains this fatal flaw at its heart, namely, that the moment you regard unsupported assertions uncritically as fact, anything becomes permissible, and all too frequently, is permissible in the eyes of the adherents thereof. Not least because adherents of doctrines have a nasty habit of regarding those outside the doctrinal pale as being motivated not by reasoned scepticism, but by wilful malfeasance. The moment an adherent of doctrine thinks that he has been given privileged access to The TruthTM, he thinks he has not only a right, but a duty, to force others to conform to the doctrine in question, and accept its assertions as fact, and in turn regards any failure to treat said assertions as fact on the part of others, as some sort of heinous criminal offence worthy of the sternest punishment. The evidence for this process, of course, occupies a mountainous volume.

Calilasseia wrote:Which, as I've stated before, is a natural corollary of treating doctrinal assertions uncritically as fact. Every species of doctrine contains this fatal flaw at its heart, namely, that the moment you regard unsupported assertions uncritically as fact, anything becomes permissible, and all too frequently, is permissible in the eyes of the adherents thereof. Not least because adherents of doctrines have a nasty habit of regarding those outside the doctrinal pale as being motivated not by reasoned scepticism, but by wilful malfeasance. The moment an adherent of doctrine thinks that he has been given privileged access to The TruthTM, he thinks he has not only a right, but a duty, to force others to conform to the doctrine in question, and accept its assertions as fact, and in turn regards any failure to treat said assertions as fact on the part of others, as some sort of heinous criminal offence worthy of the sternest punishment. The evidence for this process, of course, occupies a mountainous volume.

Agree with all this. My dislike of dogma is content-neutral: I rag on market-worshipers as much as I do folks who treat Fight Club as a testament.

This is why I defend certain types of religion. Dogma isn't religion, any more than supernaturalism is religion. If the focus is on religion, then other types of dogma can fly under the radar. When the communist regimes are described by new atheists as religions, I don't disagree, but the focus on religion, rather than dogmatics, is telling.

Which, of course, is why I concentrate upon exposing doctrines, defined as world views reliant upon one or more unsupported assertions presented as purportedly constituting "axioms" about the world. The trouble is, that all too many religions are based upon doctrines.

Byron wrote:

Mus Ponticus wrote:I'll have to disagree with your "sadly". I agree that it's good when religionists stop fighting against stuff like gay rights, but when it comes to (numerically and financially) bloated state churches like the CofE, I think that the more backwards they become the quicker they'll shrink and lose power (e.g. the bishops in the house of lords).

To say nothing of the issue of the pain caused to believers and non-believers by conserving the anti-human rights stance, d'you have any evidence of the "reactionary state church = loss of power" equation occurring?

I don't know if there will be more pain in the long run if the CofE takes a stance against these stuff. I think in the long run it's better to have it lose power as early as possible.

My evidence would just be what I've seen here in Iceland, whenever the bishop of the state church said anything against gay rights, there was an increase in the number of people leaving the church.

Sure, there are great reasons to be a biblical inerrantist. Chief among them is the desire to be a slave, and/or slave-master, if you happen to have conned enough people into thinking you're an authority. Critical thinking is difficult and uncomfortable for many people. It is far more emotionally comforting for them to live in a world of idiotic bliss, as Hitchens called it.

There's this fascinating piece of nonsense:


THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY (1978)

The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God's written Word. To Stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.

The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God's own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.

A SHORT STATEMENT

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms, obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.


http://www.reformed.org/documents/index ... /icbi.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_St ... _Inerrancy

"Under the statement inerrancy applies only to the original manuscripts (which no longer exist...)"

Byron wrote:The easiest way to refute inerrancy is to line up synoptic variants of a pericope, which is biblical studies 101. The inerrantist's reduced to arguing either that separate but dazzlingly similar incidents occured, or that Jesus said everything attributed to him, which dissolves into repetitious nonsense in no time.

Or just compare the chronology of the gospels. This has lead to the whacked notion that Jesus tore the Temple's shit up on two separate occasions.

Ultimately inerrantists are hardcore dogmatists, and probably beyond the saving touch of reason (tho' there's always hope, and minds have changed). But exposing their dogma to the ridicule it deserves helps keep others from walking that dangerous road.

I don't know.

The synoptics are fairly close to one another chronologically, it's only really when you add John's gospel that things get a bit out of hand.

That is because two are based on a third, while John's is somewhat independent. Even within the three similar there are variations which make no sense unless one attributes selective political views to the authors.

Blood wrote:"Under the statement inerrancy applies only to the original manuscripts (which no longer exist...)"

They declare that documents that they have never even read are free of errors? That's more retarded than Lion's position on that other thread. At least he has access to the texts he claims are free of errors.

Speaking of our resident inerrantist, I wonder where he is? It's almost as if he would rather play idiotic yes/no games and invent ad hoc rationalisations in his private cesspool than seize a golden opportunity to demonstrate the Bible's inerrancy in rational discussion.

willhud9 wrote:I don't know.

The synoptics are fairly close to one another chronologically, it's only really when you add John's gospel that things get a bit out of hand.

1001 Bible Contradictions

Just as an example, Matthew (28:2) says there was an earthquake. Mark does not. True, the author of Mark does not deny there was an earthquake, but not mentioning an earthquake is a fairly good indication that the author did not think there was one.

Take an analogous situation of three teenagers' - Tom, Dick and Harry - account of their day.

Tom: First we went to the skate park, then to the mall. Then we all went home.

Dick: After we went to the skate park, we went to the mall where I bought a T-shirt before we all left for home.

Harry: We went skating, then to the mall. We all had to bail early though, when an Al Qaida terrorist flew a plane into the Wendy's stall. It was fully sick!

Now, they could all be lying - maybe they spent the day kicking the shit out of pensioners - but most people would tend to accept that Tom, Dick and Harry went skating and thence to the mall. Most people could also accept that Dick bought himself a T-shirt but neither of his mates cared about it enough to tell anyone.

I would like to meet the person gullible enough to believe Harry's Al Qaida tale though. I have several business deals they might be interested in. Whilst it is true that Tom and Dick do not specifically say that there was no terrorist ice cream atrocity, omitting such a significant, unusual and remarkable event is good reason to believe they did not witness it. Furthermore, such a significant, unusual and remarkable event would be independently verified by multiple sources and the Wendy's stall would probably be closed for a while.

The oxymoron that is the title of this thread can be dismissed by reading just the first two chapters of the first book. Two conflicting creation stories. At least one of them is erroneous.

by dr W L Craig

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lB78CWgbQg[/youtube]

If you prefer to read:What Price Biblical Errancy? by WLC.

The core message of the podcast is the Inerrancy is not a core of Christian belief. You can suspect errors in the Bible and still have faith in God and work of Jesus.

swiatlo wrote:The core message of the podcast is the Inerrancy is not a core of Christian belief. You can suspect errors in the Bible and still have faith in God and work of Jesus.

Of course you can. You can even accept the secular archaeological perspective that the Bible was 7th century BC propaganda written by scribes for an emerging King, Josiah, from a collection of local folk myths and revised history; as the quotes from Christian and Jewish scholars on the back of the book The Bible Uncovered in praise of the work can attest.

That's because faith is not amenable to evidence, rationale, logic or contradiction. Never was and never will be.

Hmmn is the Bible inerrant? I would say no - in the same way that say Star Wars is inerrant. OK there may be logical inconsistencies etc in the movies, but so what?

The errancies creep in when someone starts taking Star Wars too literally, say Jediism as an example.

romansh wrote:Hmmn is the Bible inerrant? I would say no - in the same way that say Star Wars is inerrant. OK there may be logical inconsistencies etc in the movies, but so what?

The errancies creep in when someone starts taking Star Wars too literally, say Jediism as an example.

So what? Well no one worships Star Wars and treats it like a religion for a start.



Oh, wait!

See but even William Lane Craig's argument falls short because no where did Jesus say that Scriptures were the inerrant word of God. NT Wright, Anglican Bishop and theologian, writes on this matter in Simply Christian that the use of inerrant and infallible are words that carry extra baggage that can be found nowhere in the Bible. Did Jesus and for that matter believe that Scriptures were the inspired/god-breathed word of God? Yes. And in my opinion, that belief is way more reasonable. Just because something is inspired does not mean it is without error. The church, the body of Christ, is considered inspired by the Holy Spirit and yet still strays from the path of righteousness on a consistent basis. Likewise, the Bible can be inspired by God which means it contains within it the necessary equipment for a Christian to according to 1 Timothy (which was discussing the Hebrew Scriptures but is still applicable for New Testament ones): All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. It is only later interpretations by the church that God-breathed got associated with cannot be wrong and is the literal word for word account of everything God has done. The inspired word of God belief allows the Christian to maintain a steady faith, but also allows them to consider historical, and archaeological evidences which are constantly fluctuating.

willhud9 wrote:The inspired word of God belief allows the Christian to maintain a steady faith, but also allows them to consider historical, and archaeological evidences which are constantly fluctuating.

Maybe it does do this, but only until the Christian starts to ask if there is a coherent way of formulating the idea that it both contains errors and comes from god (who of course does not propound error). Are you aware of a formula that successfully does this.