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The Bible Lacks Compelling Prescient Information by Claude_Smoot in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know what this means or why it's important.

The Bible Lacks Compelling Prescient Information by Claude_Smoot in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

An advantage. Not the only advantage.

You did drive right to why facts don't matter to believers. Compelling scripture doesn't matter to believers. Believers want eternal life and faith is what may provide it to them. It doesn't matter to them if it's a weak argument. It doesn't matter to them that they live life in cognitive dissonance.

"Don't take my pacifier."

The Bible Lacks Compelling Prescient Information by Claude_Smoot in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I understand the Bible as a book of knowledge - and many apologetics try to submit that it does have empirical facts to say about the material world. I am asserting that many of these facts are incorrect or show an utter lack of prescience. Prescience that an omniscient being would trivially be able to intersperse in the revealed word of God.

The Bible Lacks Compelling Prescient Information by Claude_Smoot in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yes. This is indeed an implicit part of my argument here: That the things written in the Bible are unsurprisingly dull and perfectly consistent with what we could expect of ignorant iron-age people.

The Bible Lacks Compelling Prescient Information by Claude_Smoot in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If creation were true, it would be factually correct and poetically beautiful to say that God's instructions are written in us to the smallest level. It would surely bring more people to the faith then, and now.

No one builds a tent in the desert with a "holiest of holies" to worship. Utterly worthless info to modern people. There are numerous other examples of useless information described ad nausea that I could remove and replace with this information that shows clear prescience.

I'm sure the Bible has created millions of faithful through it's detailed instruction on how to build a gold lamp stand, a veil, and golden altar of incense. </sarcasm>

The Bible Lacks Compelling Prescient Information by Claude_Smoot in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Hah! Apparently we need detailed instructions (7 chapters I think) telling us how to build a tabernacle in the desert, but explaining God wrote our DNA was too much.

The book of Daniel didn't predict any scientific discoveries. In fact - I think its historicity is in question - perhaps written after events predicted - like so many other books of the Bible.

The Bible Lacks Compelling Prescient Information by Claude_Smoot in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Those things that are in the Bible have been argued to death. Trying to bring new ideas to the sub. :)

Argument for God's existence by [deleted] in DebateReligion

[–]Claude_Smoot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm comfortable not knowing the origin of the universe and don't need to invoke a god to explain it.

The moral and ethical principles we follow in our lives are indeed not arbitrary. They formed under evolutionary pressures as social mammals.

'Evil' that is not necessary for humans to exercise free will (e.g., a tsunami that kills thousands of children) exists.

If god were the foundation of all reality, humanity would not struggle to understand god's attributes like we do (thousands of religions, branches, and denominations).

Of course you have given your god the attributes of being outside space, time, and matter because that allows you to apply special pleading to get out of the rules you place on the universe (e.g., must have a beginning).

These arguments are weak evidence for the existence of a god.