http://blog.morti.org.uk/2006/10/25/historical-reliability-and-the-new-testament/ Applications for taglines graciously accepted. Sun, 05 Sep 2010 12:02:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 http://blog.morti.org.uk/2006/10/25/historical-reliability-and-the-new-testament/#comment-17 Alex Thu, 23 Nov 2006 01:17:57 +0000 http://blog.morti.org.uk/2006/10/25/historical-reliability-and-the-new-testament/#comment-17 I hope you don't mind me putting down a few thoughts here; I've always found it interesting that people try to equate the authenticity and reliability of translations and editions of the Bible with the content therein. There's plenty of literature and certainly a lot of existing artifacts of Roman and Greek gods, but those, like other religions, are discarded in favour of a preferred religion. The existence of other people believing in a supernatural being does not in any way logically equate to the supernatural being's existence. You use a sentence here, "nobody has been able to disprove the claims of the gospels", and note the use of 'claim'. If one makes a claim, the burden of proof should be upon the claimant. Regardless, there have been many such cases where evidence directly contradicts the Bible/gospels; for example, the existence of fossils, cosmic background radiation, the universe expanding at a rate that would put the initial expansion at thirteen billion years ago; all of which directly contradict the claims of the bible. I guess my point is that ultimately the Bible is just a book of fables, and that the only vaguely reasonable concept of God to believe in is an intelligent designer. The problem with that is that if it is so improbable that life, and the universe - and the laws of physics that allow them - to exist without a designer, it just raises the question a step further; is not the designer more improbable than the universe? It's akin to seeing a beautiful garden and ascribing the plants, animals and insects to some fairies at the bottom. Just learn to appreciate the garden for what it is, and study it without attributing anything to a fairy. I hope you don’t mind me putting down a few thoughts here; I’ve always found it interesting that people try to equate the authenticity and reliability of translations and editions of the Bible with the content therein.
There’s plenty of literature and certainly a lot of existing artifacts of Roman and Greek gods, but those, like other religions, are discarded in favour of a preferred religion. The existence of other people believing in a supernatural being does not in any way logically equate to the supernatural being’s existence.
You use a sentence here, “nobody has been able to disprove the claims of the gospels”, and note the use of ‘claim’. If one makes a claim, the burden of proof should be upon the claimant. Regardless, there have been many such cases where evidence directly contradicts the Bible/gospels; for example, the existence of fossils, cosmic background radiation, the universe expanding at a rate that would put the initial expansion at thirteen billion years ago; all of which directly contradict the claims of the bible.
I guess my point is that ultimately the Bible is just a book of fables, and that the only vaguely reasonable concept of God to believe in is an intelligent designer.
The problem with that is that if it is so improbable that life, and the universe - and the laws of physics that allow them - to exist without a designer, it just raises the question a step further; is not the designer more improbable than the universe? It’s akin to seeing a beautiful garden and ascribing the plants, animals and insects to some fairies at the bottom. Just learn to appreciate the garden for what it is, and study it without attributing anything to a fairy.

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