 Re: Bible Contradictions
Free will and omnicience is one, I'll elaborate.
If God created us and knew precisely everything we would ever do to a 100% accuracy, he by definition controls us. Not controlling us would be creating us in a way where we had free will, as opposed to where we're stuck fulfilling his omniscience.
Free will would mean God looking in the future and saying "there's a 50/50 chance on this, but it's ultimately up to the human to decide--so I can't say what he'll choose", not "there's a 100% chance he'll do this, so he can't choose anything else".
The first version makes at least a bit of sense and solves this problem, but it violates God's supposed omniscience since he would be limited to knowing only many things, not all things. Omniscience, omnipotence, and other omni-traits are incoherent, logically contradict their own definitions, and can only be defended by people with a pre-existing belief that makes it obligatory to defend them, no matter the cost in mind-bending gymnastics.
An easier, simpler, just plain better explanation is that these traits were made up by humans to have a more impressive God, which subsequently gained them more converts and fed the belief even more in a never-ending feedback loop.
Contradictions in Christian theology deriving from attributes of God:
Omniscience: knows everything, including what he'll do; therefore can't do anything he hasn't already foreseen and isn't omnipotent.
Omnipotence: can do anything, including things he won't be able to undo.
Omnipresence: makes the existence of places where he isn't present (Hell) logically impossible.
Transcendence: makes any other claims you make on the attributes of God worthless, since they cannot be known.
Sovereignty: depends on the ultimate version of 'might makes right'. No objective standard for determining how the judgement of one being is above the judgement of another exists, although we can make determinations based on reason. If this attribute is correct, we would have no recourse if God ordered us to kill innocent children except to follow his orders (like the ancient Israelis apparently did in the Old Testament).
Holiness: 'holiness' is by definition that which is divine. As such, it's worthless, circular reasoning and nothing more.
Mercy: no comment.
Righteousness: see Sovereignty.
The very fact that that God sees the future accurately makes it clear that there is no "free will" present from the start. If God is omnicient then he knows every decision you will ever make. If he didn't, then he wouldn't be omnicient. Having complete knowledge of what will happen is predetermination by definition. If something knows exactly what will happen, then it has to already have been determined, otherwise they wouldn't know. "Free moral agency" would actually make it possible to choose something freely, without it being completely known in advance (which by definition makes it predetermined).
If Christians claim free will exists, and they do, since Christianity rests on its existence, the burden of proof is on them to show how it exists. However, they fail, because they cannot show how free will is more likely than the illusion of free will given the data we currently possess. If you make no specific claims on the nature of God (like deists, agnostics and atheists), you avoid this problem. Once you do, however, you open your position to scrutiny which it can't survive unless you decide to accept its "truth" entirely on faith.
The very ability to know what humans will do to a 100% accuracy in the future means there are no truly random, unknown factors which could affect the decisions humans make and screw up the prediction. In other words, if anything can know everything there is to know about the universe, it operates completely deterministically. And when everything is determined, free will is a complete illusion.
Judas Iscariot's death (The betrayer of Jesus). Did he hang himself or did he just fall face forward and die?
(Mat 27:5 NRSV) Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself.
(Acts 1:18 NRSV) Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.
Is a person saved by grace or are works also required?
Paul and James seem to disagree on this.
James: (James 2:24 NRSV) You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
Paul: (Gal 2:16 NRSV) yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.
James: (James 2:17 NRSV) So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Paul: (Titus 3:5 NRSV) he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, ...
James: (James 2:20 NRSV) Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren?
Paul: (Rom 3:28 NRSV) For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.
James: (James 2:14 NRSV) What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?
Paul: (Rom 4:5 NRSV) But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.
The Bible contradicts itself about whether any man has ever seen God.
(The author of the Gospel of John and Paul the Apostle say no one has *ever* seen God)
(John 1:18 NRSV) *No one has ever seen God*...
(1 Tim 6:16 NRSV) ...*whom no one has ever seen or can see*;
(Here Moses sees the God's backside)
(Exo 33:20 NRSV) But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live."
(Exo 33:23 NRSV) then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."
(And here Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, Issac, Jacob, and Amos get a full frontal view)
(Exo 24:9-10 NRSV) Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.
(Gen 26:2 NRSV) The LORD appeared to Isaac and said...
(Gen 32:30 NRSV) So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved."
(Amos 9:1 NRSV) I saw the LORD standing beside the altar...
The author of Numbers says God does not change his mind.
The prophet Jeremiah says he does.
(Num 23:19 NRSV) God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
(Jer 26:19 NRSV) ...and did not the LORD change his mind about the disaster that he had pronounced against them? ...
And some biblical errors:
Jesus tells his disciples that those "who believe" can heal, handle snakes, cast demons out, speak in tongues, and drink poison.
(Mark 16:17-18 NRSV) And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."
The Exodus story is almost certainly a fabrication or at least extremely exaggerated.
The bible says 600,000 men (hopefully accompanied by an equal number of women), children, and a "mixed" crowd supposedly left Egypt.
(Exo 12:37-38 NRSV) The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about *six hundred thousand men* on foot, besides children. A mixed crowd also went...
This is somewhere around 1.5 million people (more than live in the city of Dallas).
It is very unlikely that the Egyptians kept 1.5 million people enslaved, controlled, and fed.
It is also very unlikely that hundreds of thousands of Israelites wandered around on foot in a desert region with little food or water for 40 years after they left.
There is no record anywhere of Egypt ever enslaving the Israelites. There is no archaeological evidence to support the Israelites being in Egypt.
It is well established that the Egyptians themselves built all their cities and monuments during the off season (farming).
There is no record in Egypt of 1.5 million people suddenly getting up and leaving (The Egyptians were meticulous record keepers).
There is no archaeological evidence of anything more than a few scattered encampments in the wilderness where supposedly at least hundreds of thousands wandered and died in the bible.
Jesus was just a mortal man who had no special knowledge of modern cosmology.
Here are some verses that indicate this:
(Jesus is talking about the end of the world) (Mat 24:29 NRSV) "Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; *the stars will fall* from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
Jesus is obviously talking about stars (to him little lights) falling from the sky (to him just a few miles up) down to earth.
This was entirely feasible to people of his time as they did not know that the stars are hugh celestial objects like our sun (many, many times larger than the earth) that were unimaginably distant.
We know today that stars are suns that are at such distances that light takes dozens to hundreds of thousands of years to travel to us.
Even if they could travel instantaneously to earth, they could not "fall to earth" as they are up to millions of times larger than the earth.
Here is the certainly mythical story of how Jonah lived inside of a fish for three days:
(Jonah 1:17 NRSV) But the LORD provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Lets assume that the story was talking about a whale which was incorrectly identified as a fish by this tale and that the whale would have some interest in swallowing a person whole, let's look at some of the other ways this is fiction:
a) No oxygen.
b) Lot of poisonous digestive juices.
c) No drinkable water.
d) A whale has an enormously fast digestive system.
The Bible goes on to tell of how God "talks" to the "fish" and the "fish" "spews" the man on to dry land.
The bible's primitive astronomy provides a longer day to complete the killing of all the Amorite men, women, and children.
Joshua realized that he wasn't going to have enough time to completely slaughter all of the Amorites (even with God helping by throwing boulders from the sky to crush the people that were fleeing) so he commanded the Sun to stand still in the sky over Gibeon and the Moon to stand still over the valley of Aijalon.
The author of Joshua like everyone else in his day was unaware of the earth's rotation and thought the Sun went around the earth and that the Sun and Moon were only a few miles up in the sky, hence the command to make them stand still over certain topographic features of the earth.
These very verses were used by the Church against Galileo when he suggested that the earth turned instead:
(Josh 10:12-13 NRSV) On the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the LORD; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand still *at Gibeon*, and Moon, *in the valley of Aijalon*."
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.
Failed prophecy:
Ezekiel predicted Babylon would conquer Egypt and was wrong.
Ezekiel predicts that Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon will conquer Egypt utterly destroying it, slaying and scattering it's people, and that it will stay uninhabited for 40 years.
In 568 BCE Nebuchadrezzar tried to conquer Egypt and Egypt survived with no apparent damage.
Aahmes ruled for another generation over a prosperous Egypt and lived to see Nebuchadrezzar die. No Egyptians were scattered or dispersed.
(Ezek 29:10 NRSV) therefore, I am against you, and against your channels, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Ethiopia.
(Ezek 29:11 NRSV) No human foot shall pass through it, and no animal foot shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years.
(Ezek 29:12 NRSV) I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolated countries; and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries.
(Ezek 30:10 NRSV) Thus says the Lord GOD: I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt, by the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon.
(Ezek 30:11 NRSV) He and his people with him, the most terrible of the nations, shall be brought in to destroy the land; and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.
Ezekiel predicts the destruction of Tyre (Tyrus) by Nebuchadrezzar and is wrong again.
Ezekiel incorrectly predicts that the island of Tyre (Tyrus) will be utterly destroyed and "made a bare rock" which will "never be rebuilt".
At the time of the prediction, it seemed like to be a sure thing, but 13 years of seige later Nebuchadrezzar gives up. The Island of Tyre is not destroyed or even conquered. It is not made "a bare rock" that will "never be rebuilt".
Ezekiel admits his error in Ezek 29:17
(Here the conquest of Trye looks like a sure thing so Ezekiel makes his prediction)
(Ezek 26:1 NRSV) In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me:
(Ezek 26:7 NRSV) For thus says the Lord GOD: I will bring against Tyre from the north King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, king of kings, together with horses, chariots, cavalry, and a great and powerful army.
(Ezek 26:14 NRSV) I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets. You shall never again be rebuilt, for I the LORD have spoken, says the Lord GOD.
(Ezek 27:32 NRSV) In their wailing they raise a lamentation for you, and lament over you: "Who was ever destroyed like Tyre in the midst of the sea?
(13 years of futile effort by Nebuchadrezzar later...)
(Ezek 29:17 NRSV) In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me:
(Here Ezekiel admits he was wrong)
(Ezek 29:18 NRSV) Mortal, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labor that he had expended against it.
(So he then predicts that God decides to give Egypt to him instead, another Ezekiel prophecy that completely failed)
Heres a couple verses that contradict Christian doctrine:
Here is an indication that Jesus did not consider himself to be God (at least not according to the Synoptic Gospels)..
(Mark 10:17-18 NRSV) As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
Some scriptures that indicate that Moses did not write any of the bible (provided he even existed).
(Num 12:3 NRSV) Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth.
(This is of course not the sort of thing you would expect the humblest man on earth to write about himself)
(And here Moses writes about how he died)
(Deu 34:5 NRSV) Then Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord's command.
The bible clearly says that effort expended toward "back slidden" people is a waste of time.
(Heb 6:4-6 NRSV) For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt.
This verse goes against the doctrine that God is omnipotent. God was "with Judah" but they could not drive out the plain's people because they had chariots of iron.
(Judg 1:19 NRSV) The LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.
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Bible Contradictions
2002-08-11, 03:01
