John Loftus is now arguing that he doesn't deny that the later Old Testament and the New Testament refer to God the Father as not having a body. He claims that his argument is about the oldest books of the Old Testament. But click here to see Loftus' original article. Notice that he repeatedly mentions the New Testament. Notice that he includes later Old Testament passages and New Testament passages in his lists of Biblical passages that refer to the body parts of God. Will Loftus retract his original argument? Will he post a correction at his blog?
See the comment section of the thread here for an explanation of why even Loftus' revised argument is problematic. Even if we were to limit ourselves to the oldest books of the Old Testament, we have no reason to think that Loftus is correct on this issue.
Why should Jason "try again" when Loftus is offering an assertion masquerading as an argument?
ReplyDeleteAll Loftus has done is to deny Jason's documentation, not to disprove it.
John Loftus wrote:
ReplyDelete"If we're talking about 'contradictions' then they are in the text itself, one day saying this thing and the next day saying that thing. Which is it?"
Again, let's keep this discussion in proper perspective. John's original article criticizes alleged inaccuracies in both Testaments, not just the oldest books of the Old Testament. When he listed Biblical passages about the body parts of God, he didn't make any distinction between the passages he was citing from the oldest books and the passages he was citing from later books. He listed them all together without making the distinctions he's making now. And even if we limited the discussion to the oldest books of the Bible, we've already explained why John's argument fails even in that narrower context.
But John now has another post up at his blog, so he can try to direct people's attention away from his previous errors to his latest ones. It's another post in which he claims a moral objection to Christianity without giving us any objective basis for his moral system. He also makes claims about the alleged inappropriateness of the amount of suffering in the world, even though John has no way of proving such an assertion.
If John wants to claim a conmtradcition then he has the burden, not us.
ReplyDeleteThus John needs to show that the biblical authors said A and ~A in the same sense and relationship.
It's *not enough* to merely say that one passage speaks of God having a body while another one speaks of God not having a body.
Now, if those passages mean that God does and does not have a body at the same time, in the same sense, and in the same ralationship, then John's shown no contradiction.
All John's argument amounts to is this: "If you grant me the assumption that Job meant things literally and really meant that God had a physical body, then I can show that Job contradicts other passages." This is uninteresting though.
Can John substantiate this claim? Can he show the logical analysis by which eh draws A and ~A?
Furthermore, why doesn't John think that the authors of the Bible thought that God was a bird, who had wings? Does he think that they thought this?
If not, then what authorotative standard does John use to determine when the Bible is being literal and when it is not?
If John has no standard then he cannot demonstarte said contradiction. If he cannot demonstarte said contradiction then he has not refuted Jason. If he has not refuted Jason then John has contradicted himself. If John has contradicted himself then John, being the good free thinker he is, should post a retraction, just like he posted his retractions against the faith. If John does not do this then he either: isn't the free-thinker and paradigm of open-minded-ness he pretends to be, or he doesn't think he's wrong.
If he isn't the open-minded free-thinker he pretends to be then all his claims about being open-minded and honest enough to "come out of the closet" to tell everyone about his loosing faith in faith seems to be a sham. If he doesn't think he's wrong then he needs the authoritative standard.
So, which will it be?
John, then if all the biblical authors didn't mean the same thing then how can you say there's a contradiction!!!
ReplyDeleteIf they did not mean the same thing then they're saying A and B, not A and ~A.
So, if you want to save your charge of contradiction then you must show they were they contradicted themselves.
To show this you must adhere to my criteria above, thanks
John Loftus wrote:
ReplyDelete"So likewise, when later Biblical authors used language like 'God's arm' it doesn't mean that the earlier writers didn't mean it literally. After all, according to them God walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day."
Again, I've addressed passages in the earliest Biblical books, such as Job 26 and Exodus 15. I've also addressed passages you've cited in later books, such as 2 Samuel 22. How does citing Genesis 3 answer what I wrote about passages like Job 26, Exodus 15, and 2 Samuel 22? It doesn't. And I answered your claims about Genesis 3 in another thread:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/exegetical-carelessness-of-john-loftus.html
Nothing in Genesis 3 requires that God the Father always had a body. If you want to claim that you're only arguing that God sometimes took a bodily form, then why should such a claim, which Christians have long accepted, be considered an argument against Christianity?
John Loftus said:
ReplyDelete"Paul, you naively think that all the Biblical authors thought the exact same thing about the universe, or God, or even the resurrection for that matter. That's patently and demonstrably false."
The problem is that you haven't demonstrated any contradiction. Arguing for a bodily appearance of God in Genesis 3 doesn't prove that God the Father always had a body. And if you're going to claim that you're only arguing that God sometimes takes bodily form in the oldest books of the Bible, then what does such an observation prove? Nothing in Christianity requires that God would never take a bodily form, and some of the earliest Biblical interpreters, like Justin Martyr, affirm that God did sometimes appear in bodily form in the Old Testament.
And I want to point out, again, that your original argument claims that there are inaccuracies in the New Testament books and in the later Old Testament books, not just in the oldest books of the Bible. You originally listed the newer books along with the older books, without making a distinction, when listing passages about the body parts of God. But now you claim that you don't have to address our arguments about the newer books, since you think that only the older books have the view of God in question. Yet, when I mention the problems with your interpretations of those older books, such as Job and Exodus, you don't interact with my comments on those books either.
John Loftus said:
ReplyDelete"I just argued that what we find is muddled at best, and that it reveals a primitive and ancient view of God which no Christian accepts today. I also argued that the burden of proof is yours."
You're making an assertion. You're telling us that some parts of the Old Testament teach a different view of God than the view Christians hold today. If you want us to believe that claim, then you have to prove it. You've failed to do so. You've tried, but every effort has failed.
And you originally didn't limit your claim to the oldest books of the Bible. You originally included alleged references to the physicality of God in later books of the Bible.
There's nothing "muddled" about a passage like Genesis 3. If God takes human form in that passage, the passage doesn't contradict the modern Christian view of God. You have yet to explain how a contradiction would be involved. If there's no inconsistency, then what do you mean by "muddled"? Similarly, I've explained why your reading of Exodus 15 is implausible. Again, if a non-literal statement is being made about God's arm, then what's "muddled"? Do you consider all poetic or other non-literal language a "muddled" form of communication? Would anybody living in Moses' day have difficulty discerning whether an arm came down out of the sky against the enemies of the Israelites? Would any later reader comparing Exodus 15 to descriptions of the events in other passages have difficulty recognizing that no literal arm was involved? Would any later reader have difficulty recognizing the poetic nature of the verses surrounding the verse you cited in Exodus 15? Since non-literal language is used often in other passages of Genesis, Exodus, etc., why should we think that the people of that time were incapable of understanding non-literal language? Why should we think that the passages are "muddled"?
This is how the discussion has gone:
1. You asserted that many passages in the Bible contradict the popular modern Christian view of God. You cited passages from both the earlier and the later books of the Bible.
2. We explained how such passages don't contradict our view of God.
3. You changed your argument by saying that the older Biblical books contradict our view of God, whereas the newer ones don't. However, you never acknowledged that you changed your argument in the middle of the discussion, and you ignored the evidence we cited against your interpretations of the older books of the Bible.
4. Your argument from both the older books of the Bible and the newer books has been answered, and you've been shown to have changed your argument in the middle of the discussion. You haven't been able to think of a good counterargument, so you've decided to keep making vague and irrelevant comments like the ones quoted above.
John Loftus wrote:
ReplyDelete"You see, you view yourselves as debators trying to trash the opposition, me. There are times when I think we're getting along well enough that I can move out of debate mode and discuss some possibilities with you."
You're the one who started this discussion. You posted an article at your web site, a site titled "Debunking Christianity". Near the beginning of that article, you wrote:
"Modern Christians try to avoid the conclusions of the literal Biblical statements because they read the Bible after the rise of science. It’s that simple, and it’s bad exegesis."
You accuse us of "trying to avoid the conclusions of the literal Biblical statements", and you accuse us of "bad exegesis". Later in the article, after citing Genesis 3:8, you asked, "Shouldn't this verse settle the whole debate?" In other words, you originated the discussion, you made accusations against us, and you framed it as a "debate".
Now that your original arguments have been refuted, you've decided to change your arguments in the middle of the discussion without admitting the change, you keep refusing to interact with what we've said about passages you initially cited, and you want us to address another passage that you didn't originally cite (Exodus 33). Steve has already answered your citation of that passage. He wrote:
"Simple: it's an angelophany. BTW, notice that Loftus is changing the subject. I answered him on Gen 1:26 and 3:8, so now he goes casting about for another prooftext." (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/imago-dei.html )
The same principle applies to Exodus 33 as applies to Genesis 3. God can appear to people in physical forms, whether in human bodies, fire, or something else. Modern Christians don't deny that God has given people various physical manifestations, so why would you claim that such occurrences are inconsistent with a modern Christian view of God? And why do you cite the passages mentioning a human body while ignoring passages that use other objects?