Christian Doctrine is correct

GCL may continue arguing in the last round. But no *new* arguments because I can't respond. Since I already had parts of my final round typed out, here it is: All the arguments in this debate actually boil down into three categories: (1) The Bible is not inerrant; (2) The Bible is not the word of God; (3) The steps from a Biblical quote to a Christian belief are illogical. I'll go through each of these three categories and sum up why I win. Remember, all I needed to do to win was prove that one aspect of Christian Doctrine was not "correct. " And "correct" was defined as being completely "free from error. " Thus, all I need to do in order to win is prove a single error. An error could be an internal inconsistency (e. g. the Bible contradicting itself) or an external inconsistency (e. g. the Bible contradicting something observable in the outside world). In addition, "correct" also means "true. " And in accordance with my definition of "truth," if my explanation for something is better than GCL's, I win. (1) The Bible is not inerrant //A// The Trinity is not "correct" The Bible says in John 10:30 (as GCL points out) that Jesus and God are one entity. This is where the belief in the Trinity comes from. However, first, there is an internal inconsistency. John 14:28 says that Jesus is not God and Mark 13:32 says that Jesus is not omniscient (and therefore not God). I win on this alone. John 14:28 and John 10:30 cannot both be correct. Second, the Trinity is "untrue" because my explanation is better than GCL's. GCL explains that we can conceive of Jesus and God as being two entities, but they are both really the same entity. Yet, they cannot really be equivalencies because belief in one (God) is deemed by Christian Doctrine not to be equivalent to belief in the other (Jesus). Christians somehow believe that if you're praying to Jesus, you're also praying to God, but if you're praying to God (like Jews and Muslims do), you're not actually praying to Jesus. A *better* explanation for this absurd belief is that the First Commandment prohibits polytheism, so to avoid being construed as a polytheistic religion, Christians conceived of the Trinity as an excuse for why praying to Jesus -- as if he were a god -- is not blasphemous. Because I have the better explanation, the Trinity is untrue. //B// The Bible's views on geology are wrong The Bible estimates the age of the Earth at about 6000 years (based on approximating when Creation happened). The Bible actually lists multiple generations of humans starting with Adam and how long each lived, which is where this estimate comes from. The problem is that radioactive dating of human fossils proves that our species alone is 195,000 years old. The time-scale needed for sand and the Grand Canyon to form (from erosion), for mountains to form (from shifting of tectonic plates), and for the continents to have all fit together at one time and have moved apart is all larger than 6000 years. The people who wrote the Bible simply did not know enough about geology to understand that 6000 years was an absurd geological time scale. Thus, the Bible's views on geological time are wrong. //C// The Bible's views on physics are wrong The Bible espouses the belief that God simply created the Universe over the course of 6 days. However, the evidence is more consistent with a single Big Bang occurring instantly. For example, the background radiation is all the same temperature! ! If the radiation was created separately and put in different parts of the Universe, we would not expect particles from one part of the Universe to have the *exact* same temperature as particles from another part. Only if all the particles were once together would their temperatures all converge, proving that the Big Bang occurred (and not that God simply placed matter and energy wherever he felt like putting it). The people who wrote the Bible also espoused the olden-day beliefs that the Earth was flat, was stationary in its orbit, and was held up by pillars. We now know that the Earth is a sphere, that the Earth revolves around the sun, and that the Earth is held in place by the Sun's gravity (not pillars). The Bible is thus "wrong" because it espouses scientific beliefs that are outdated and untrue. //D// The Bible's views on biology are wrong The Bible says that God created mankind on our own. Fossils of intermediate hominid species prove that humans evolved over millions of years from a common ancestor with apes. As we evolved, our brains got bigger, our brow ridges got smaller, and we started walking more and more upright (with less curvature in our backs). We can tell a lot from hominid skeletons. If closely related species like Australopithecus, Neanderthals, and Homo habilis once walked the Earth besides us (because God created all of them simultaneously), you'd think the Bible would mention these strange human-like creatures. The more likely explanation is that the people who wrote the Bible had not yet discovered the fossils of dinosaurs or hominid species, so these were not included in the Creation story. However, unicorns and a fire-breathing Leviathan were included because the Bible is partly a fantasy novel about things that never happened (like the parting of the red sea and Jesus walking on water). Modern biology now establishes that there are no fire-breathing monsters in the ocean. Thus, the Bible is incorrect. //E// Archaeology proves that Exodus is a lie Extend through my evidence here. Egyptian historians would have recorded these events if they were true. //F//Problem of evil Extend this through. It proves God doesn't exist. Also, an "all-good" God would not have murdered innocent Egyptian children during the Exodus and then have sent them to Hell for being pagans. (2) The Bible is not the word of God Christians believe the Bible is God's word, but it cannot possibly be. It was adopted by a council of men who were part of the early Catholic Church. Assuming you grant that men have free will, this means that you *cannot* say that God influences our decisions to be different than they would otherwise be (because then God is using his omniscience to deprive us of free will). However, Christian Doctrine says that the Bible is the word of God because it is "divinely inspired. " Christians believe that the Bible is "divinely inspired" because God influenced the early adopters of the Bible to choose certain gospels and not others (such as the gnostic writings). However, this a double bind. You cannot both believe in free will and believe that God was really picking the words in the Bible by influencing the choices of men. One or the other has to give. GCL asserts that free will exists and in fact, the entire Christian faith would crumble if there was no free will. Without free will, we are not really "responsible" for our decisions, so it's unfair to condemn us to Heaven or Hell for our decisions. Because Christian Doctrine requires free will to exist, the Bible cannot be divinely inspired. The men who chose what works to include as part of "the Bible" were exercising free will -- the free will of men -- and so the Bible is a work of man, not of God. (3) Steps from the Bible to a Christian belief are illogical Abortion. Commandment 6 says "Though shalt not kill. " However, this quote would be illogical because self-defense is "killing. " Christians therefore re-translate this Commandment as "Though shalt not murder. " However, even murder is defined contextually by society's rules. Self-defense is not murder because when someone tries to kill you, your right to life outweighs their right to life since they are the aggressor. Abortion is a lesser example of self-defense, in the sense that two people's rights come into conflict: a woman's right to bodily autonomy and a fetus' right to life, and we as a society have to decide whose rights -- as a rule -- prevail. It's not as simple as "abortion is murder. " The word "murder" is clearly a societally-defined rule. Self-defense is not defined as murder. Killing soldiers during war is not defined as murder (even if you were the aggressor-nation). Therefore, whether abortion constitutes "murder" is a societal choice. It is not dictated by the Bible. Like any situation where two people's rights comes into conflict, society must decide whose rights prevail. Thus, the steps from the Bible to the Christian Doctrine that "abortion is murder" are illogical because the Bible doesn't define "murder," and what constitutes "murder" is a societal choice. Thus, the Christian Doctrine on abortion is "incorrect. "