Christianity is False

Geocentricism (1)The Bible says that the sun rises and sets, and of course this is how we see it. So if the Bible says the sun stood still over the battlefield, this is how they saw it. It isn"t false just because it is a human POV; it"s a reality, a truth, about the way we experience life. (2)I never denied that the sun stood still. I gave proof that the sun does move and so God could have made the sun "and the earth" both stand still. My interpretation doesn"t deny that the sun actually did stand still, it merely additionally involves the stopping of the earth"s rotation and orbit. (3)Pro is arguing for an interpretation of Joshua that most Christians don"t even hold, then attacking his own literal interpretation. This is like saying the Bible is wrong because the world wasn"t made in six 24-hour days, when the facts is that most Christian Hebrew scholars agree that Genesis 1 doesn"t speak of 24-hour days, and that the Hebrew word for "day" (yohm) means a very long, undefined period of time in those verses. Pro can"t refute the Bible by attacking one literalist interpretation out of many other kinds, but rather, has to show what the writer"s intent was. He hasn"t shown the writer meant anything more than the fact that the sun which normally moves across the sky, stopped moving across the sky. He hasn"t shown the writer was trying to present scientifically accurate astronomy. (4)The resurrection of a body on earth which people touched and felt with their hands (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:24-29) is very different from how we on earth witness astronomical events, therefore Pro"s comparison here doesn"t justify his claim that we can treat the resurrection in the same light as the sun standing still. What"s more, I would argue that the resurrection appearances are written from a human POV, and that POV was literally correct. Human POVs are not always wrong. (5)Neither the Bible or Christianity ever claimed the book of Joshua must all be written from God"s point of view. Something doesn"t have to be a divine POV to be true. Pro says: "Con then says the bible doesn"t have to be taken literally. I"m puzzled why he would say this, because it was agreed that Con would defend the literal truth of the bible." It"s literally true that we see the sun moving across the sky, and its literally true the people on that battlefield saw this sun stop moving from a day. Saturninus, Volumnius and Quirinius Luke is much closer to the time of the events than Josephus and it would be foolish to think that Josephus knew the facts better than Luke. Pro then argues that the gospels are anonymous because they didn"t include the author"s name. But critics like him never explain to us how this arguments would work if applied equally to secular ancient documents whose authenticity and authorship is not in question, but are every bit as "anonymous" in the same sense that the Gospels are. True, the Gospel authors nowhere name themselves in their texts, but this applies equally to numerous other ancient documents, such as Tacitus' Annals. Authorial attributions are found not in the text proper, but in titles, just like the Gospels. Pro could make the case that these were added later to the Gospels, but they need to provide textual evidence of this (i.e., an obvious copy of Matthew with no title attribution to Matthew, and dated earlier or early enough to suggest that it was not simply a late, accidental omission), and at any rate, why is it not supposed that the titles were added later to the secular works as well? If Luke"s gospel was anonymous, competing names for authorship would have arisen as we know happened with many of the apocryphal gospels; so how is it there is this unanimous agreement among all the various sects of Christians and even unbelievers in the first 300 years of Christianity? Second-century testimony is unanimous in attributing the four Gospels to the persons that now carry their name. This suggests that they received their titles early; for if they had not, there would have been a great deal of speculation as to who had written them. No such controversy is reported among the church fathers. A fake would have to create a gospel, concoct some story as to how it came peculiarly to be in their possession; get around the problem of why a work by such a person disappeared or was previously unknown; then get the church at large, first in his area and then throughout the Roman Empire (and would not the claimed discovery of such a document cause a sensation, and controversy?), to accept this work as genuine. Pro gave no proof of such a thing. There is no parallel to such a thing in history to suggest that so many people can be conned by four separate forgeries without the conspiracy being unearthed or even challenged, and yet, no such challenge is recorded for the first 400 years of Christianity. Justin Martyr was also closer to the events than Josephus and he backs up Luke. Where are the records Justin mentions? I could ask that about many records Josephus mentions as well. The fact he points to them as evidence shows they existed and could be checked. Pro asked: "If there was cult leader who preaches crazy wild things, does the fact no one is challenging him count as evidence he"s correct?" There is no cult leader today or ever has been who was not challenged. Jericho Pro never showed us where the Bible gives us the date of Jericho"s fall either, so I don"t think he has shown the Bible"s date to be false! He says it"s the widely accepted date, well, is Pro"s interpretation of a geocentric model of the solar system where the sun revolves around the earth the widely accepted interpretation of Joshua"s account? No! What bias! C-14 dating Con now claims a margin of error of 38 years for C-14 dating, but hasn"t proved this because he can"t even show how he knows the half-life of C-14, without which the margin is meaningless. No scientist has even proven that they can tell how long it takes for C-14 to decay. So this margin of error is pure speculation. What"s more, he hasn"t shown that Jericho has been dated by any other means, such as isocron dating for example. I am out of time as I'm using a computer at the internet cafe and I have to rush off to work. I also apologize for not presenting a positive argument for Christianity, but my space was taken up responding to Pro and my time was limited. I will do another debate where I will make such a case, but I don't think Pro have shown Christianity to be wrong. It's up to you to decide.