From: lhughes@b11.ingr.com (Lawrence Hughes)
Subject: Re: Christian Bashing
Summary: oh yeah?
Organization: Intergraph Corp. Huntsville, AL
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 17:49:50 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.134015.25029@b11.ingr.com>, lester@naomi.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Les Bartel) writes:
> Nik Simpson writes
> |> 
> |> 	It is common practice to cite other works which agree with a point you
> |> are trying to make,  Von Daniken was one of the finest practitioners of 
> |> picking on and citing those facts which agreed with his premise while ignoring
> |> less convenient ones.
> 
> Agreed.  But see my comments above.  Don't you think that someone who
> sets out to disprove something might try to select work to back him/her
> up? 

A good researcher will try to find ALL of the facts, and an honest one will
present even citations that DO NOT substantiate his claim, if perhaps with a
note of disagreement. A really honest researcher will not have formed a
conclusion before trying to do the research, and will base his conclusion
on the facts found. So much "biblical research" starts out with the
assumption that the bible is correct, and tries to find "facts" to back up
that conclusion. Very similar tactics to the more recent "green science" types.

When I was at FSU, one of the statistical consultants at the computing center
there wrote an April fool's piece for the center's newsletter, describing a
new software utility that you could enter your conclusions into, and it would
then fabricate data that you could run through SPSS (a analysis package), in
order to more easily obtain proof for your conclusions without having to
discard inconvienient data points, re-survey, etc. She was most chagrinned to
have "social scientists" begging her for a copy of this for years afterward.

> McDowell had a bias (how much I don't know) _against_ the Bible.
> His research to discredit the Bible forced him to change his thesis.
> Now, doesn't that _add_ credibility to his statements?

NO. George Bush now claims to be running against the Washington establishment.
George Bush, you may recall, IS the Washington establishment. McDowell could
easily be claiming to have been biased against the bible before beginning his
researches in order to impress people. Happens all the time. I have heard this
guy talk on TV before - he is indistinguishable from a slew of other fundie
preacher types - his claims of being a "scientist" are highly suspect to me.
Perhaps he has a degree in some "pseudo" science, or from a diploma mill. He
certainly has no grasp of the scientific method, or at least did not choose to
employ it in his "researches".

> Can you point me to some sources that prove the Bible unreliable? 

Easily - the bible claims that the world was created in 7 days. There is not,
and never has been, enough energy in the entire universe to even create one
planet (let alone a multitude of stars and galaxies) in such a short time. Also,
we have strong evidence that the time between the first cooling of the newly
formed earth and the first life was millions or billions of years, not a few
days. You can always argue that the world was created instantly, with a
miraculous avoidance of the laws of energy, and with the fossil (and geologic)
record intact (to make us doubt?), or even the old chestnut about the word
"day" being a loose translation, but I don't buy any of those. Nor do you need
to. All the other evidence of geologic and planetary timelines correlate just
fine. 

Secondly, the bible makes a strong case for the world being only a little over
4000 years old. There is VERY strong evidence of even HUMAN civilisation
(Chinese and Egyptian) prior to this time - where were they supposed to have
been? Again, you can argue the "day" or "year" really meant something else,
or that the timelines were "poetic" rather than literal, or somesuch, and
can't be crossreferenced. If so, phooey on you, you're welching.

In the 1800's, someone (I forget who) went through your bible and found strong
support for BOTH sides of every major issue of the day (slavery, imperialism,
etc.) Can it really be literally true everywhere with that level of 
contradiction? Sorry - there I go applying logic again... "We believe in ONE
God: the father, the son, and the holy ghost. And the devil, and a bunch of
angels, some saints, etc., etc. But just ONE god. It's a mystery." (well it
certainly is to me....).

> Are these authors [I assume you mean the sources of these contradictions]
biased? 

No. They weren't trying to refute (your) bible - they were trying to find the
truth. They could still be wrong, but I don't think they were biased (at least
not against your bible).

> If the Bible were so inaccurate, do you really
> believe that there would still be Christians (and _lots_ of them)
> around after 2000 years?

Yes. These people WANT to believe in a God, eternal life, etc. They don't
want to be confused (or dissuaded) by facts. People believed the Earth was
flat for considerably more than 2000 years - and have believed in Confucianism
and Taoism for more than 2000 years - and LOTS of them have - does this mean
THEY are right too? Merely believing in something (even for long periods of
time) does not make it true.

>  - Les
> 
> -- 
> Les Bartel			lester@naomi.b23b.ingr.com
> Dazix, An Intergraph Company	uunet!ingr!b23b!naomi!lester

Larry "the anti-chris" Hughes


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