From: lung@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Terence Lung)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Unfounded Biblical Faith
Date: 14 Apr 92 19:00:20 GMT
Reply-To: lung@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Terence Lung)
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

>In article <srqjlpn.rohwerwd@netcom.com> rohwerwd@netcom.com (W. David Rohwer)
>writes:
>     As you should know by now, the Bible contains many contradictions
>and errors and as a consequence does not stand up to logic.  
>
>     Ok, I will list two.
>     Number 1:  The two creation stories in Genesis.

Why, praytell, do you think these two creation stories are incompatible?
When you say contradicting, I thought you'd come up with saying that in
the first story, the sky was created on Day 2 and in the second story,
the sky was created on Day 3.  

Yes.  I can see that there are differences.  If they were the same,
one would have Chp 1 followed by Chp 1.  Are they contradictory if
they are different?  Tell me if the following two statements are
different.
  1.  The Allied powers won WWII.
  2.  The Axis powers lost WWII.
Yes.  They are different!  (For starters, there is a different subject
in each.)  Are they contradictory?  Are they illogical? Another example:
  1.  The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor Dec 8, 1941 (Dec 7 Hawaii time).
  2.  The Japanese attacked Singapore Dec 8, 1941.
What do you mean by contradiction?

>     Number 2: Changeability of God.
>          1)  In at least 12 verses, the Bible states that God is
>              unchangeable: Num 23:19, 1 Sa 25:29, Job 36:5, Ps 33:11,
>                            Ps 89:34, Ps 102:27, Ps 110:4, Mal 3:6
>                            Tit 1:2, Heb 6:17-18, Heb 13:8, Jas 1:17.
>          2)  In two books, God gave Moses the "Eye for Eye, Tooth for
>              Tooth" law: Lev 24:17-20, Dt 19:21.
>          3)  In Mt 5:38-40:  Jesus says, "..."
>       As one can see, God changes between 2 and 3 which causes a
>       contradiction of 1. 
The change between 2 and 3 merely substantiates God's promise of a
change in covenant.  What does not change is God's promise and His
faithfulness to His promises.  The Law changed.  God did not change.

>     Sure there is a major difference between the creation story and
>science.  In Genesis 1, the creation story states that God created
>vegetation one day before God created the Sun.  From the biology classes
>that I took, vegetation can not live without the Sun.  Therefore, 
>vegetation could not have been created before the Sun.  The universe
>was not created in six days as stated in Genesis 1.

1.  Your biology classes are apparently flawed.  Some of us know that
there is vegetation at the bottom of the ocean that lives quite well
without the Sun.  Some live entirely off volcanic energy.
2.  Creation in six days?  The theory of relativity makes this all
very relative.  If a clock in orbit goes one second slower than a 
clock on earth in the course of one year in orbit, and if a man
travelling in space, a couple parsecs away ages one year while his
friends on earth pass away in the same course of a thousand years
on earth, why can't six days a heavenly distance away be recorded
as four billion years on this planet?
3.  Does your definition of God include omnipotence?  If it does,
why do you limit your conceptions of what God can or cannot do?
This is His creation, not yours.

>     The virgin birth is a false miracle.
I don't know about this one.  I'd assume that if Jesus fulfilled 
so many of the other prophecies very literally, it takes no giant
leap of faith to extrapolate that he fulfilled this one too.

Terence