From: ds0007@medtronic.COM (Dale Skiba)
Subject: Re: Biblical Errors
Organization: Medtronic, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 23:50:04 GMT

Peter White (pwhite@ems.cdc.com) wrote:
: Thank you for letting me in on the group you are perhaps trying to
: lump me in with. It helps with understanding. My faith is not going
: to crumble if I have to say that there are some small errors in the 
: Bible. I would still have at least inspiration and depending on
: one's definition, infallability. But, at the same time, I don't want
: to throw out inerrancy if I don't need to.

Sorry to lump you in a stereo-typical group, but I have met alot of
people who fit in this group :-)

: Have you ever read the Fingerprint of God by Hugh Ross? He is a scientist
: and does a very excellent job of showing how the big bang theory of
: creation can be seen to fit with the Biblical account. He doesn't
: ask you to murder your intellect. In fact you have to have a better
: intellect than mine to understand all the formulas he uses. The formulas
: are from people like Einstein. 
: I haven't met any of the sort of Christians you describe above. It would
: disappoint me too if someone maintained something that wasn't true or
: worse was intentionally deceptive in the attempt to prove a point.

I have read that book.  Most of what it says is pretty good.  Ocassionally
Hugh gets a bit too excited and gets carried away with the argument by
design.   He says that we can prove that there was a designer, and thus
a God who created the Universe.  He also says that many Astronomers are
becoming christians because of this, but I really haven't seen or been
told of such an evangelical movement in Astrophysics.  However, he is
at least not intentionally deceptive as the Creation Research Institute
people almost always are.  And most of his stuff makes sense.  At least
he is not a total embarrasment :-)

I think all we really can say that since we know the Universe actually had
a beginning, this gives us a tiny bit more confidence that God created it.
If we could find no beginning, then we would have alot less confidence. 

A Steady-State universe always was, so then it really doesn't need a
creation event or creator.  The Big-Bang universe did have a creation event,
so this may have involved a creator.  My faith leads me to say God did this,
but I can not prove it.  Hugh seems to say he can prove this.

[...]
: |> a few" minor errors in the Bible.  None of these errors disprove
: |> the resurrection.  All they show is that absolute Biblical inerrency
: |> is idiotic heresy.
: Please be kind enough to remember, that so far, you've shown it to
: yourself, but not necessarily to everyone else. Also, to try to show
: where my thinking is, I'm not over here jumping up and down about this
: and thinking you are stupid or idiotic because of your position. Your
: position, (as much as I know so far), seems quite reasonable to me. As
: yet, it doesn't seem more reasonable to me than mine. 
: Perhaps some of your other errors will convince me of the general
: concept although at this point I'm not ready to include the Judas
: accounts in the category of minor errors. 

I'll compare you to the stereo-typical Literalists again now...
Your concept of inerrency seemed to be missing the "completeness" concept
that alot of Bible Literalists believe in.  They have said that it is
an abomination to add anything to the Bible, because it is perfect,
without error and complete.  When you added things to the Judas stories,
you violated this completeness clause.  But, if you didn't strongly
follow the "completeness" school of thought, then the problem was not
so big to you.

--
Dale Skiba
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism