darth_ender said:
But I will say that what once started as the noble goal of encouraging critical thinking seems to have digressed into talking about crumbling houses of cards and the foibles of even believing what we do.
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My point is that the motives now seem less altruistic, and perhaps there are others not wanting to have their faith directly challenged, as there is a difference between encouraging a little more critical thinking and actually downright saying, "You're dead wrong."
Whoa, digressed? We're still on the exact same subject! No digressions have been made. This isn't even deep discussion, all this is barely on the surface, and it is basically just me asking a simple question that continues to go unaddressed:
If you freely admit the Bible is full of falsehoods and corruptions, how do you know the resurrection of Christ isn't one of these uninspired, corrupt pieces?
It is such a basic question, if somebody's faith cannot withstand it, I daresay they had no faith to begin with. Seriously, how do you believe something so unbelievable, when the only source of this unbelievable tale is a book that you admit to being untrustworthy?
This isn't even an atheist/theist discussion. I just find it really interesting how the Bible repeatedly claims it is the perfect word of God, which you disagree with, but still find merit in it anyway and chose to believe bits and pieces of it.
Also unaddressed was the verse in Timothy 3:16-17:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Does it lie?
Is this a corruption?
Or does this predate all Biblical corruptions, a remnant of a time before the Bible couldn't be trusted?
Is this just Paul talking about the scripture prior to its corruption, back when it really was God-breathed? (If so, the majority of the texts we've translated the Old Testament from predate Paul and even the time of Christ, they are from all different time periods, and besides a few misplaced grammatical marks and an added or subtracted word here or there, they all say the exact same thing, which indicates changes HAVE NOT been made through the centuries. It is actually very remarkable, there is no other ancient text with such an abundance of sources).
Perhaps poor Paul was fooled into eating dog poop brownies himself. The man claims to be inspired by God, maybe that is true, but God simply didn't relay to him the important details about scripture not always being from God).
You and Warbler paint a very fickle picture of Christiandom from its source material on up. If the Bible is corrupt and untrustworthy, then by extension, this must put everything Christianity teaches at question. You can't very well say that it is full of error, then say, well, we know for sure this part isn't erroneous. A leaky boat isn't water-worthy, no matter how small the percentage of leaks are in ratio to the portions that are impermeable, if it leaks, then its going to sink.
Of course, Mormonism is a very different animal that believes in a very different take on the nature of God and Christ, to be a Mormon, you'd have to accept that most of the things the Bible teaches us about God and Christ are utterly false. So naturally, it would be much easier (actually, necessary) for you to accept the fact that the Bible is some percentage bunk, than it would be for members of more traditional denominations to do so.