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Come on, apologists. Is the gospel story REALLY worth defending?

5/22/2015

4 Comments

 
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Yet again, I recently found myself engaged with a guy who wanted to offer up some narrative glue to reconcile the four contradictory gospels into a single coherent narrative, and thus 'prove' that it contained no contradictions.
Whilst reading his attempt, it occurred to me what an embarrassing pursuit he was on. Suddenly, the socially-normatized (if that's a word) thing of defending one's religion became utterly, utterly laughable when one considers the ludicrousness of the assumptions the story takes for granted.
One could argue I went slightly off topic in my response, but I had to make the point to this guy that perhaps even HE wasn't aware of the idiocy underlying his assumption that the gospels OUGHT to be defended.
Enjoy my response:


Your fourth paragraph is a masterpiece of nonsensical jibberish, and I will treasure it as a fine example of the garbage that believers have to fill their heads with in order to reconcile the gobbledigook of the bible within themselves.


Before I reproduce it hereunder, let's just ponder that we're dealing with a story, that claims to be history, that involves flying angels. Yes. A historical event, just as historical as September 11, or the Battle of Britain, or the sinking of the Titanic - it's just that this historical event, centering around the coming-back-to-life of a dead middle-eastern iron-age miracle-man, features angels: supernatural flying beings from the realm of heaven.
This "historical event" is recorded in four different and differing accounts, written decades apart by anonymous authors who never knew each other and likely lived hundreds of miles away from each others' home towns, in a language other than the reported events are supposed to have occurred in, each using different source material, each recording different details that any objective reading will attest do in fact contradict each other.

The apologist's responses to having these contradictions pointed out,>>> once again, I reiterate, contradictions amongst four versions of a fantasy story about a water-walking dead miracle-man coming back to life and thus bestowing eternal life unto anyone who wants it after THEY're dead (yes, you must believe that with a straight face), reads as follows:... (Prepare yourself to read an adult, obviously very capable, educated person, defend and attempt to reconcile the mismatches in an ancient tale about angels from heaven descending to earth to attend to the coming-back-to-life of a recently-dead miracle man:).... Here goes, and I quote verbatim:

"Matthew's account of the angel rolling away the stone probably occurred while the women were en route to the tomb, so that only the guards saw the angel sitting on the stone. John's account of Mary Magdalene and the angels is a separate event; Mary had likely gone back to get Peter and John before the other women encountered the angels. Clearly there were two angels, as described in Luke and John. The second angel may or may not have appeared to the guards, but did appear to the women entering the tomb. It's likely that only one angel spoke, hence Mark only mentions one angel. While Mark and Luke refer to men instead of angels, the men are wearing white "in clothes that gleamed like lightning" and their appearance causes the women to be greatly distressed, which is consistent with Matthew and John's descriptions of the angels (as well as other descriptions in the Bible of people encountering angels)."

Wonderful. Thank you for sharing the incredible lengths you'll go to to avoid the inevitable and reasoned response to contradictions in these jumbled and confused records of this fantasy non-event that one meets if one simply applies a bit of adult common sense to it all.


4 Comments
wheels5894
5/24/2015 07:52:31 pm

Ah, well, one has to have decided what one believes before going to the biblical text and citing passages in support, so far as I can see. Everyone wants the gospel to be the same story but even the birth narratives have so many differences that they can't both be right but what do churches do at Xmas? Combine Matthew and Luke, choosing the best bots from both, and try to keep the deleted bits away from the congregations!

No, what is needed for the gospels, is a good hypothesis that explains why they have so many differences and then to show it is true. the best we have is that Mark came first and the other gospels used him as the basis for their writing. It looks as though Mat and Luke just elaborated the Markan texts with made-up details. Not a great start to a religion!

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Squidward
6/8/2015 04:48:39 pm

The christian religion should be updated. Skip the old testament and release that as a fantasy / horror book. Make sure it has nothing to do with christianity anymore, because the stories are too good to destroy. Make it apart from religion and we can still enjoy the stories.

Then, the New Testament. Remove all the rubbish about eternal hellfire so there is no need to scare people. Just keep the text about peace and love. Then, religion can turn actually to something good.

Oh, almost forgot: Remove the obligation to convert and become a christian. Look at the universalists: everyone is going to heaven. I have to admit: I don't believe in a God, but I really like the faith of the universalists!

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Jessy
12/24/2015 12:02:15 pm

Hi,
It seems that you like to debate with bible believing literal inerrancy believing "fundamental" christians, which I also do, but even with this commonality, we differ on our views of whether the bible is a reliable source for god. Although I feel that your claims of any miracle workings are unwarranted (I'm 99% positive that you haven't tested out the claims of other worldviews), leaving that aside, I wanted to challenge you in one single point if you don't mind. About christians who acknowledge that the bible is a historical document written by men, (some could argue by different people who didn't know each other, adding a spin to it, that somehow helps make an objective case) how do you deal with christians who see the bible reliable at the fundamental levels, that is to say that the differing accounts all agree on what really matters, and all else being trivial (not applying to us christ believing pagans who accept the second covenant)? I know that you could point out many many points that you don't like in the bible, but without all of the red herrings thrown around (because there are appropriate places and times where someone could address those separate concerns), how would you go about in discrediting the bible in those terms? at the top, I put quotation marks around "fundamental", not to describe true fundamental christians but christians who are labelled by the media and by themselves to be fundamental christians who only care about spewing out their propaganda about the conservative right-winged party stuff. (by its true definition, meaning that all those who agree on doctrines that matter most, are christians no matter what denomination you belong to).

I know I threw out many points just to ask you about one simple point, but I hope you don't misunderstand my tone as sounding like I'm attacking you. Rather I put up many points in order to put out some sort of disclaimers, about points that may be brought up that I have no intention on discussing rather than the single point I put out, likewise you may do the same. Some of the other points aside from the question are further clarifications concerning the question which are relevant and I hope you better understand what position I'm referring to in my question.

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Jessy
12/24/2015 12:20:57 pm

Just by the off chance that you may be concerned with my wording at, "...we differ on our views of whether the bible is a reliable source for god." I really mean "we differ on our views of whether the bible is a reliable source for us towards god." which I could further clarify by saying "a reliable source and is therefore the most reasonable source for the truth" but that has other religious affiliated points that could be debated separately which I wouldn't debate right now (I'm also a busy person I suppose). Why am I fixing my wording now? Sometimes I type faster than the words that come to my mind.

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