Were there any reviews of #3?

I hope that everyone enjoys reading this debate as much as I enjoyed having it fifteen years ago. It was great to engage with a sharp mind like dub; the site is less for his absence. I particularly appreciate that the Moderator's note lists dipplayer2004 and Putin33 as the participants.

But as I am reviewing these debates, I feel like it somehow misses the point, or more accurately is simply incomplete. I come across as much testier, in these literal years of space between rereading and composition, than I would like. As much as I enjoy these debates or debates in general, it feels like it loses the inherent hospitality which is inherent in the evangelical project. Maybe this is just me, though.

Thoroughly impressed with dubmdell's knowledge both of scripture and ancient Greek and Hebrew. Not to mention his ability to array his case in a concise and straight forward way. Furthermore, he does a tremendous job of anticipating his opponents' objections and pre-emptively responding to them, as well as dispatching the criticisms which he does not preempt. I wish dubmdell would go on the debate circuit, as he puts the New Atheists out there trying their luck against the likes of WL Craig to shame. This is the first debate I have reviewed where I thought the atheist side convincingly won.

CKRoberts responses to the bevy of charges against the Protestant canon's consistency and divine inspiration were on the whole unsatisfactory. He first attempts to side-step the entire purpose of this debate, it seems to me, by refusing to address the contradictions and dismissing virtually all of them as minor. The only contradiction that CKRoberts deemed 'serious' was the issue of the plurality of gods. I thought dubmdell pointed out a large number of problematic doctrinal inconsistencies, not just inconsistencies about dating or locations. He also consistently appeals to the different standards of writing for ancient texts, but that seems to be besides the point being addressed in the debate. The issue is not whether the Bible has any use as an ancient historical text, or whether the Bible is more inconsistent or flawed than other ancient texts, it's whether the inconsistencies undermine the claim to divine inspiration. As dubmdell rightly points out, consistently appealing to human agency to explain the litany of contradictions completely nullifies any claim to divine inspiration.

(Coming out of self-imposed hiatus to comment)

Some of dubmdell's examples are outright fabrications, and others show a distinct lack of the ability to read.

But the biggest issue is that dubmdell tries to assert that the Bible is something which it is not. Now, he has a good reason for this, as too many "fundamentalist" Christians make the same mistake. That is the mistake of asserting that the Bible is one monolithic work, completely perfect and given by God in every particular. This idea that the Bible is "God's Book", and therefore should be absolutely consistent and absolutely unimpeachable, is to make the Bible itself an Idol, a stand-in for God, and to claim for it that which is outside most of 20 centuries of Christian understanding. The bible is a collection of writings of various genres, widely scattered time periods, and intended for a variety of audiences and purposes. Of course it is not internally consistent. Those Christians who try to force it into being such, through interpretational gymnastics, are playing their opponents' game. So ckroberts did the exact right thing in not trying to refute every little "contradiction" dubmdell alleges.

I suppose it comes down to how you think "divinely inspired" is defined. The modern secular critic has his own impossibly high standard for the meaning of those words, which falls just short of "God has to show me personally that he was the author."

'I suppose it comes down to how you think "divinely inspired" is defined. The modern secular critic has his own impossibly high standard for the meaning of those words, which falls just short of "God has to show me personally that he was the author."'

Lol no.

The modern secular thinker (why call them critic?) doesn't think that God exists. So, how on earth would they entertain "God has to show me personally" as any sort of standard? I'll tell you: they wouldn't. Nor would they define divinely inspired, which they would instead just categorize as nonsense.

Also, to a secular thinker, the Bible being consistent or not is completely irrelevant as consistency does not at all equate to truth. So either way it will not convince them of the existence of God (and thus of divine inspiration).

Anyway, ckrobert lost the debate IMO, even though he could have easily won it. By trying to play down, dodge, dismiss, explain away and deny all those inconsistencies ckroberts let dubmdell put him completely on the defensive. Instead ckroberts should have immediately conceded that the canon is indeed rife with inconsistencies.

He could then have noticed that in order to claim that those inconsistencies are sufficient to undermine a claim to supernatural inspiration, one would first have to accept the premise that supernatural inspiration necessarily leads to consistent texts. And thus he could have demanded that dubmdell provide evidence for this wildly speculative premise. This would have put dubmdell into a position where he must make claims about the supernatural which ckroberts could subsequently easily have attacked since such claims are per definition devoid of convincing evidence.

To expand on that... ckroberts should not have taken the position that the canon is divinely inspired. He should instead have taken the position that although it most likely isn't divinely inspired, the inconsistencies by themselves are not at all sufficient (or even relevant) to make that claim.

No it isn't

That is my point, oscar. The secular non-thinker has already ruled out the possibility of divine inspiration, and so demands extraordinary proof and an impossibly high standard. So trying to meet their standards is impossible snd an apologist for faith should not play that sucker's game.

Although the secular genius does indeed demand extraordinary evidence (not at all necessarily the same as proof) for extraordinary claims, before he even comes to address the issue of evidence he demands that the hypothesis is falsifiable, which is the real problem he has with divine inspiration. It's not a falsifiable hypothesis so demanding evidence for it is a futile exercise.

@dipplayer, you seem to be taking the position, however, that there is a lot of fluidity in how inspired the text is. Which does perhaps is fair, if also including the secular position of no divine inspiration, but is there not some idea in among numerous protestants that their particular translation of the bible is The God Book? And was not the mention of protestantism in the title of this debate not a reference to that?

Sure. I mentioned above that too many Protestants have made an idol of that collection of writings known as the Bible. They have deified a book--a vitally important and unique book, but nonetheless an imperfect book.

Yes it is

So you would have ckroberts 'win' the debate by admitting that Protestant idolisation is wrong and the position he was asked to defend is undefendable? Is that right?

Not exactly. I would have made some different arguments, and would certainly have refused to accept the impossibly high standard that was the basis for dubmdell's argument. But essentially I think ckroberts acquitted himself well, and his conclusion is not that different from what I would have said.

After a perfunctory reading of the arguments, its hard to really say if ckroberts even attempted to answer the question, instead choosing to focus on the historical context and inconsistencies in worldview between a modern day interpretation and a contemporary account. Not only is dubmdell an excellent writer, but he really won hands down.

I would actually argue that the way the Bible is constructed is an advantage and a blessing. Let's do a little comparative religion:

The Koran is supposed to be straight from God's mouth, through Mohammed. It is generally not subject to interpretation, but instead is to be memorized and obeyed. The major branches of Islam do not differ on doctrine, but instead the difference between Shia and Sunni is a question of who is in charge after the Prophet died. "Islam's" very meaning is "submission." Allah's word in the Koran is to be learned and submitted to. Far too many modern Christians and their secular critics consider this to also be the model for the Bible. It is not.

The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, was troubled by the many competing interpretations of the Bible between different Protestant sects and wanted to have God's meaning nailed down, specified, and made consistent. So he wrote the Book of Mormon, and then added other "revelations" to that end. The end result of his additions and clarifications was that the Mormons, who consider the Bible only correct when viewed through the prism that he provided, feel they have the true interpretation of the Bible and the true version of Christianity. This means that full salvation is only available if you join the mormon church and subscribe to their doctrine. You have to fit the narrow mormon mold. I suspect too many protestants revere the Bible too highly to actually write their own additional clarifying scriptures, but there are certainly many who attempt to do the same thing through their "translations" or commentaries or other means. They want the "book God gave us" to be fixed, to be simple and consistent, and to mean what they want it to mean. To channel obiwan for a moment, they want the authorship question of Shakespeare to be finally settled for all time, and with the author they favor.

The Bible, with its beautiful ambiguities, and diverse styles and sources, is not so easily nailed down. It is a living document. It can be interpreted and drawn upon in different eras, by different cultures, and by different individuals. God's message can get to people wherever they are. There can be multiple christian traditions, diverse and wonderful, but still agreeing on the vital things. Nobody has to submit to one interpretation, and nobody has to fit themselves into one narrow mold of Christian.

And what's more, we have to use our brains. We don't just submit to the "one true interpretation". We have to reason out those apparent contradictions. We have to wrestle with the text, and put some effort into understanding it. We draw near to God as we do so.

I saw the LEGO movie with my kids yesterday, and I found it to be quite profound. The main theme was that sometimes it is good to "follow the instructions", but it is also good to let one's creativity loose--to explore what the blocks can do. There was a conflict between locking in the LEGOs into their "right" shape, and keeping them flexible and alive and open to new possibilities. I think too many people want the Bible to be like a book of LEGO instructions--a clear, step by step guide. That's fine, sometimes we need that. But the end result is uniformity, stasis, and death. God's message is alive, it is vibrant, the text is set but the meanings are constantly new.

Legos are the answer to so many of life's problems.

Them and dogs... Dogs teach us all about unconditional love.

@dipplayer

I can respect your view of the role that the Bible has/should have in Christianity. You seem to be rather ignorant about Islam and the Quran though. At best your knowledge about it is very very superficial. Your view of Islam as basically a monolithic religion where everyone thinks alike about (the interpretation of) the Quran or what it means to be a Muslim is so far besides the truth that it hurts my eyes reading it.

So enlighten me. Show me otherwise.

Well, I don't claim to be an expert on Islam, so to be honest most my knowledge come from Wikipedia, where you could by the way easily have looked yourself to counter some of your preconceived notions before making such bold statements about Islam.

But, anyway, for one thing there is Tafsir (exegesis) of the Quran, which concerns itself with interpretation of the Quran via a variety of methods. So right there, that seems to pretty much entirely contradict your notion that the Quran can just be memorized and obeyed. It needs interpretation just as much as the Bible.

Secondly, there are a variety of denominations within Islam, again just as in Christianity. There's Sunni Islam and Shia Islam, which at least you had heard about, since you mentioned them, but there's also Sufism, Ahmadiyya, Ibadi, Mahdavia, Quranists, Yazdânism, several black Muslim movements (such as Nation of Islam) and then there are Muslims that do not limit themsleves to any particular denomination at all.

Now, granted by far most Muslims are Sunni, but within Sunni Islam there are again a couple of different theological schools (Maturidi, Ash'ari, Athari). And similarly the second greatest denomination (Shia) has at least a dozen different branches.

I don't want to go into details about the differences between all these denominations but just from the sheer number of them it is pretty much obvious that those differences are certainly not limited to "a question of who is in charge after the Prophet died" as you claimed.

Finally, Islam does not have a hierarchy or clergy, such as the Catholic Church. It is much like protestantism in that respect. Religious affairs are dealt with in local communities. Obviously, given the huge amount of Muslims spread pretty much over the entire world, such an organization (or lack thereof really) is going to lead to all kinds of differences between the customs/rituals, interpretations of text, and generally just the concept of what it means to be a Muslim between each of these communities.

None of the above seems to match up much with your description of Islam, which was frankly more than anything else just an illustration of your Christian/Western prejudices about Islam.

"It is generally not subject to interpretation, but instead is to be memorized and obeyed."

Interpretation of the Qur'an and Sunnah is the whole purpose of the Ulema (religious scholars). Interpretation (or "reasoning") is one of the four main sources of fiqh (jurisprudence) in shariah. The Qur'an and Sunnah were completely silent on the permissibility of radios, for instance. Or cars, or whether driving in a car is the same as riding on a horse for purposes of mitigating prayer obligations during long journeys (scholarly opinions differ). It takes interpretation/reasoning to determine what the correct position is on every issue that isn't specifically addressed (and there were many in the early days, let alone today) by the primary sources (Qur'an and Sunnah).

"The major branches of Islam do not differ on doctrine, but instead the difference between Shia and Sunni is a question of who is in charge after the Prophet died."

The issue of succession *is* (or was) a matter of doctrine in itself. Beyond that, Sunni and Shia Islam have completely different traditions of religious law (the fact that Shi'ites refuse to recognize many of Muhammed's companions as legitimate sources or narrators of hadith and consider the 5/7/12 Imams infallible is the main fork for all the differences). Two of the favorite bugaboos of Islamophobes (taqiya and temporary marriages) are products of Shi'a jurisprudence and are not permissible under Sunni interpretations, for instance (generally). They also differ somewhat on religious practices as well (one of the more mundane examples is the correct order of washing one's body parts to attain sufficient ritual purity for prayers) and religious organization (clerical hierarchies and their authority are much more pronounced in Shi'a tradition than Sunni, for instance).

"So he wrote the Book of Mormon, and then added other "revelations" to that end."

Also, I do believe Mormons believe the Book of Mormon was revealed to Joseph Smith by an angel in a way similar to the way Muslims believe the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammed.

Yeah, well as an ex-mormon, I have studied that nonsense.

Then you ought to know better than to say that Mormons believe Joseph Smith made it all up. It makes the reader wonder what else you're not being honest about.

"Some of dubmdell's examples are outright fabrications, and others show a distinct lack of the ability to read."

As dubmdell is not here to defend himself, it'd be nice if you could elaborate rather than just complain.

I have to agree with dipplayer that Joseph Smith made it all up. Mormons *believe differently* obviously but that doesn't *make it differently.*

Ah, but dipplayer was claiming *Mormons believe* Joseph Smith made it all up, which is quite a different statement than simply "Joseph Smith made it all up".

There is an old saying that a fool can ask more questions in a day than a wise man can answer in a month, and it came forcefully to mind during this debate.

Nevertheless, CKR addressed more of dub's wildly flung attacks than I would have imagined possible. I did not agree with everything he said or, fully, with his position; but he did a very fine job, and his conclusion was simply a tour de force.

It's interesting that atheists also view this as a more than usually lopsided debate, but in the other direction. I suppose it may have much to do with which bodies of knowledge one is more familiar with.

" I suppose it may have much to do with which bodies of knowledge one is more familiar with."

Or the complete inability of theists to be remotely unbiased in their analysis. We've been provided no reasons whatsoever for why dubmdell was supposedly so terrible, yet now we have two atheists making these claims. Typical.

*two theists

We've had four debates and in all 4 the theists have not found a single thing to critique of their own side. They think they won them all. I hate to say I anticipated this but it wasn't expected that the theists would actually demonstrate anything but high partisanship.

I never said Mormons believe he made it up.

To return to my Islam comments, which drew some challenges: I have been trying to educate myself. From what I can find, it still appears to me that the major differences between the sundry branches and sects of Islam are mostly about defining who is included in the faithful, which Caliphs were the right ones, etc. There is no ecumenicalism in Islam--the various branches view each other as illegitimate, so the issue of who is interpreting the Koran correctly is of vital importance, and the attitude is exactly what I said it is: You must follow the Koran, meaning the version our sect believes in. The muslim world is close to united--the vast majority of Muslims are Sunni, perhaps as many as 90%. The Catholic Church can only claim 50% of the world's Christians. Sufism isn't a sect at all--it's more a movement, sort of like Pietism was in Christianity.

So I stand by the gist of my short comment.

In regard to the atheist premise that inconsistency disproves divine inspiration, I'm not so sure that holds.

You could be dealing with an inconsistent or even insane deity. Take for instance a certain purported Gnostic demiurge. You could also have multiple divine beings who have inspired or implanted or possessed the writers of different portions of the bible.

@dipplayer, on Islam, ignoring the different sects for a moment. My understanding is that each school in the Islamic world teaches the Quoran and because there is no hierarchy the local scholars publish their thoughts. Like one saying Salman Rushdie should be executed (under whatever interpretation of Islamic law, for his crime of insulting the prophet) The next scholar might disagree with this interpretation.

They can write opinions on the US and how to best stifle the cultural influence on the Islamic world, and some of them may call for war, while others interpret Islam as a religion of peace so call for boycotts of something similar... i don't know i'm not reading these proclamations.

And each is reading the same book and interpreting. Now perhaps the bible is more open due to repeated translation, version of various books being added or removed, a lack of written accounts of what Jesus said from anywhere up to 40 years after he spoke the words... Sure there is bound to be a less consistent record.