In popular discussions regarding the Bible, it will often be rhetorically said that it’s a fairy tale. Such baseless assertions are not particularly new but they’re quite popular and have some initial appeal as far as the rhetoric goes. However, anyone who applies logic to such a statement will notice that it immediately crumbles. The only appeal this ultimately has are on those who already accept the Bible to be false. We need not be challenged by such nonsense because all it does is beg the question.
Why should I accept the Bible to be false? The atheist will likely complain that this is an attempt to shift the burden of proof. We’re the ones who believe the Bible is true, so we should show how it is not a fairy tale. The problem with this argument is that it assumes that the absence of evidence justifies the notion that the Bible is false. It’s one thing to say that the statement “X is true” is unjustified and therefore false until further notice. On the other hand, you’re not warranted in leaping from saying that “X is true” is a false statement to “X is therefore false.” This is what you’d call a non sequitur, which is a basic logical fallacy.
If you think something is false, then it should be proven to be the case. Consider the possibility that we’re nothing but a brain in a vat. Every appeal to our physical experience could simply be an illusion or false. But as we all know, there’s no evidence in support of this that trumps our properly basic belief, so why should anyone accept it? Similarly, just because the Bible could be false does not mean that it is the case. This doesn’t mean that we should accept the Bible to be true without justification, but it does imply that the burden of proof is on the atheist who says it is a fairy tale (i.e, it is false).
Furthermore, the primary difference between fiction and non-fiction is a matter of intentionality. The writers of the Bible truly believed in what they had wrote and some even died for it. A fictional story, on the other hand, is an intentionally false writing that does not claim to be true. Sure, perhaps there are some facts in it but the entire story itself is never said to be true like the Bible. Before you pull the trigger, I’m not saying that the intention of the writer makes the story true. All I’m giving is an additional reason why we should not, at prime facie, label the Bible as fictional.
There are several ways to falsify the Bible — from internal or external discrepancies, internal contradictions, to flawed reasoning. However, as simple as it sounds, this is not an easy task. That’s because the Bible has various literary forms and many attempts have been done to construe an overall category for it. Even if you prove Jonah to be fictional, you can’t say it represents the whole because that’s a compositional fallacy. It could also be the case that God intentionally inserted a fictional story in order to prove or clarify a point. What would be wrong with that? Jesus did it before with His parables so this should not really come as any surprise.
I think this simple-minded rhetoric should be rejected by all atheists. It’s perfectly legitimate and reasonable to request evidence for the Bible’s truth but it should not be taken beyond that. If the atheist is prepared to give a comprehensive argument then they’d be perfectly justified in saying that the Bible is a work of fiction. This task is not something I expect atheists to be committed to bringing about because it’s just too much work and they’re probably just too ignorant to even try. But if you’re up to the challenge, then I am open to being proven wrong.
The thing that I’ve always found funny about the bible is that if a story like ‘Jack and the Beanstock’ were in it. Then people all around the world would believe it happened…
Another thing that I would like to know is why does the ‘word of God’ have such atrocious grammar? I would think that a perfect being would have perfect grammar….
To be honest, this whole blog post was kind of pointless. Because it only confirms to me that you are narrow minded on this subject. I would literally have to prove every single story in the bible wrong for you to accept that it’s false. Which I would not be able to do since I haven’t even read the whole thing.
But I have read parts of it. And I must say that it’s ridiculous. Talking snakes, virgin births, ect… It really is an insult to Human intelligence as far as I’m concerned. elgoog
Congratulations, you’re enforcing the same rhetorical bull that I had already refuted in this post. Your statement has no effect on the Bible’s truth, so once again an atheist has failed to even begin to meet my challenge and the content of the article.
LOL, you’ve read the Hebrew and Greek Bible?
Nope, you’d only have to prove that the majority of it is false. A good place to start would be the resurrection of Christ.
Human intelligence or ignorance? The latter option is just as viable as far as rhetoric goes. It’s quite possible that the supernatural world exists but your ignorance and “narrow-mindedness” prevents you from even considering it. Gil S
I’m not going to say that the bible is false. I’m going to say that the burden of proof lies on you to prove that it is true, and that until you do, we might as well consider it to be false for all the epistemological worth it has.
You’re probably tired of hearing about Russel’s Teapot, so I’m not even going to explain it. You make the claim, you back it up. I’m not going to waste time believing in it or considering its consequences until you do. Sine_Nomine
The burden of proof lies on me, but if you’re going to say it “might as well…be false” then you’ll need to prove it. At best we can just ignore it since without evidence, such a view has no epistemological worth. On the other hand, if another view has more evidence that excludes the truth of Christianity, then it will make Christianity more probable of being false than true. That’s an indirect disproof which I forgot to mention but I am not aware of any that actually succeed. Gil S
Sorry, Gil but you attacked so many strawmen I lost count. For example:
‘LOL, you’ve read the Hebrew and Greek Bible?’
I made no such claim. You completely ignored the argument, and end up setting fire to a strawman.
‘Congratulations, you’re enforcing the same rhetorical bull that I had already refuted in this post.’
All you’ve done is say ‘well, you can’t prove me wrong’. Which is kind of pathetic actually. Sorry, but the burden of proof lies on you still. I don’t assume something to be false because it has not been proven. I’m just not going to assume it’s true because it has been brought up as a theory. Evidence, or it didn’t happen.
‘Nope, you’d only have to prove that the majority of it is false. A good place to start would be the resurrection of Christ.’
Well, I guess I’ll make another post in my attempt to refute this. Probably won’t get this up for another 30 minutes or so.
‘Human intelligence or ignorance? The latter option is just as viable as far as rhetoric goes. It’s quite possible that the supernatural world exists but your ignorance and “narrow-mindedness” prevents you from even considering it.’
No, I don’t believe it because of the biases of evidence. I have considered it. I even converted from being a Christian until I realized that it was a false belief. Did I like it? No, of course I didn’t like it. Because I don’t like being wrong, like most people. But I had to accept it, since I was wrong. If the biases of evidence leads you to believe that talking snakes exist then so be it. But please provide some proof for that claim. elgoog
Okay, now to try and refute the existence of Jesus.Since I find the resurrection irrelevant.
All evidence for Christ that exists today is hearsay. Let me give you an example:
Imagine that you have been arrested for murder. You are content you did not do the crime, and content that the prosecution have no evidence for their claims. Now imagine you are in a court of law that allows hearsay evidence. People that you didn’t even know existed enter the court, and provide evidence that they heard someone say they saw you kill that person. Although non of these people are ever named, or found.
Of course this wouldn’t be acceptable in a court of law, so it shouldn’t be acceptable in the existence of Jesus either.
Now, there are some non-christian sources. Like Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Talmud. But they were all born after the alleged birth of Jesus. Putting them far out of range of any eyewitness account. They never name their sources, not once. And many of their works were edited to make Jesus appear in a better light. Therefor, all of their claims are suspect since they can only be accepted as hearsay.
But what about the Gospels?
Paul: Paul’s biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote some of them himself. However, there occurs not a single instance in all of Paul’s writings that he ever meets or sees an earthly Jesus, nor does he give any reference to Jesus’ life on earth. Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay.
James: From what I’ve read, James only mentions Jesus once as an introduction to his belief. Nowhere does the epistle reference a historical Jesus and this alone eliminates it from an historical account.
John: The writing in the which John writes appears in so many different styles that it’s very obvious that his writing was the work of several different authors. Nowhere in the body of the three epistles of “John” does it mention a John. In any case, the epistles of John say nothing about seeing an earthly Jesus. Not only do we not know who wrote these epistles, they can only serve as hearsay accounts.
Of the remaining books and letters in the Bible, there occurs no other stretched claims or eyewitness accounts for a historical Jesus and needs no mention of them here for this deliberation.
We have absolutely no evidence of anything that occurred during Jesus’s lifetime. No artifacts, no letters, no writings, no nothing. All claims of Jesus were made after his death. elgoog
I guess that means you can’t count anymore than 0 (just kidding). You never addressed the subject or content of my post to begin with.
It was a sarcastic question. I’m aware you made no such claim, so on what basis do you argue that it had atrocious grammar? You don’t know anything about Greek and Hebrew, and it can’t be established on the basis of English translations. Even if the English translations had such “atrocious grammar”, I would expect you to point to some errors like a good grammar teacher.
I have considered it too and have come to the opposite conclusion. Why exactly does this suddenly make me the biased one anyway? The snake itself did not speak, it was Satan. Not like there is a talking snake species that one should be able to find. Furthermore, it’s a popular misconception to think that it is a snake. A serpent was merely used as a symbol to represent death and evil, especially in ancient times.
Thanks for putting the time to do so. You raise some points that need to be addressed but I don’t think this is the appropriate area to engage in such a discussion. It’d take away the focus of my topic here. However, I will say that the argument is still based on a lack of evidence. To be sure, we would likely expect some reliable historical documentation so if your criticism is accurate, then it is good enough reason for us to doubt the claim that “Christianity is true”. On the other hand, I need to remind you that this still doesn’t necessarily prove it to be false. That doesn’t mean I should still believe it because I shouldn’t if I have no evidence for it.
I wouldn’t mind dealing with your argument in a future post, however. Gil S
Oh, I suppose that would do. elgoog
Great post!
One problem is that atheists often (wrongly) believe that Christians just blindly accept The Bible without questioning it at all.
But then when they find out that even someone like Mother Teresa, a devoted Catholic nun, had questioned her faith, they accused her of not being a Christian at all.
So if someone has doubt, he/she isn’t a Christian, but if someone does not question then he/she is accepting Christianity blindly.
The fact is that there are many literatures that have been written in the last hundreds of years by Christian thinkers who were questioning and pondering about Christianity. And most Christians would have had doubt about their faith. Anon
The bible is false, because it’s internally contradictory, internally inconsistent, and historically inaccurate.
For example, what’s with Jesus being born during the time of Herod the Great in Matthew, and during the consensus of Quirinius in 6CE which happened 10 years AFTER the death of Herod the Great? Joe