[Dynamic]

Here's a justification as to why I believe the Bible is true.

First, you have to establish what truth is. How do you know anything is true? Truth must have a point of being tested, and anyone who says there's no such thing as truth is only engauging in a self-defeting statement. Because to say that there's no such thing as truth, he's saying that his statement is true, thus saying that some things are true, which turns around and nullifies his statement in the first place. YOu defeat yourself by deying absolutes because you cannot deny an absolute without making one.

Philosophers have given many ways of testing the truth, but two theories stand supreme. One is called the correspondence theory, and the other, the coherent theory.

Correspondence deals with specific assertions. For instance, if one were to say there's a red car parked in the drive way, one make a specifi assertion. You can go out and check it against reality, and whether it corresponds to reality. If there's an agreeance as to what the car is, what read is, and what a driveway is, Then you can say, "yes, there is a red car in the driveway."

Now- if someone says to you, "There was a bank that was broken into at 5pm, and someone in a red car was in that bank breaking in and taking the money out of it and then headed in the direction of a particular church," you don't only make one assertion, but instead have to find various points of testing. You'll find yourself asking, "Was this the particular car that was red? Is this the only red car in the city? was this the only red car that was here around 5pm?" With this, you are now looking at the coherence of several facts. SO when you are checking against truth, first you check correspondence, then you check coherence.

"Did Jesus rise again from the dead?" This is a correspondence statement. You can go back accross history and check certain points for verification in the story of the desciples. One way to have proven the quesiton false would have been for the Roman authorities to have simply presented the body of Christ as evidence and say here "Here it is! How could He have risen again from the dead?" (They didn't, or no record exists that suggests so.) So there are possibilities of challenging that assertion.

So now take 1500 years of prepositional statements in the Bible that are made about history, and other pophetic material. For instance, consider this particular prophesy in the book of Daniel, he talks about the he-goat from the West who would come and dominate many empires in his time. That he goat would be suddenly cut off, and his empiror divided into 4. Those four would blend into two empires, and these two would later emerge into one. Considering that the book of Daniel was written five hundred years beore Christ, further analysis of this prophecy points to Alexander the Great (the he-goat). He was suddenly cut off after dominating so much of the world. His empiror was divided to the four generals after his death. These four blended into two (the Ptolomaic and the zelucad empirors), and these became one, the Roman empiror. 200 years before that happened, it was already in the scriptures. This fact demands consideration. Also to consider is the Biblical prophecy about the existence of an Israeli state, among other prophecies.

So when you take prepositional truth, you check it for correspondance and check it for coherrence, spread over 1500 years. Those 66 books (in the bible) show us that the bible is a book on geography, history, imperical statements unlike some religious books, by the way. For example, if you were to ask a Muslim, "How do you know the Koran is the word of God?" The muslim would answer from within the Koran and say things like, "Because of it's beauty, it's magnificent poeitic nature.... So marvelously done that no other miracle was necessary other than the Koran itself." There is a circularity to this response. "How do you know the Koran is the scripture," you ask them. Some will say "Because Mohammed the prophet said it was so." Ask "How do you know Mohammed is a prophet?" The likely response will be, "Because the Koran say he is so." It is circular. But not so with the scriptures. Other religions have find their meaning or justify themselves from within themselves as is the case with Islam and the Koran. Also, the Koran does admit to Christ being virgin born, and his existence.

But the Bible has points of reference outside itself to justify it's truth, all of which can be verified historically, geographically, and experientially. The scriputres have points of references outside of itself that can be verified. It makes statements that put it in a position where theoretically you should be able to falsify it if the statements that were made are indeed false. Example, for years scholars have said there never has been such a person as Pontious Pilate in any extra-biblical mention. You can go to Israel and see the markers and the stone inscriptions of Pilate. Time and time again, archeologicaly, philosophically, experientially, and historically, the bible has proven itself to be what it claims to be.

If you'd like to discuss this deeper or have questions/comments, drop them off here. I'm sure I'll have a response.

[safina]

I did not read your long post,but you reminded me of this phrase that goes "House niggaz will defend their master's house more than the master himself".

Remember good robots never question their programmer.

[Dynamic]

Originally Posted by safina

I did not read your long post,but you reminded me of this phrase that goes "House niggaz will defend their master's house more than the master himself".

Remember good robots never question their programmer.

Maybe you aught to read it in it's enterity before making resolutions. Remember, "Don't judge a book by it's cover." The point I was driving at is worth the 3 or so minutes it'll take you to read it. If you think deeply enough, you'll have something more fluid to say about it.