The Bible is the inerrant Word of God

Krazy

Intro

The Bible (God’s Word) is incapable of being wrong. The highest proof that the Bible is true is that if it wasn’t, nobody could prove that anything is true. It alone offers the requirements of intelligibility. The fundamentals of knowledge rests in the Bible. The 3 most essential fundamentals of epistemology are laws of logic, uniformity of nature (science), and absolute morality. Without the Bible, nobody has a reason to believe in these principles.

Logic

Laws of logic are the principles of reasoning that guide thinking. There are 3 laws of logic (note that “A” is a generic term):

1. Law of Identity: A is A.

2. Law of Noncontradiction: A cannot be A and not A at the same time in the same sense.

3. Law of Excluded Middle: A can only be true or false; there is no other alternative.

Now, everybody believes in the laws of logic, but not very many people think about why they believe them. Why are they true? According to the Bible, humans are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Reason and logic are a reflection of how God thinks. Since humans are made in His image, we can think like Him (to a certain extent). God is immaterial (John 4:24), eternal (Psalm 90:2), unchanging and cannot contradict Himself (Hebrews 1:17), and omnipresent (Jeremiah 23:24). Interestingly, these characteristics are the same for the laws of logic. Some raise the objection that they can use the laws of logic, yet they don’t believe in the Bible. This is simply a misunderstanding. The argument is not that people have to believe in the Bible to use the laws of logic; the Bible only has to be true. Just because someone might not believe in the Bible, that doesn’t mean they can’t use logic. The Bible says that all humans were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), so everyone uses logic since it is a reflection of Him. That doesn’t mean people have to profess a belief in the Bible. Another objection made by some people is that the laws of logic are not a reflection of the way God thinks; they are plainly protocols or conventions made by most or all humans, but this is not rational. If the laws of logic were conventions, then they wouldn’t be universal. This means that different societies could adopt different laws of logic. In Russia, for example, it might be perfectly fine to have a contradiction. This objection also commits the logical fallacy of appeal to the majority. Just because the majority adopts a protocol or custom, that doesn’t make it true. Some say that the laws of logic are just electrochemical reactions in the brain; this too is irrational. If they were chemicals, that means that the laws of logic would be made out of matter or energy. This means that if there was no matter (nor universe), then the statement, “There is a universe and there is no universe” would be true, since the laws of logic do not apply if there was no matter. Also, if there wasn’t one brain in the entire universe, then the laws of logic would not apply; therefore, the statement, “There is no logic and there is logic” would be true, since there are no laws of logic because there is no brain to create the laws of logic in the universe. The laws of logic would have to be non-material because of this. Some people have raised the objection that logic could come from the gods of religions other than the One in the Bible. However, only the biblical God can make sense of logic. Take a look at the Mormon gods. The Mormons actually believe in multiple gods, the idea that God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ) are two separate gods. The Bible clearly says that there is one God in three persons—a big difference. If there are multiple gods, then which one will somebody get their laws of logic from? As Jason Lisle said, “There can’t be a single set of laws of logic if there are multiple gods.” There is no reason to believe so. This is why Mormonism is false (or any other polytheistic religion for that matter). Jews only believe in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament; and are thus being inconsistent with the Bible, since it says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16). That only leaves Islam left. According to their holy book, the koran, “Allah is so superior that nothing in human experience is comparable to him” (Sura 42:11). This is part of their doctrine, tanzih. However, logic is part of the human experience. This means that the laws of logic cannot be compared to or relate to the Islamic god. The Islamic god, therefore, doesn’t exist. The Bible can provide an explanation for why we believe in the laws of logic though, because it says that we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and we can thus think like Him (to some extent). The Bible alone provides a reason to believe in the laws of logic.

Uniformity of Nature

The uniformity of nature is the second precondition for intelligibility. It is why we believe the future will reflect the past. Note that the uniformity of nature is not to be confused with uniformitarianism, which states that rates and conditions always stay the same over time. That is not true. The uniformity of nature is simply the idea that the laws of nature will not arbitrarily change. For example, nobody believes that gravity will suddenly disappear in the next five seconds, hurling everyone into outer space. This is because every human being relies on the uniformity of nature. The future will reflect the past. It is essential to the principles of science that make science possible. For example, say that somebody conducts an experiment and gets a result; if he conducts the same experiment on the next day under similar conditions, he expects to get the same result. This is how science works. This predictability is submissive under the uniformity of nature. However, not very many people consider why the future will be like the past at all. Indeed, if nobody has been in the future, how do we know that the laws of nature will be the same in the future as they have in the past? Only the Bible can account for why there is such predictability and uniformity. Since God made everything (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3), we can expect there to be a sense of orderliness to the universe. The Bible says that God upholds everything by the Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3; Genesis 8:22; Jeremiah 33:20). This is why the laws of nature do not arbitrarily change. He is consistent so that uniformity will apply at all or most of the time (1 Samuel 15:29; Numbers 23:19). He is also omnipresent so that uniformity applies everywhere (Psalm 139:7; Jeremiah 23:24). There is no other reason to believe that the future will be like the past. The most common objection people make as to why they believe in the uniformity of nature without the Bible is “There always has been uniformity in the past, so I expect that there always will be uniformity in the future.” However, this is simply a misunderstanding. The thing in question is not the past, but the future. We can’t use the past as a basis for the future, since nobody has been in the future to begin with. To say “there was uniformity in the past, so there will be in the future” is to beg the question, or use circular reasoning. Everyone knows that there was uniformity in the past, but nobody has a good reason to believe in uniformity of the future (without the Bible). When someone says, “I believe in uniformity because there always was in the past”, they are assuming uniformity to prove uniformity (circular reasoning). On another note, we can’t even know that there was uniformity in the past, since our memory relies on the laws of chemistry in the brain; and we trust that the laws of chemistry won’t change (assuming uniformity) so that we can properly remember uniformity in the past. Without the biblical God, reality is reduced to nonsense. Now, He doesn’t need to uphold the laws of nature. He has to be logical, since the laws of logic are a part of His nature, as explained earlier. But the uniformity of nature is a little different because He doesn’t “have” to uphold the universe in a consistent fashion. He just does it for our benefit. He can “break” the laws of nature if He wants to, since He created them. The laws of nature that we know of are just the ones that He upholds consistently or most of the time. He can sometimes break them and perform miracles. God said in His Word that He did this on multiple occasions over the Earth’s 6,000 year long history (including creating the Earth itself). He can certainly break the laws of nature, but He doesn’t do it all the time since He said He wouldn’t for the sake of our benefit (Genesis 8:22; Hebrews 1:3; Jeremiah 33:20). So miracles are, by definition, rare.

Absolute Morality

Everyone has a sense of right and wrong (morality). However, not everyone knows why every single human being has an innate concept of right and wrong, regardless of culture. Absolute morality only makes sense if the Bible is true. Since God is the creator (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3), everything belongs to Him. He has the right to establish the rules. He wrote His moral law on everybody’s hearts (Romans 2:15), so it only makes sense that everyone innately knows right from wrong. However, if the Bible is not true, than morality can only be relative. Some people believe that we don’t need the Bible (or God) to determine right from wrong; the laws of morality are just conventions adopted for the benefit of society. This is irrational because without God, morality is determined by humans; and that means morality is relative. If morality is nothing but a subjective standard to each person, and that everyone decides right and wrong for themselves, than nobody has the right to tell somebody else that what they’re doing is wrong, whether it be lying, stealing, rape, or murder. On another note, who determines what “benefits society?” Hitler had some ideas about that. Do we go by his standard, or do we go by Osama bin Laden’s standard of what “benefits” society? If morality is relative, that would lead to societal destruction and chaos, since everyone would invent their own moral code. Morality has to be absolute, not relative; and people cannot determine what’s right or wrong for themselves. Another argument that some people make is that right and wrong are determined by what gives the most happiness to the most people. So if everyone enjoys murder, that makes it right, according to this standard. Some people are happy while raping somebody, that doesn’t make it right though. On another note, if God doesn’t determine right from wrong, then humans would have to by default. Humans do not decide right and wrong. If they did, then that would be the logical fallacy of appeal to the majority. Just because the majority of humans think something is right, that doesn’t “make” it right. Many times, the majority has been wrong. In fact, in the whole context of human history, it seems like the majority has almost always got it wrong. It only makes sense if God makes the rules.

Krazy

I thank my opponent for extending the deadline for the debate; agreed, I should have set it longer in the first place. Based on the wideness of the topic at hand, perhaps it will be extended again. This debate IS really fun, after all.

First off, my opponent said that I defended the God of the Bible and not Biblical inerrancy. Thats not true. The Bible clearly says that God is never wrong (1 John 3:20), and that He is the ultimate author of the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16). Noting that I defended the God of the Bible or Biblical inerrancy is meaningless and irrelevant. They basically mean the same thing. The topic IS Biblical inerrancy, but it can only be inerrant if God wrote it. Man is always fallacious; that’s what the Bible states. So it would be necessary if the God of the Bible is part of the topic. And thats the point. To say that we’re not talking about the God of the Bible is to not fully understand what the Bible says. It clearly says that it’s inerrant only because God wrote it. It is a necessary part of the resolution.

Logic

He said “He begins by saying that there are 3 logical laws that are universally accepted. This is problematic, however, as the claim is impossible to prove without using the same laws.” He is basically saying that it’s circular reasoning. But all philosophies and arguments have starting points and assumptions. Not all circular reasoning is fallacious. Consider this argument that logic exists:

1. If logic exists, we can make an argument.

2. We can make an argument.

3. Therefore, logic exists.

This seems like a sound argument for the existence of logic, but it’s circular reasoning. However, it’s not a fallacious use of it; because we know that logic exists. We need an ultimate standard. Say, for example, “A” is a statement. Well how do you know A? You would be forced to say “Because of “B”. How do you know B? Because of C. How do you know C? Because of D. It goes on, but it cannot go on indefinitely or forever—the stairs have to end somewhere. There has to be an ultimate standard. Lets say the ultimate standard is “M”. How do you know M? Then you would have to be forced to use the same statement. “…because of M”. So not all circular reasoning is fallacious. It only becomes fallacious if you don’t have the right to assume what your trying to prove. But we have the right to assume that logic is true, therefore the argument above is not fallacious. Now, is logic the ultimate standard? Not exactly. We have logic because we are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), so logic is a reflection of Him. So the Bible is the ultimate standard.

He said “He argues that God is reasonable and logical, but he doesn’t explain why”. I did explain why, but perhaps he accidentally not noticed it. It says in the Bible that God created us in His image (Genesis 1:27), so we are to follow His example. The laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks, and thus the way He expects us to think. So why is God reasonable? The answer is simple: Because there is no other alternative. The law of non-contradiction is not simply somebody’s opinion, it has to come from an ultimate authority. God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13) and all truth is in God (John 14:6), therefore truth will not contradict itself. God is that ultimate authority.

He said “Further, this entire section makes the assumption that the Bible is speaking the truth about God”. It’s not an assumption. It says in the Bible that God breathed out scripture and that He wrote the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16) and since He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), it would make sense that He would speak the truth about Himself. My opponent also said “That wouldn’t prevent him from being the creator of the laws of logic.” I never said that God created logic. I said that logic is a reflection of His thinking, since we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). A huge difference.

In his rebuttal to my rebuttal of the biocentric view, he says “it cannot actually be disproven”. It can be disproven, we simply don’t live our lives that way. The biocentric view of logic promotes and advocates nihilism, the belief that nothing is “real”. If nothing is real, that means that knowledge isn’t real either. So if somebody believes in the biocentric view—that knowledge doesn’t exist—my question is “How do you know that?” We eat food as if it is real, and if we don’t eat it, we die. That itself discourages anyone from really believing nihilism or the biocentric view.

In his rebuttal to my rebuttal of the naturalist view, he said “pro does not prove they are immaterial…objective or timeless either.” I did prove they are immaterial. They are immaterial because of the impossibility of the contrary. If the laws of logic are chemical reactions, then they are not laws and they cannot be universal; they would not extend beyond my brain. In other words, we couldn’t argue that contradictions cannot occur on Jupiter, since no one’s brain is on Jupiter. Also, if the laws of logic are just biochemical reactions in the brain, they would differ from person to person, because everyone has different reactions in his or her brain. My opponent also said there is a theory that says “our perception of logic might still be different from how logic works in reality”. Again, there is no reason to believe that. It adds unnecessary complexity to something that could be so simple. Besides, we behave as if they are real, not fake.

He said that I argued that the Biblical God is responsible for logic, but “is irrelevant because this debate is not about the existence of the biblical God.” Again, as I have stated before, they are synonymous. The topic is Biblical inerrancy; but the Bible can only be inerrant if the Biblical God authored it. And thats the point.

He said “pro hasn’t addressed every other possibility or specific variant of a possibility that there might conceivably be for why logic exists or does not exist.” I don’t have too. In the first few sentences of my first speech, I said “The highest proof that the Bible is true is that if it wasn’t, nobody could prove that anything is true.” It is true because of the impossibility of the contrary. Theres more detail in my previous speech on why that is.

My opponent took the pragmatic position to the explanation of logic. He said he uses the laws of logic because they work. Unfortunately, that isn’t the question. We all agree that the laws of logic work; they work because they’re true. The question is why do they exist in the first place? I explained that they are a reflection of His thinking (for more detail, look at my previous speech). He did not address this question by saying it “just works”, so therefore my position stands un-refuted.

Uniformity of nature

My opponent said “We have some very good evidence that even though time is lived forwards, it runs backwards”. He doesn’t mention what the evidence is. I would really like to see what the evidence is, because I don’t think it exists. It’s plainly obvious that time moves forward, as experienced by everybody on the planet. But even if scientists say that time moves backwards, then they would be wrong; because the Bible seems to indicate that time moves forward in the human perspective (it says that God isn’t limited by time). The truth of the Bible is the only reason why science is possible.

My opponent said “It might have been that God created the whole universe three seconds ago”. We know that didn’t happen because the Bible says that the universe was created 6,000 years ago. There are genealogies in the Bible (book of Genesis) from Adam and Eve, the first humans, to the Israelites. Adding up the dates gives about 6,000 years ago. Admitted, this flies in the face in the theory of evolution. I do not believe the theory of evolution happened and I would love to get into a detailed debate of how the global flood of Noah from the Bible is a perfect explanation of the world we see today. But the creation vs evolution debate is for another day, since it is not the topic.

My opponent said “…this sounds much more plausible than a universe where ‘God did it’”. Actually, much of the founders of modern science where bible-believing creationists. He didn’t use this argument, but it needs to be addressed. Many people say that if somebody holds the Bible as without error and accurate, they cannot be a good scientist. According to that standard, I guess Isaac Newton was not a scientist. Many branches of science were started out by young-earth creationists who believed in the Bible, such as Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, Blaise Pascal, Lord Kelvin, Isaac Newton, and Louis Pasteur. There are more, but this should suffice. They believed “God did it”, but that inspired them to see how He did it.

He said “He then notes, accurately, that we don’t know if there was uniformity in the past.” My opponent took what I said out of context. I said that we don’t know if there was uniformity in the past—without the Bible. But the Bible has the explanation for why we can believe uniformity in the past. And thats the point.

Absolute morality

He said “There are mental and intellectual handicaps for example that make it impossible for a person to distinguish right and wrong.” It says in the Bible that God wrote His law on every person’s heart (Romans 2:15). So everyone knows right and wrong. Plus, my opponent cannot speak for those who are mentally retarded and say that they don’t know right and wrong; but the Bible can, because God wrote it.

He said “Do our brains have a magical connection to God that activates a certain region when God thinks something is a bad idea?” Again, the Bible says that God wrote His law on every person’s heart (Romans 2:15). For example, somebody may “think” that homosexuality is okay, but deep down, they ultimately know that it is wrong. They’re just self-deceiving themselves, the Bible says. My opponent goes on to say “If so, why do people—even Christians—make such dumb decisions?” The Bible never says that Christians don’t sin; however, there is a new attitude towards sin once somebody is saved. They then lead a changed life only possible by the work of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

He said “It’s not hard to use the Bible to justify the stoning of gay people, burning of witches…” Homosexuality and sorcery are definitely morally wrong, and the Bible does say that people such as this should be put to death, but the death penalty for these people and the like was part of the Old Testament. The Bible clearly says that we are not part of the Old Mosaic law anymore. Now, we live in the New Covenant since Jesus Christ. Even though homosexuality is wrong, the Bible does not say to stone them in the New Covenant.

He said “…much of God’s sense of morality for mankind seems repulsive.” The word “repulsive” assumes an absolute morality. He says that there are no moral absolutes, but he used the word “repulsive”, which implies an unchanging morality. If morality is relative, then morality is reduced to a matter of opinion, such as your favorite color. If somebody said that raping, torturing, and murdering children is fun, and somebody else said that is wrong, it would be unacceptable for the murderer to say “Well that’s your opinion”. People seek justice, which they wouldn’t do if they thought that it was just a matter of opinion—no “right or wrong” answer.

He said “There are certainly some moral rules that are just cultural conventions.” That doesn’t prove moral relativism. There is a difference between a moral and a cultural norm. Take a handshake for example. If my opponent walked up to me and put out his hand for a handshake, and I just stood there and stared at him, that would be considered rude. Not shaking his hand is not wrong in and of itself, but disrespect is. It’s the disrespectful aspect that makes it wrong. And disrespect is universally wrong everywhere. See, not shaking a hand is not wrong, but disrespect is always wrong.

He said “…and any idea that pro might have that he’s better morally is frankly conceited unless he can prove it.” He went into the ad homonym attack and said that I claimed to be better morally. I never set myself in a higher moral position than anybody. I just said that somebody without a biblical worldview has no reason to be moral. Certainly, a non-christian can be moral, but there’s no reason for him to be, since all morals come from the biblical God.

My opponent didn’t use this argument explicitly, but it needs to be addressed. The most common argument for moral relativism is an appeal to tolerance—that we should tolerate all views. I highly disagree with this. First of all, evil should never be tolerated, in any circumstances. Second of all, it’s a hypocritical argument because moral relativists do not tolerate moral absolutism. Moral absolutism makes sense because it’s against evil and it’s not hypocritical or self-defeating.

Additional rebuttals

He said that the Bible changed. It took thousands of years to write the Bible, but it hasn’t changed. He said that there were many contradictions in the Bible. He mentioned one, which was between 1 Corinthians 2:15 and 1 Corinthians 4:5. It isn’t a contradiction when you put it in context of the surrounding passage. 1 Corinthians 2:15 is talking about spiritual judging—judging between right and wrong, while 1 Corinthians 4:5 is referring to judging as in the court definition. All contradictions go away once you read it in it’s own context.

My opponent claimed that there is inconsistency in the Bible and referencing to the “lolcats” version. Needless to say, that is not a real Bible translation. The locates version was made up by people who wanted to mock the Bible and had no interest in what the Bible actually had to say; and the “version” is made so that it looks erroneous inconsistent, of course. So my opponent thinks that there are many literary, contradictory, and internal inconsistencies probably because he isn’t even using a real Bible translation. So unless he is willing to use a true version, his claims against it’s authenticity are invalid.

Now since the rebuttal is complete, I will now put forth new arguments.

An interesting thing about the Bible is its unique message. It is entirely different from all other religious texts. It is the only book that stresses that mankind is inherently evil, are deserving of eternal death, and there is nothing we can do to gain back our natural state. This is thought-provoking because humans tend to think good of ourselves. If humans were responsible for the content of the Bible, its concept of human nature would be a lot more good looking. While this isn’t a “proof” in and of itself, it is interesting because people wouldn’t write a book that kills human pride, unless if it was written by divine intervention (God).

A great internal proof of the Bible is the overall unity of it. The entire book was written over a 1,500 year time span, written by over 40 authors (most of them didn’t know each other), over 3 continents in 3 different languages, and consists of 66 books. The Bible was written by kings, scholars, prophets, shepherds, fishermen, a military leader, a cupbearer, a tax collector, and a priest. It was written in prisons, palaces, the wilderness (such as the dessert), places of exile, and a royal court. The writers held numerous purposes for writing in their times and wrote over controversial subjects throughout the Bible and over many different topics such as history, moral instruction, judgement, law, poetry, prophecy, and proverbs with many emotions like anger, joy, and love. All of this variety would seem to indicate its fallibility; yet, the Bible contains one message, no contradictions, and no deviation from the common theme—Jesus Christ.

The Bible’s scientific accuracy is astonishing. The Bible is not a scientific textbook, which is good because science textbooks get revised and rewritten every year; however, when it does speak something in a scientific way, it does so with blunt accuracy. The following is a list of some of the scientific facts found in the Bible:

The Earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22).

The Earth is supported by nothing (Job 26:7).

The stars cannot be counted (Genesis 15:5).

The universe is expanding (Isaiah 40:22).

There are valleys in the oceans (2 Samuel 22:16).

There are mountains in the oceans (Jonah 2:6).

There are springs and fountains in the oceans (Genesis 7:11; Genesis 8:2; Proverbs 8:28; Job 38:16).

There are ocean currents (Psalm 8:8).

The water cycle exists (Job 26:8; Job 36:27-28; Ecclesiastes 1:6-7).

Air has weight (Job 28:25).

Each snowflake has a different yet beautifully symmetrical pattern (Job 38:22).

There are air currents and streams (Ecclesiastes 1:6).

There is one human race (Genesis 3:20; Corinthians 15:45; Acts 17:26).

The life of the creature is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11).

There are principles of health and sanitation (Leviticus 12-14).

There are possibly many more, but this amount should suffice in getting the point across. For thousands of years, people believed that the Earth was flat; however, people who believed the Bible already knew that the Earth was round in the first place. Of course, society probably mocked them for believing such a ludicrous idea at the time. In the nineteenth century, many biologists believed that each race was descended from a certain kind of animal. They thought that caucasians were the highest race and blacks were the lowest race. This was actually taught in science textbooks throughout the public schools in the early nineteen hundreds. Now, genetics have confirmed that there is one blood—one human race, confirming the Bible. For thousands of years, people used bloodletting to supposedly cure illnesses. This was the practice of the doctor intentionally bleeding the patient/victim to get the infection out of the blood. This led to the death of George Washington. Scientists later realized that doing so was counterproductive, confirming that the life of the creature is in the blood, just like the Bible says. Now, does science prove the Bible to be true? No, that is a misunderstanding. The Bible proves science to be true. That’s really how it works, because again, only the truth of the Bible makes knowledge possible according to the 3 conditions of intelligibility--logic, uniformity of nature, absolute morality.

Prophecy is an amazing aspect of the Bible that silences many critics. Unlike famous false prophets in the modern world like Nostradamus, the prophecies in the Bible are extremely detailed and many were prophesied over hundreds of years before the events had occurred. For example, consider Daniel, a jewish prophet in Babylon in the 6th century B.C. He interpreted two sets of dreams. He prophesied the whole Middle Eastern history over the next half-century. He described four powerful empires that would come to rise and then fall. They were in order: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. He also saw the conquest of Alexander the Great. He saw the division of the Greek empire by four of Alexander’s four surviving generals. Many critics accuse Daniel of saying the prophecies after they had taken place, but modern textual scholars validate the early origin of the prophecies and confirm Daniel to be the original author. The prophet Ezekiel predicted the destruction of a phoenician city named Tyre. Isaiah prophesied the coming reign of a Persian king named Cyrus 200 years before his birth. Another prophecy came from Micah, who was in 7th century era B.C. He foretold Jesus Christ to be born in Bethlehem. Christ’s early parents didn’t live even close to Bethlehem and lived in a small village called Nazareth. God used Roman census for taxation to send His parents south on an arduous journey to Bethlehem. This was predicted over 600 years before this occurred. Not Jesus nor Luke (the person who recorded this) could have manipulated these events. There are about 300 prophecies that are fulfilled in the Bible, some of them are yet to come, such as the ones in the Book of Revelation. The following are a list of some other prophecies in the Bible: Jesus was born of a virgin, born in Bethlehem, known for His wisdom, lived without sin, healed the sick, preached good news, entered Jerusalem in victory, was betrayed by a close friend, sold for thirty pieces of silver, didn’t speak when accused, beaten and spat upon, crucified with sinners, He was pierced through his side, buried with the rich, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and exalted at the right hand of God.

In addition to prophecy, archeology is another proof of that confirms the Bible. One archeological finding was the Tel Dan stele. Many nations in the Middle East at the time used steles to record great events and accomplishments of rulers. The Tel Dan stele says, “House of David.” This confirms that the United Monarchy under King David existed in history silences skeptics who denied that David ever existed. Another finding was the Meesba stele. The Meesba stele or Moabite stone mentions Meesha’s revolt against Israel. Meesha was the King of Moab. The stele also mentions Omri, the King of Israel, and David of the United Monarchy. It also refers to Yahweh, which is the Hebrew term for Jesus Christ. Another archeological finding was the Nabonidus cylinder. The Nabonidus cylinder was made by King Nabonidus of Babylonia. It mentioned his son, Belshazzar. Skeptics of the Bible denied the account of the book of Daniel. Daniel 5:16 says, “But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” This text now makes perfect sense because Nabonidus was in a cogency with his son Belshazzar, who was the crown prince of Babylon. So that would make Daniel the “third ruler in the kingdom.” Another finding was the Caiaphas ossuary. In 1990, the Caiaphas ossuary was discovered in a burial cave located in the Peace Forest section of Jerusalem. The cave had numerous ossuaries, one of them was for Caiaphas. He was a Jewish high priest who was an authority at Jesus’ trial. This proves that Caiaphas existed and that the Gospels are history, not mythology. Another finding was a Pilate dedication stone. In the 1960s, a Pilate dedication stone was found in a Roman amphitheater in Caesarea Maritima. It was a block made out of limestone and had an inscription on it. The stone says, “Tiberieum, (Pon)tius Pilatus, (Praef)ectus Iuda(eae).” This proves Pilatus’ existence, which many people questioned (just because he was in the Bible). Many people denied the Bible’s truth claims before the late 1800s because it mentioned the Hittites (2 Kings 7:6). They mocked the Bible since there was no evidence of the Hittites at the time. However, archeologists found evidence in 1876 concerning the culture of the Hittites. By the early 20th century, their existence was common knowledge. The Bible has proved itself repeatedly. Many more examples could be given, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but this amount should suffice in getting the point across.

Another proof of the Bible is its indestructibility. In all of known human history, the Bible is the most attacked book in the world. People have tried viciously to destroy it more than any other text (religious or not) from the Roman empire to the communist governments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries such as the former Soviet Union, North Korea, and China. Today, it is the most popular and widely published book in the world.

The last proof of the Bible is it’s unique power to transform so many lives. The Bible has a unique authority that is powerful enough to change people’s lifestyles more so than any other book. Hard-core criminals have been rehabilitated by it’s influence, homosexuals set free by it’s power, drug addicts cured by it’s energy, porn stars turned around by it’s might, porn addicts healed by it’s life, and sinners rebuked by it’s truth. No other book has came even close in comparison. This book is alive! This makes sense because the Bible says “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12).

I now wait for ADMIN’s arguments and counters.

Krazy

Logic

This is the ultimate proof that the Bible is true in all things: The Bible alone can make sense of the standards by which we evaluate whether or not something is true. In other words, if the Bible were not true, than we couldn’t prove anything to be true. The laws of logic represent a standard by which we judge truth claims. Everybody knows these laws internally. The law of non-contradiction is one example. The statements “The car is in the garage” and “The car is not in the garage” cannot be both true at the same time and in the same sense. Everybody assumes that these laws are the same everywhere and apply at all times—no exceptions. But why does everybody or anybody know these things?

If people consider the Bible to be true, people find that we can make sense of the laws of logic. The Bible says that God’s mind is the standard for all knowledge (Colossians 2:3). Since God is beyond time and upholds the universe, we should expect the laws of logic to apply everywhere at all times in the universe. There cannot be an exception to a law of logic because God’s mind is sovereign over all truth. We know logic because we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) so we are able to think in a way that is consistent with His nature. So when we take the Bible as true, we find that the laws of logic make sense.

If people consider the Bible as not true, then people find that we are left without a foundation for laws of logic. How could we know, apart from God, that laws of logic work everywhere? After all, none of us have universal knowledge. We have not experienced the future nor have we travelled to distant regions of the universe. Yet we assume that laws of logic will work in the future as they have in the past and that they work in the distant cosmos as they work here. But how could we possibly know that apart form revelation from God?

My opponent said in a previous round that we can believe in logic because it works in the past, but that’s pointless because that isn’t the question. This is the question: How do we know that the laws of logic will work in the future or in regions of space that we have never visited? Only the Biblical worldview can make sense of the universal, exception-less, unchanging nature of laws of logic. Apart from the Bible’s truth, we have no reason to assume that the laws of logic apply everywhere at all times, yet we all do assume this. Only the Christian has a good reason to presume the continued reliability of logic. The non-Christian doesn’t have a reason in his own professed worldview, so he is being irrational—believing something without a good reason. The non-Christian indeed has a blind faith but the Christian faith in the Bible makes knowledge possible.

Another thing concerning logic, my opponent said that he doesn’t believe that logic is true—“A very important difference in our positions is that I do not concede that logic is necessarily true at all”. Then my question is: How do you know that the logic you used to make that claim is true? Or did you not use logic at all, so that it doesn’t apply? Those are the only two options. If you did use logic to make that conclusion that logic is not true, then how do you know that that logic that you just used to make that conclusion is true? If you don’t think t’s true, then you don’t have a reason to believe the claim that logic isn’t true. But if you didn’t use logic, how did you arrive to that conclusion that logic isn’t true?

Uniformity of Nature

Another standard that we use to evaluate truth claims is the foundation of science. Science allows us to describe the predictable and consistent way in which the universe normally behaves. It also makes successful predictions about certain future states. For example, if somebody does an experiment today and does the same experiment tomorrow, they expect to get the same result if the conditions are the same. This happens the same way every time—if the conditions are the same, They will get the same result. Science is based on an underlying uniformity in nature. But why should there be uniformity in nature and how do we know about it?

We all presume that the future will be like the past in terms of the basic operation of nature. This does not mean that Friday will be exactly like Monday—conditions change. But it does mean that things like gravity will work the same on Friday as they have on Monday. With great precision astronomers are able to calculate years in advance the positions of planets, the timing of eclipses, and so on—only because the universe operates in such a consistent way. We all know that (in basic ways) the universe will behave in the future as it has in the past. Science would be impossible without this critical principle. But what is the foundation for this principle?

The Bible provides that foundation. According to the biblical worldview, God has chosen to uphold the universe in a consistent way for our benefit. He has promised us (Genesis 8:22) that the basic cycles of nature will continue to be in the future as they have been in the past. Although specific circumstances change, the basic laws of nature (such as gravity) will continue to work in the future as they have in the past. Interestingly, only God is in a position to tell us on His own authority that this will be true. According to the Bible, God is beyond time, and so only He knows what the future will be. But we are within time and have not experienced the future. The only way we could know the future will be (in certain ways) like the past is because God has told us in His Word that it will be.

Since only the Bible can make sense of the standards of knowledge, it may seem perplexing at first that people who deny the Bible are able to have knowledge. Non-Christians are able to use laws of logic and the methods of science with great success—despite the fact that such procedures only make sense in light of what the Bible teaches. How is this inconstancy explained? How is it that people deny the truth of the Bible and yet simultaneously rely upon the truth of the Bible?

The Bible itself gives us the resolution to this paradox. The Bible says that God has revealed Himself to everyone (Romans 1:18-21). God has hardwired knowledge of Himself into every human being, such that we all have inescapable knowledge of God. However, people have rebelled against God—they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). People go to great lengths to convince themselves and others that they do not know what, in fact, they must know. They are denying the existence of a God who is rightly angry at them for their rebellion against Him.

But, since all men are made in God’s image, we are able to use the knowledge of logic and uniformity that He has placed within us, even if we inconsistently deny the God that makes such knowledge possible. So the fact that even unbelievers are able to use logic and science is a proof that the Bible really is true. When we understand the Bible, we find that what it teaches can make sense of those things necessary for science and reasoning. The truth of the Bible is inescapably certain. For if the Bible were not true, we couldn’t know anything at all. It turns out that the worldview described by the Bible is the only worldview that can make sense of all those things necessary for knowledge.

The truth of the Bible is obvious to anyone willing to fairly investigate it. The Bible is uniquely self-consistent and extraordinarily authentic. It has changed the lives of millions of people who have placed their faith in Christ. It has been confirmed countless times by archaeology and other sciences. It possesses divine insight into the nature of the universe and has made correct predictions about distant future events with perfect accuracy. The Bible claims to be the Word of God, and it demonstrates this claim by making knowledge possible. It is the standard of standards. The proof of the Bible is that unless it’s truth is presupposed, we couldn’t prove anything at all.

That proves that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.

Absolute Morality

Now concerning the fact that morality is absolute. Pretty much everybody believes that raping and murdering children for fun is wrong. Now, a moral relativist already believes that morality is relative, that his moral “opinion” is not any better than the other person’s moral “opinion”. If that is the case, then every moral relativist has no right to tell somebody that murdering and raping children for fun is wrong, since he believes that his moral opinion is no better than the child rapist/murderer. The moral relativist has no right to say that anything is wrong in fact, since he believes that his morality is no better/worse than anybody else. And that’s the whole notion of moral relativism—it’s right/wrong for you but not for me. The problem is that if moral relativism is true, then nothing is fundamentally wrong: not murder, not raping, not stealing, not lying. And yet people cannot live consistently by such an amoral standard. They say that people should not rape and murder. But when they use the words “should not”, then they are enforcing their own personal moral code on other people, which in turn contradicts moral relativism. Moral relativism doesn’t hold up it’s own weight.

Now take this circumstance into consideration. There are two moral relativists in a room. One of them says “I believe that morality is relative, everybody determines their own morality for themselves”. Then, the other takes a gun to the other guy’s head and says “I’m going to shoot and kill you”. The guy says “um what what um what…you can’t do that!”. The other guy says “Why not? According to moral relativism, I make my own morality. And mine says I can kill you”. The guy who has a gun to his head cannot argue with him because he’s right. If moral relativism were true, then you can’t tell somebody that what their doing is wrong, since both moral positions are equally valid.

But how does every single government and criminal justice system work? They impose morality and execute punishment for evildoers. This is because ultimately, everybody believes in absolute morality; some people just may not want to confess it. This is because if morality is absolute, then there must be a law giver (God) who gives the moral code. If that is the case, then we are accountable to Him after we die. A very scary thought. Everybody has done something wrong, so everybody deserves punishment. That punishment is being thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity and forever. A very terrifying thought indeed. But the good news, is that the God who can condemn us to the lake of fire for eternity is also the God who came down to Earth in the flesh, under the name of Jesus Christ, who died for the unlovable—us. He exchanged His righteousness for our sinfulness. He took our sinfulness and died with it to endure our punishment. Then He was resurrected to prove that He can overcome death. All we have to do is believe that He did that, then He saves us on the spot.

I say this because ultimately, this isn’t an intellectual issue; it’s a heart issue. As explained earlier, everybody ultimately believes in the biblical principles necessitated for knowledge and believes in the biblical God.

Rebuttals

Instead of responding to all of my opponent’s arguments and rebuttals and counter-rebuttals, it just goes to say that all of my opponent’s arguments are invalid because he cannot give a foundation for the laws of logic. In fact, the laws of logic are a biblical principle that he is using, in which the Bible is the foundation. So all of his arguments are thereby refuted by default. He’s assuming biblical principles in attempt to disprove the Bible. The fact that he’s using logic disproves his position; because the Bible alone gives the foundation for logic.

He says many times again and again throughout his last post “If the Bible were errant…”. Thats the thing: It’s not, as I have already proven. Take for example, contradictions. Me and my opponent both know that contradictions are always false—no exceptions. The law of non-contradiction states that any contradiction is false; you cannot have A and not-A at the same time and in the same relationship in which the letter A represents any claim. But few people ask “Why is this law true” and “Why should there be a law of non-contradiction, or for that matter, any laws of reasoning?” The Christian can answer these questions For the Christian there is an absolute standard for reasoning; we are to pattern our thoughts after God’s. We know, in a finite and limited way, how God thinks because He has revealed some of His thoughts through His Word. God made us in His image (Genesis 1:27) and therefore we are to follow His example (Ephesians 5:1). The laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks, and thus the way He expects us to think. The law of non-contradiction is not simply one person’s opinion of how we ought to think, rather it stems from God’s self-consistent nature. God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13), and all truth is in God (John 14:6; Colossians 2:3), therefore truth will not contradict itself. Since God is constantly upholding the universe by His power (Hebrews 1:3), the consistent Christian expects that no contradiction will ever occur in the universe. Laws of logic are God’s standard for thinking. Since God is an unchanging, sovereign, immaterial Being, His thoughts would necessarily be abstract, universal, invariant entities. In other words, they are no made of matter, they apply everywhere,and at all times. Laws of logic are contingent upon God’s unchanging nature. And they are a prerequisite for logical reasoning. Thus, rational reasoning would be impossible without the biblical God. Laws of logic make sense in a Christian worldview. But other world views cannot account for them. For example, apart form the Bible, how could we know that contradictions are always false? We could only say that they have been false in our experience. But our experiences are very limited, and no one has experienced the future. So if someone asserted that he or she has finally discovered two contradictory claims that are both true, the non-Christian has no basis for dismissing such an assertion. Only in a biblical worldview can we know that contradictions cannot occur in reality; only the Christian has a basis for the law of non-contradiction, or laws of logic in general.

My opponent keeps saying again and again that I’m presupposing the truth of the Bible, and he is right. My opponent is also presupposing the truth of the Bible. If he didn’t, then he wouldn’t try to use logic, since that’s a biblical principle, as I have already shown. He said “The whole resolution is about proving that the Bible is true, not assuming that the bible is the ultimate standard for all logic…” He misunderstands my argument. I’m saying that we have to assume the truth of the Bible. Because unless it’s truth is presupposed, we couldn’t prove anything at all, as I have already shown.

I would rebut his arguments against the Bible, but he rebutted himself (even without knowing it), because he is assuming biblical principles (laws of logic) in order to argue against the Bible. So I rest my case.

However, for the sake of making it a good debate, I will rebut his arguments; but there really is no point, because he is using biblical principles in order to argue against the Bible—refuting himself.

The Value of Pi—He said that the Bible miscalculates the value of Pi; this is not so.

In 1 Kings 7:23 there is an intriguing statement: ‘And he [Hiram on behalf of King Solomon] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.’ A similar account is given in the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 4:2.

From time to time skeptics have used these verses to ridicule the accuracy of the Bible by claiming that, if one uses the figures stated, the circumference of the vessel divided by its diameter gives 3.0, instead of the value pi, 3.14159…).

Closer examination shows there are at least two possible explanations.

1 The first concerns the meaning of the word cubit, and how it would have been used in measuring the vessel. A cubit was the length of a man’s forearm from the elbow to the extended fingertips. The Hebrew cubit was about 45 centimeters (18 inches). It is obvious that a man's forearm does not readily lend itself to the measurement of fractions of a forearm. In the Bible half a cubit is mentioned several times, but there is no mention of a third part of a cubit or a fourth part of a cubit, even though these fractions of ‘a third part’ and ‘a fourth part’ were used in volume and weight measurements. It therefore seems highly probable that any measurement of more than half a cubit would have been counted as a full cubit, and any measurement of less than half a cubit would have been rounded down to the nearest full cubit.
 From 1 Kings 7:23 (‘a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about’), it appears that the circumference was measured with ‘a line’, i.e. a piece of string or cord on which the distance was marked, and this length would then have been measured off in cubits by the measurer, using his own or someone else’s forearm, or possibly a cubit-long rod. Similarly the diameter would have been marked on a line and ‘cubitized’ in the same way.
 If the actual diameter was 9.65 cubits, for example, this would have been reckoned as 10 cubits. The actual circumference would then have been 30.32 cubits. This would have been reckoned as 30 cubits (9.6 cubits diameter gives 30.14 circumference, and so on). The ratio of true circumference to true diameter would then have been 30.32÷ 9.65 = 3.14, the true value for pi, even though the measured value (i.e. to the nearest cubit) was 30 ÷ 10 = 3.
 While the above seems reasonable, we have no way of knowing for certain whether the measurements were approximated in this way. However, even if it is assumed that the measurements given were precisely 10 and 30 cubits, the following appears to provide a definitive answer.

2 Verse 26 of 1 Kings 7 says that the vessel in question had a brim which ‘was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies’ (KJV), or a rim ‘like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom’ (NIV), i.e. the brim or rim turned outward, suggesting the curvature of a lily.

Let us consider the details given in 1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2. These are:

1 The diameter of 10 cubits was measured ‘from brim to brim’ (v. 23), i.e. from the topmost point of the brim on one side to the topmost point of the brim on the other side.

2 The circumference of 30 cubits was measured with a line, ‘round about’ (v. 23), i.e. the most natural meaning of these words is that they refer to the circumference of the outside of the main body of the tank, measured by a string pulled tightly around the vessel below the brim. It is very obvious that the diameter of the main body of the tank was less than the diameter of the top of the brim. And it is also obvious that the circumference of 30 cubits could have been measured at any point down the vertical sides of the vessel, below the brim. For a measured circumference of 30 cubits, we can calculate what the external diameter of the vessel would have been at that point from the formula:

diameter=circumference ÷ pi=30 cubits ÷ 3.14=9.55 cubits.

Thus the external diameter of the vessel at the point where the circumference was measured must have been 9.55 cubits.

It is thus abundantly clear that the Bible does not defy geometry with regard to the value of pi, and in particular it does not say that pi equals 3.0. Skeptics who allege an inaccuracy are wrong, because they fail to take into account all the data. The Bible is reliable, and seeming discrepancies vanish on closer examination.

Earth as a sphere/supported by nothing—He says that the passage is vague. It is in fact, not vague at all. The Bible indicates that the earth is round. Consider Isaiah 40:22 which mentions the “circle of the earth.” This description is certainly fitting—particularly when the earth is viewed from space; the earth always appears as a circle since it is round. The same is true for Job 26:7 when it says “hangs the earth on nothing”. It’s pretty clear that it gives an image of the earth floating in empty space.

There is one human race—He says that there are more human races, appealing to black winners at the Olympics with their racial differences and characteristics. The truth, though, is that these so-called “racial characteristics” are only minor variations among people groups. If one were to take any two people anywhere in the world, scientists have found that the basic genetic differences between these two people would typically be around 0.2 percent—even if they came from the same people group. But these so-called “racial” characteristics that people think are major differences (skin color, eye shape, etc.) account for only 0.012 percent of human biological variation. Really, there aren’t different “colors”, just different shades of the same color.

Life is in the blood—He says that it is “scientifically nonsense”. Every single cell in the human body needs oxygen to metabolize the nutrients released from food to energy. And the cells cannot get that oxygen except through the blood—the transporter of oxygen. Indeed the life of the flesh is really in the blood.

Principles of health and sanitation—He says that the advice is crazy, but doesn’t explain how it’s “crazy”. It’s just a claim. He also says that there are some Christian scientists who don’t like vaccines. Well first of all, the Bible doesn’t necessarily say anything about vaccines. Second of all, there are also evolutionary scientists who don’t like vaccine usages either.

Unity—He says that other religious text have unity, but there is no such thing in other texts. The Bible was written over a period of roughly 2,000 years by 40 different authors from three continents, who wrote in three different languages. These facts alone make the Bible one of a kind, but there are many other details that make it even more extraordinary that defy natural explanation (as explained in my 2nd post). And there is only one theme—Jesus Christ, from Genesis to Revelation. He asked “I’d like to know how the creation is in any way connected with Jesus?” He created it; that makes it pretty well connected. Not to mention dying for us.

Prophecies—He says that the majority of the prophecies that I’ve mentioned are false, known prior to the time, or lucky guesses. Yet, he doesn’t explain how; he just kinda “says it”. I’ve mentioned some of the prophecies, and they’re accuracy and authenticity are shown to anybody who is willing to fairly investigate them.

Unique message—He said that scientology teaches that mankind is evil. That’s just plain false. Scientology believes in the inherent goodness of man and teaches that it is despicable and utterly beneath contempt to tell a man he must repent or that he is evil. On the other hand, the bible teaches that man is a sinner and the only hope for him is that he receive Christ as his Lord and Savior (Romans 6:23). Everybody who watches/judges this debate do the research for themselves—scientology believes in the goodness of humankind. My opponent also said that Islam believes people deserve eternal death. That’s not exactly true either. Although Muslims do believe that people who don’t do good works deserve eternal death, they also believe that people must do good works to obtain heaven. So it relies on the goodness of man to get into paradise. However, the Bible teaches that nobody can get into heaven on his own because everybody is evil. The Bible teaches that everybody needs Jesus Christ’s righteousness; that they just need to take Him as their Lord and Savior. My opponent also said that all of the abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) believe that mankind can’t do anything to go back to our natural state. Islam believes that man can do good on his own. The all-important difference between Judaism and Christianity is the Person Jesus Christ. Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. Jews either don’t believe that Jesus Christ was the coming messiah, or that such a sacrifice wasn’t necessary—affirming that mankind can be possibly good. Only Christianity states such a unique message that there is not one ounce of goodness in man and that they need a Savior as their only hope—Jesus Christ.

Lolcat—As for the lolcat Bible “translation”, it seems like my opponent is biased in his investigation of the Bible. Obviously, the word “cheeseburger” is not in the Bible. The truth of the Bible is there for anyone who is willing to fairly investigate it.

Contradiction—After addressing his claim to a supposed contradiction in the Bible, he says that court and spiritual judging were the same back then. That simply doesn’t make any sense. The court judging means that you are sentencing somebody to jail; spiritual judging is believing that a certain thing is wrong; they’re obviously different. To say that the definitions were different back then would be like saying that a circle and a square were defined differently; it doesn’t make any sense.

Bible change—When I said that the Bible hasn’t changed, he says that that is just an assertion; and that “As new material is discovered, modern bibles are being constantly revised.” Theres only one Bible. God is the one who made the canon. Here is how the canon was made:

The term “canon” is used to describe the books that are divinely inspired and therefore belong in the Bible. The difficulty in determining the biblical canon is that the Bible does not give us a list of the books that belong in the Bible. Determining the canon was a process conducted first by Jewish rabbis and scholars and later by early Christians. Ultimately, it was God who decided what books belonged in the biblical canon. A book of Scripture belonged in the canon from the moment God inspired its writing. It was simply a matter of God’s convincing His human followers which books should be included in the Bible. Compared to the New Testament, there was much less controversy over the canon of the Old Testament. Hebrew believers recognized God’s messengers and accepted their writings as inspired of God. While there was undeniably some debate in regards to the Old Testament canon, by A.D. 250 there was nearly universal agreement on the canon of Hebrew Scripture. The only issue that remained was the Apocrypha, with some debate and discussion continuing today. The vast majority of Hebrew scholars considered the Apocrypha to be good historical and religious documents, but not on the same level as the Hebrew Scriptures. For the New Testament, the process of the recognition and collection began in the first centuries of the Christian church. Very early on, some of the New Testament books were being recognized. Paul considered Luke’s writings to be as authoritative as the Old Testament (1 Timothy 5:18; Deuteronomy 25:4; Luke 10:7). Peter recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). Some of the books of the New Testament were being circulated among the churches (Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27). Clement of Rome mentioned at least eight New Testament books (A.D. 95). Ignatius of Antioch acknowledged about seven books (A.D. 115). Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle, acknowledged 15 books (A.D. 108). Later, Irenaeus mentioned 21 books (A.D. 185). Hippolytus recognized 22 books (A.D. 170-235). The New Testament books receiving the most controversy were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John. The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative. The councils followed something similar to the following principles to determine whether a New Testament book was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit: 1) Was the author an apostle or have a close connection with an apostle? 2) Is the book being accepted by the body of Christ at large? 3) Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching? 4) Did the book bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values that would reflect a work of the Holy Spirit? Again, it is crucial to remember that the church did not determine the canon. No early church council decided on the canon. It was God, and God alone, who determined which books belonged in the Bible. It was simply a matter of God’s imparting to His followers what He had already decided. The human process of collecting the books of the Bible was flawed, but God, in His sovereignty, and despite our ignorance and stubbornness, brought the early church to the recognition of the books He had inspired. It has not changed since God completed it. The reason there are so many different translations is because it’s difficult to translate the hebrew, aramaic, and greek to english word for word. Some people think, for example, that this one greek word can be best expressed by these 3 english words; some say by just this one english word. That’s where the many translations come from. Needless to say, the original hebrew, aramaic, and greek Bible did not have the word “cheeseburger” in it, which again shows the bias that my opponent has in using the lolcat translation.

He asked “Why isn’t there some more ultimate standard than God?” and “How can it even be proven that there is a very ultimate absolute standard for logic?” These have ultimately been answered by first paragraphs of this post.

He said “Numerous bits of evidence indicate that nothing worthy of mention happened 4,000 years ago.” He says that there is evidence, but then doesn’t say it. He said that it is absurd that a global flood happened; yet there is no evidence of erosion of the pyramids. Thats because the pyramids were built after the flood. In the Bible, it states that as a result of the flood, mountains sank down and valleys rose up. If the global flood had so much power that it tore apart mountains, made new mountains from valleys, broke up the continents, made new continents, made plate tectonics, and tilted the earth’s axis, then it probably had enough power to take down a couple of puny triangles. Yet, the pyramids are still here, which means that they must have been built after the flood happened. My opponent said “How exactly is this the simplest explanation that pro so searches for…” I don’t choose it because it’s simple (and I don’t think it’s simple), I choose it because the Bible says the flood happened. He also asked “Why did God supposedly create so much evidence with appearance of age that he didn’t create the whole universe 6000 or so years ago?” The earth looks young, not old. It looks old to my opponent because of his worldview of evolution (I'm assuming he believes it; if I'm wrong, please say so. I have no intention of misrepresenting his position); if he believes in evolution, then everything he sees is going to fit within that worldview. The universe looks young to me because of my biblical, young-earth creationist worldview. The evolution vs creation and age-of-the-earth debate is for another day. Those topics are too wide to be discussed in this debate. Right now, let’s just focus on Biblical inerrancy; and deal with the age of the earth/evolution vs creation issue later for a different debate.

He said that I used an appeal to authority when I mentioned the scientists. It wasn’t an appeal to authority; I was simply rebutting a potentially future argument because I’ve heard it before. Some people say that if somebody believes the Bible, then they cannot be a scientist; so I was just refuting that argument by saying that there are some scientists who indeed believed the Bible. I assumed my opponent would make it because I’ve heard so many times before by other people. It’s not a straw-man because I never said that my opponent made the argument.

He says that the Bible must be a fallible standard because many people come to the wrong conclusions about it and interpret it differently, such as some Christians believe homosexuality is okay. But this does not follow. First of all, the Bible clearly says that homosexuality is wrong (Genesis 19:1-13; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9). Second of all, there may be many interpretations but only one can be true. Just because fallible man interprets an infallible Word of God in different ways, that doesn’t mean that the Word of God is fallible; it means that man can be fallible.

Concerning absolute morality, he says that if somebody said “killing children is fun”, then my opponent would not think of it as a big deal. (he said "I would say 'well that's your opinion" to them too) Shortly after that sentence though, my opponent said “There might be a problem with them actually acting on that morality.” But why? If a moral relativist believes that his moral view be no better than the next person, why would he have a problem with him acting on that morality, if he believes that his own morality is no more better or reasonable than the other person? It is inconsistent and illogical.

He said “If my opponent says I cannot speak for them, then he needs to provide a counter-narrative that explains to me why such a person almost kill my brother…” It’s because he wants to kill him. I’m not sure why he wants to kill him, but he needs to be sent to jail/put to death; not a mental institution. The “insanity defense” shouldn’t exist. Murderers are murderers; and should be treated as such. It’s my personal conviction that all murderers and rapists should be put to death; that includes mentally insane people who try to kill, and people who have an abortion.

He said “since pro is a biblical literalist—where exactly is it (morality) written on the heart?” He put up a straw man argument and a misrepresentation of my position so that he could take it down easier. I never claimed to be a “literalist”. However, you read the Bible at face-value. Let it speak to you, like any other book. Since Genesis is written in the historical narrative, we should interpret it as history; and history is always literal, not figurative. If you read a portion of the Bible that is poetry (such as Psalms), you interpret it as poetry. As a general rule, you interpret the Bible literally unless it just doesn’t make sense. The word “heart” can also mean “mind”. When the Bible says that God inscribed His morality on every persons’ heart (Hebrews 10:16; Romans 1:19), it would make sense to interpret “heart” as the mind.

All of these counters and rebuttals are not needed though, because ADMIN has already rebutted himself because he is assuming biblical principles (laws of logic) in order to argue against the Bible (as I have explained before at the beginning of this post). So I rest my case.

Now waiting for ADMIN’s arguments and counters.

Krazy

Thank you for continuing the debate; this is really fun.

Logic

First of all, ADMIN said in a previous round “A very important difference in our positions is that I do not concede that logic is necessarily true at all”. He reaffirms it in round 3 “If it stops working in future or somewhere else, so be it. I don’t believe they necessarily will continue to hold” and “I don’t know that it’s true…”. Basically, he is stating that either he doesn’t believe that logic is true, or he doesn’t know if it’s true. Then my question is: How do you know that the logic you used to make that claim is true? Or did you not use logic at all, so that it doesn’t apply? Those are the only two options. If you did use logic to make that conclusion that logic is not true, then how do you know that that logic that you just used to make that conclusion is true? If you don’t think it’s true, then you don’t have a reason to believe the claim that logic isn’t true. But if you didn’t use logic, how did you arrive to that conclusion that logic isn’t true?I’ve asked these same questions in the last round, but he hasn’t answered them. He said “To respond to my opponent’s question, I use logic in making this claim because it works”. He said that “It works”, but again, that isn’t the question. The question is why does it work and why does it exist in the first place. These questions haven’t been answered directly in the last round when I asked them. Every argument relies on logic. And if somebody doesn’t know if logic is true, then he doesn’t know if his arguments are true. If he doesn’t know if his arguments are true, then why should anybody else?

ADMIN said “Even if you believe that God is indeed the ultimate standard for all logic, that cannot logically mean the bible is infallible.” Rational reasoning would be impossible without the biblical God. It proves that the biblical God exists. And since He is always right and without error (1 John 3:20), that means that the Book that He wrote would necessitate to be without error.

As for the proof that rational reasoning would be impossible without the biblical God, here is a restatement of it. The laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks. The law of non-contradiction states that any contradiction is false; you cannot have A and not-A at the same time and in the same relationship in which the letter A represents any claim. But few people ask “Why is this law true” and “Why should there be a law of non-contradiction, or for that matter, any laws of reasoning?” The Christian can answer these questions. For the Christian there is an absolute standard for reasoning; we are to pattern our thoughts after God’s. We know, in a finite and limited way, how God thinks because He has revealed some of His thoughts through His Word. God made us in His image (Genesis 1:27) and therefore we are to follow His example (Ephesians 5:1). The laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks, and thus the way He expects us to think. The law of non-contradiction is not simply one person’s opinion of how we ought to think, rather it stems from God’s self-consistent nature. God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13), and all truth is in God (John 14:6; Colossians 2:3), therefore truth will not contradict itself. Since God is constantly upholding the universe by His power (Hebrews 1:3), the consistent Christian expects that no contradiction will ever occur in the universe. Laws of logic are God’s standard for thinking. Since God is an unchanging, sovereign, immaterial Being, His thoughts would necessarily be abstract, universal, invariant entities. In other words, they are no made of matter, they apply everywhere, and at all times. Laws of logic are contingent upon God’s unchanging nature. And they are a prerequisite for logical reasoning. Thus, rational reasoning would be impossible without the biblical God. Laws of logic make sense in a Christian worldview. But other world views cannot account for them. For example, apart from the Bible, how could we know that contradictions are always false? We could only say that they have been false in our experience. But our experiences are very limited, and no one has experienced the future. So if someone asserted that he or she has finally discovered two contradictory claims that are both true, the non-Christian has no basis for dismissing such an assertion. Only in a biblical worldview can we know that contradictions cannot occur in reality; only the Christian has a basis for the law of non-contradiction, or laws of logic in general. This is why the Bible is infallible.

But since ADMIN said he didn’t know if logic is true, that just refuted his side. Because at the heart of every debate and argument, logic lies there. Logic is a prerequisite for argumentation. But if somebody doesn’t know if logic is true, then they consequently don’t know if their arguments are true—so why should anybody else? But everybody argues a position as if they know for certain that it’s true; otherwise they wouldn’t argue if they weren’t so sure of themselves; aren’t sure if logic was true. To say that somebody doesn’t know if logic is true are contradicting themselves. However, contradictions wouldn’t be a problem to somebody who doesn’t know if logic is true anyway. Here’s why. Let’s say that somebody states that they don’t know if logic is true. Since they don’t know if logic is true, they also don’t know if contradictions are false—a form of anti-logic. Because if you don't’ know if logic is true or false, then you don’t know that anti-logic is true or false as a result. ADMIN said that there were contradictions in the Bible. But why is there a problem with contradictions for somebody who doesn’t know if they are true or false? I’m not saying there are contradictions in the Bible, but I’m just saying. If somebody doesn’t have a foundation for logic and doesn’t know if it’s true, they shouldn’t have a problem with contradictions.

On another note, ADMIN said in the last round “If it [logic] stops working in future or somewhere else, so be it.” He said that logic might stop working in the future. Then my question is: How do you know that logic didn’t stop working right before you finished typing your post? If it stopped working, he wouldn’t know about it since he couldn’t use reason to conclude that it stopped working because it stopped working.

ADMIN also asked in a previous round that I have to prove that the laws of logic don’t change, are immaterial, and universal.

Unchanging: If they could change, how do you know that they didn’t change right before you said that they could change, refuting your statement? As you can see, it’s illogical (no pun intended).

Immaterial: If they really are made of matter, put them in a jar and paint them red, I want to see what it looks like. But anyway, if they were really made of material, what makes one chemical reaction “true” and another chemical reaction “false”? They’re just chemicals, so logic cannot be made of matter or produced by the brain.

Universal: If they weren’t universal, then they wouldn’t extend beyond your skull and be applied to the outside world. But that happens every single day.

The fact is that the laws of logic are contingent unto God’s nature. The laws of logic are universal, unchanging, and immaterial; which are the characteristics of God as stated in the Bible (Jeremiah 23:24; Psalm 139:7-10; 1 Kings 8:27; Psalm 90:2; 1 Timothy 1:17; John 4:23-24). And since He cannot lie (Titus 1:2) and He knows everything (1 John 3:20), what He says in His Bible is true and infallible.

I want to say this again; it’s very crucial. ADMIN said that he doesn’t know if logic is true. Answer these questions please. In extreme detail.

How do you know that the logic you used to make that claim is true? Or did you not use logic at all, so that it doesn’t apply? Those are the only two options. If you did use logic to make that conclusion that logic is not true, then how do you know that that logic that you just used to make that conclusion is true? If you don’t think it’s true, then you don’t have a reason to believe the claim that logic isn’t true. But if you didn’t use logic, how did you arrive to that conclusion that logic isn’t true?

Uniformity of Nature

The same goes true for uniformity of nature, since logic is required to do science.

Absolute Morality

For the viewers who don’t know by now, relative morality is the philosophy that states that all moral positions are equally valid. The problem with moral relativism is that nobody can say that anything is wrong—not murder, not rape, nothing. ADMIN said “So I can say to somebody random who holds a gun to my head ‘Look buddy, this won’t do you any good…’”. But the word “good” assumes an absolute morality. Good for whom? Good for the terrorist? Or for the person who had the gun to his head? Apparently, it was good for the terrorist, because murdering the victim brought him joy. And if moral relativism was true, there wouldn’t be any problem with that; since according to the philosophy, everyone makes their own moral code. To him, murder was right.

ADMIN said “But most people disagree with me on that, so the criminal system reflects their views as opposed to mine.” It may be true that majority opinion affects the laws in some countries, but majority does not determine what’s right. Thats a logical fallacy.

He said “Respecting different opinions does not mean you are not entitled to your own.” So morality is nothing more than opinion and personal preference, such as somebody’s favorite color? If it was as insignificant as a favorite ice cream flavor, society wouldn’t throw people in jail for a disagreement such as that. Morality is not opinion.

He said “If somebody else wants to kill a child in war, I can object to that and try to convince them otherwise.” But why? If somebody believes in moral relativism—that all moral “opinions” are equal—why would he try to persuade somebody of a different opinion? Since all moral opinions are equally valid. It’s self-contradictory.

Since there hasn’t been a rational response for having a foundation for logic apart from the Bible, all of ADMIN’s arguments against the Bible concerning the subordinate proofs (unity, archeology, unique message, indestructibility, etc, etc.) are pointless since there is no foundation for logic on the opposing side. First, address the ultimate proof (logic), then move on to the subordinate proofs. However, I do want to address a misquote. Also, I’ll explain the scientific accuracies since it’s the only thing relevant to one of the ultimate proofs (uniformity of nature), which is the foundation for science.

Misquote/Straw man

ADMIN misquoted me last round with an ellipsis “there is no evidence of erosion of the pyramids. Thats because the pyramids were built after the flood.” There’s nothing wrong with using ellipsis, but I didn’t say there was not evidence of erosion. I said that ADMIN said that there wasn’t any erosion, before the part that he quoted.

In round 2, ADMIN said “It's absurd to claim that in the past 6000 years we had a global flood, but also that there are massive pyramids sitting around from before that time showing no evidence of fluvial erosion.” He said that the pyramids showed no evidence of erosion in a previous round (if I’m wrong in the interpretation, please say so); so I offered a possible explanation that the pyramids must have been built after the flood (if there really was no erosion, like he said). Then last round, he said that that cannot be because there is evidence of erosion (“the pyramids are heavily eroded”). Well which one is it? Is there erosion on the pyramids or not? I really don’t know; I’m just taking his word for it. But in round 2, he said that there was no erosion, therefore the flood didn’t happen. Then last round, he said that there is erosion so that disproves my explanation for the lack of erosion. I really don’t know if there was erosion or not, your confusing me. Please be more clear. Either way, it doesn’t disprove the global flood. Anyway, the flood is not the debate. The global flood digs deep into the creation v.s. evolution debate, which is too wide of a topic to be discussed here; and is off topic. The topic is biblical inerrancy, not creation v.s. evolution. Thats for a different debate. I’m talking about it only to rebut his arguments (that he started) against the flood.

Speaking of straw man arguments, ADMIN said “If you rebut an argument that I didn’t make, that’s the exact definition of a straw man, because you’re replacing my argument with a different proposition”. It’s not a straw man to rebut arguments your opponent didn’t make, as long as you explicitly state that your opponent didn’t make said argument, and therefore not misrepresent his position; and that’s what I’ve done continuously before rebutting some of the arguments that he didn’t make. It just saves time to rebut potential future arguments before they come about. It’s only a straw man if you misrepresent your opponent’s position; and I’ve never done that. Every time I introduced an argument that ADMIN did not make, I said before that he didn’t make the argument. So it could not possibly be a straw man. However, misquoting somebody is a straw man.

Scientific accuracy in respect with uniformity of nature

The Earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22)

The verse is not disputed. That’s what it says in the Bible in it’s original hebrew language; it’s not disputed. ADMIN goes on to explain the ancient Hebrew conception of the universe. Some parts of the illustration picture that may have been unscientific. Some ancient Israelites may have very well believed that the sun, moon, and stars were part of the Earth’s atmosphere; but the Bible doesn’t explicitly state that. It says that the Earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22). What the ancient hebrews’ beliefs were have nothing to do with what the Bible says. The Israelites disobeyed God multiple times (the Bible says it throughout the OT) and worshiped other gods; so what they believed about the universe around them is irrelevant and that doesn’t disprove what God says in His Bible. Yes, some hebrews took part in writing the Bible; but when people wrote it, God the Holy Spirit intervened in their minds and didn’t allow them to write anything that was wrong (2 Timothy 3:16). It is a red herring to state what the hebrews said outside of the Bible; but what the Bible says is the debate. The Bible says “the circle of the Earth”. What is the 3-dimensional version of a circle? A sphere. People who believed in a flat Earth don’t necessarily believe that the ground was a circle in shape. Basically almost all of the cultures of the world 3,000 years ago believed the Earth was flat; so when that verse of the Bible was written, it was ahead of it’s time. Although Aristotle provided observational evidence for the spherical Earth around 330 BC, most pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus (c. 440 BC) and Democritus (c. 460-370 BC) believed in a flat earth. However, by the time of Christopher Columbus he, and most other educated people of their time, knew that the earth was round. In fact, the Greek mathematician Eratostenes accurately calculated the earth's circumference in the third century before Christ. Other statements in the Bible also indicate that God revealed this truth long ago. For example, David said that God has removed our transgression from us as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103:12). On a spherical surface, east and west are infinitely separated in the sense that one can travel indefinitely in either direction without ever attaining the other. However, Solomon described the wind as blowing in circuits, first towards the south and then turning toward the north. North and south are not infinitely separated as east and west, because a southward traveler on a spherical surface will be heading north after crossing the south pole. Also note that Job 26:10 clearly refers to the line of demarcation between day and night. No other interpretation is possible. Such a view of the curved horizon at sunrise or sunset can only be seen from extremely high altitudes reached only by military jets and spacecraft. These writers were given a view of the Earth as a sphere long before Eratosthenes determined that the earth was round in 240BC. He did this by by measuring shadows in Egyptian wells. Although there is a specific Hebrew word for "sphere," the word used in these passages ("khug") can mean both circle or sphere. It refers to the shape of an orange as it might be represented in a two-dimensional picture. Also, Jesus talked about things in which daytime and nighttime are occurring at the same time; only possible if the Earth is round.

The Earth is supported by nothing (Job 26:7)

This is particularly interesting, considering that the cosmology of other cultures at that time did not have the earth suspended in nothing, but rather upon pillars, or people, or animals. ADMIN stated “But instead, ‘God does it’ becomes the default biblical explanation once again. As I explained in the first round, society’s past that.” Like I have stated before, many people see ‘God does it’ as the reason to see how He did it; so it has furthered scientific advancement.

The stars cannot be counted (Genesis 15:5)

There are about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe. And those are just the ones we know about. We are always discovering more as our technology gets better. Nobody can count to a million in their lifetime. You can certainly count to 10 in 10 seconds, but when you start to count polysyllable numbers, it gets increasingly difficult to count them; so even if you started counting nonstop without sleep for the rest of your life, one could never count to a million, let alone the number of stars (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000; whatever that number is).

The universe is expanding (Isaiah 40:22)

ADMIN said “This is the same as the earth is a sphere passage we investigated before. How exactly this is supposed to prove that the universe is expanding is beyond me”. He didn’t even look at the whole verse. Here it is: “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;” The verse says God “stretches out the heavens”, giving an image that the universe is expanding.

There are valleys in the seas (2 Samuel 22:16)

Only until the past few hundred years did people have the technology to discover that there are deep valleys in the oceans. But the Bible always knew. ADMIN said “That the ground continues at the bottom of the sea can be very easily inferred from…”. Of course ancient cultures know that the ocean depth ended somewhere, but that’s not the point of the passage. It talks about valleys beneath the normal depth level in the form of skinny channels; something they could never know at the time without divine revelation.

There are mountains in the oceans (Jonah 2:6)

Only in recent history has man discovered that there are mountains on the ocean floor. The tropical Revillagigedos Islands are the visible peaks of a underwater mountain chain-known as the Eastern Pacific Rise, that stretches all the way to Antarctica. The deepest part of Mariana's Trench, east of the Mariana Islands, has been measured at 35,798 feet below sea level. Mount Everest is only 29,035 feet high.

There are springs and fountains in the oceans (Genesis 7:11; Genesis 8:2; Proverbs 8:28; Job 38:16)

Hydrothermal vents are found in areas of the ocean floor that are spreading, such as at mid-ocean ridges, where tectonic plates are being pulled apart. Molten magma then rises from deep inside the Earth, superheating the cold ocean water around it. The average temperature of deep-ocean water is only 2°C (36°F). The water coming directly from a hydrothermal vent can reach up to 350°C (662°F) and is rich in dissolved chemicals. The hot spring water forms a plume above the vent, somewhat like smoke rising from a chimney into the air. The first underwater hot spring to be discovered was probably in 1977, when scientists discovered hot springs at a depth of 2.5 km, on the Galapagos Rift (spreading ridge) off the coast of Ecuador. Since then other hot springs have been found at a number of sites along the mid-oceanic ridges, many on the East Pacific Rise. Giant tube worms, huge clams, and mussels all thrive around the hot springs. ADMIN said that Genesis 7 refers to the opening of the fountains of the deep and Genesis 8 says closing. Thats because it’s talking about the global flood (most of the water for the global flood came from beneath the earth, so the deep opened; when God ended the flood, He closed the fountains of the deep); which again, is too broad for this debate right now so I’m not going to discuss it. Unless if ADMIN wants to rebut it; which is irrelevant to the debate of biblical inerrancy.

There are sea currents (Psalm 8:8)

ADMIN said that sailing existed before 10,000; but that date doesn’t exist because the Bible says the universe is about 6,000 years old. He said “…which is older than my opponent believes the planet is.”. It’s not about what I believe personally, it’s about what the Bible says. I never said that the Earth is 6,000 years old because I just think so; I said it’s 6,000 years old because the Bible says it. But anyway, enough about the age of the Earth and creation/evolution debate; it’s not part of the topic. When the Bible speaks of “the paths of the seas” it is more than likely that it is referring to ocean currents, which was discovered by man only in the 1850’s. The following history of the discovery of these “paths” has been excerpted from Answers in Genesis…

American naval officer and oceanographer Matthew Maury (1806-1873) who wrote the first textbook on modern oceanography called The Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology, was a Christian who had no doubts about the accuracy of the Bible. After an accident partially disabled him ending his active duty with the Navy, he was appointed superintendent of the US Naval Observatory in Washington. “In his Bible studies, the words of Psalm 8 stuck in his mind: ‘ ... whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas’. Maury determined that if God’s Word said there were ‘paths’ in the seas, then there must be paths. So he set out to find them. He studied old ships’ logs. From these he compiled charts of ocean-wind and sea currents. To study the speed and direction of the ocean currents Maury set adrift weighted bottles known as ‘drift bottles’. These floated slightly below the surface of the water, and thus were not affected by wind. Instructions were sealed in each bottle directing anyone who found one washed ashore to return it. From the location and date on which the bottles were found, Maury was able to develop his charts of the ocean currents—the ‘paths’ of the seas—which greatly aided the science of marine navigation”.

The water cycle exists (Job 26:8; Job 36:27-28; Ecclesiastes 1:6-7)

ADMIN said “…in other words, my opponent is literally resorting to the existence of rain in the bible to attempt to prove that the bible is inerrant.”. ADMIN either (1) doesn’t understand what the water cycle is or (2) knows what it is, but is using a straw man to misrepresent my argument. The hydraulic cycle is not just about the existence of rain. The Mississippi River, which is just one of thousands of rivers all over this planet, dumps over six million gallons of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico. The answer to where all that water goes lies in the hydrologic cycle, or circulation of the earth's water; something that was not fully accepted until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although the earliest literature indicating an understanding of this cycle was apparently around the third or fourth century BC.. Aristotle demonstrated only a vague understanding of this process, though he recognized that rain came from clouds, he incorrectly postulated that air turned into water and vice versa. Either way the Bible accurately portrays of this cycle 2500 years before it was widely accepted. It has only recently been learned that most clouds are formed by ocean evaporation, but again the Bible had it right centuries ago (Ecclesiastes 1:7). The complex nature of how water is supported in clouds despite being heavier than air is clearly implied when God was talking to Job (Job 37:16). ADMIN said “Do I seriously need to rebut this”? No; first, you need to rebut the ultimate proof (logic), which again and again, hasn’t been successfully done. Then, the subordinate proofs can be rebutted. Because unless ADMIN has a foundation for logic, all of his rebuttals are meaningless.

Air has weight (Job 28:25)

The verse is “When He imparted weight to the wind and meted out the waters by measure”. People in ancient times believed that wind had a force, but it did not necessarily have any kind of mass to it. The fact that air has weight was proven scientifically only about 300 years ago. The relative weights of air and water are needed for the efficient functioning of the world’s hydrologic cycle, which in turn sustains life on the earth. ADMIN says “…so my opponent is literally so amazed that the bible knows about wind and rain that he thinks the bible is probably inerrant. What’s next, does the bible know about snow too?” He phrases it in an ad homonym like way and a straw man that makes me look dumb. I’m not amazed by the fact that the Bible acknowledges wind and rain. I am amazed, however by the fact that the Bible can talk about the water cycle and the weight of air millennia before they were acknowledged by the scientific community. Because this means that the writers can only know this information by direct divine revelation by the biblical God; which proves biblical inerrancy (see ultimate proof above).

Each snowflake has a different yet beautifully symmetrical pattern (Job 38:22)

In the book of Job (written some 3,500 years ago), God asks Job if he had entered into the “treasures of the snow”. With the invention of the microscope, man discovered that the ice molecules of each snowflake form in a wide variety of intricate shapes. In other words, each and every single snowflake has a unique and often beautifully symmetrical pattern. Quite a “treasure.”.

There are air currents and streams (Ecclesiastes 1:6)

Here is the passage, “The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit.”

The Bible describes the atmospheric circulation, and includes some principles of fluid dynamics. There are distinct circulation belts between the equator and each pole. The air flows in these three circulation belts or cells do not move in a straight north to south or south to north route. Instead, the air flows seem to move east to west or west to east. The verse doesn’t say that wind currents go straight north and south; but says that once it reaches north and south, it “whirls about continually”, until it goes back and “comes again on its circuit”, which is what happens with air currents. This effect was first identified by the French mathematician Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (1792–1843) in 1835. ADMIN said “Actually, all this passage says is that the wind blows in different directions. Mind boggling fact, right?” I think so, since wind has certain streams and currents that it has to go through, and they weren’t discovered until the nineteenth century. ADMIN said “I seriously encourage readers to check these passages my opponent is providing”. I agree, everyone should look up the verses on the internet; since they’re not getting the real passage from the lolcat “translation”.

There is one human race (Genesis 3:20; Corinthians 15:45; Acts 17:26).

This was explained in the last round. ADMIN attempts to rebut this by saying “ Great. So the bible is right that we’re all 99.8% similar genetically…that still leaves the bible 0.2% wrong and errant.” How? Here was the 0.2% figure from last round that I said, “If one were to take any two people anywhere in the world, scientists have found that the basic genetic differences between these two people would typically be around 0.2 percent—even if they came from the same people group.” ADMIN said “…the Biblical view that everyone is exactly identical.” Where exactly does it say that people do not change behavior or appearance? Give a verse, and within it’s context.

The life of the creature is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11).

This was explained in the last round. However, ADMIN said “Yeah, but the blood cannot move without the heart. Does that mean that life is in the heart? The blood would have no oxygen without the lungs. Does that mean life is in the lungs” What gives the body “life” is whatever gives nutrients to every one of the cells. The heart and lungs cannot do that—they’re stationary; they cannot go to every single cell. But blood can; and it is the only bodily fluid that can. ADMIN said “There are living things that have no blood, something not known to bible writers…”. No, the definition of life is if the thing has blood, according to the Bible. That’s the reason plants are not alive. They are complex self-replicating multi-cellular organisms; but they’re not “alive” in the respect that you and I are. In the Bible, it says that before Adam sinned, there was no suffering nor death (Romans 5:12). It also says that before the flood, humans were herbivores—God didn’t allow people to eat animals until after the flood (Genesis 9:1-5). So when Adam and Eve and the animals ate the plants/fruit, they didn’t produce plant death, since it wasn’t alive to begin with.

There are principles of health and sanitation (Leviticus 12-14).

ADMIN said “I’d like my opponent to tell us what amazing laws of health and sanitation are found in the bible that are actually ahead of their time, rather than just idle religious talk.” I would be honored.

Note: The principles of health and sanitation in the Bible are primarily found in Leviticus 12-14 for the Israelites at the time, which is what I cited before in previous rounds. Most of the verses ADMIN used where not in there, but instead from other passages, effectively taking verses out of context, which I will show.

Eat whatever you feel like (Genesis 1:30)—This was before the Fall. For those who don’t know, the Fall is where Adam and Eve, the first humans, sinned for the first time. As a result, death and suffering entered the world; and everything that was bad, basically (Genesis 3). Since this was before the Fall, it really didn’t matter what Adam and Eve ate (except the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God commanded against eating; and when they ate it, thats when the Fall happened, not because of the fruit itself, but because they disobeyed God). There would be no need for principles of health and sanitation because there was no such thing as “harm” or “sickness”. Concerning health and sanitation, referring to a Bible verse before the Fall happened is irrelevant—a red herring.

Spiritual people never get sick (3 John 1:2)—It doesn’t talk about spiritual people at all. Here is the verse, “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul (3 John 1:2).” John was just praying that his fellow Christians didn’t get sick so that they may continue to minister at the time. Saying that John was saying “Spiritual people never get sick” is a bit of a stretch.

Sacrifice your personal hygiene to God (Romans 12:1)—It’s not talking about hygiene. Here is the verse, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).” Notice the word, “spiritual”. It goes on to say, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2).” It says to give your mind and thoughts to God and make every thought accountable to Him and think no evil thoughts. What part of that talks about hygiene?

“Holy” oil will cure all ills (James 5:14)—Here is the verse, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord (James 5:14). The oil is not what cured the sick people at the time who came to the church, the passage says that it was the faithful prayer. The oil itself was not special; and the verse never said that it was “holy”. The prayer is what healed the sick, as explained in the next verse, “And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up (James 5:15).” The Bible clearly says that the prayer of a Christian has power, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit (James 5:16-18).” This isn’t to say that whatever the Christian prays, God does it, as if He is obligated to do so; only if it is within God’s will, He will do it. But the passage never said that the oil was “holy” or that there was something special about the oil. It was the prayer behind it, and God’s accepting of that prayer. Again, this verse has nothing to do with how you can prevent common diseases and how to take care of yourself in general, the verse itself and the context says that faithful prayers can do many things along it’s within God’s will. It has nothing to do with the oil itself.

Shovel your excrement as opposed to using toilets (Deuteronomy 23:12-13)—This is in Deuteronomy. Here is the verse, “You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement (Deuteronomy 23:12-13). In the context, it implies that it only applied to His people at the time—the Israelites. The cultures around the Israelites at the time didn’t shovel their excrement at all (nor used toilets, since they haven’t been invented). They just defecated around themselves and let their places stink. They literally “lived in their own filth”. God wanted some decency from His people when He said in the very next verse, “Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you (Deuteronomy 23:14). ADMIN said “…as opposed to using toilets.” First of all, toilets were not invented back then. Second of all, the Israelites were in a military camp; so even if they did invent toilets, they didn’t exactly have access to five-star facilities in the military. Third of all, shoveling the bodily waste does the same function that toilets do, so it wasn’t a problem. God was instructing His people to shovel their waste in the camp at the time—not us. This is clear, given the context.

Do not consume blood (Leviticus 17:10)—The Bible as a whole has a lot to say about the consumption of blood. In Acts 10, the apostle Peter began to realize just how different this new Christianity was from Judaism. While praying on a rooftop, waiting for lunch, he had a vision. A sheet was lowered from heaven, containing many different types of animals. A voice encouraged him to eat. Peter balked, realizing that some of the animals in the sheet were forbidden under Jewish law. Three times the sheet lowered, and three times Peter refused. The vision had a dual purpose. The most obvious was that, under the New Covenant, the ceremonial rules about dietary restrictions had been lifted. Christians are to be set apart and recognized by their love (John 13:35), not by their lunches. The second, and deeper, meaning was that Christ’s salvation was open to Gentiles just as it was to Jews. Immediately after the vision, Peter received a visit by messengers from a (Gentile) centurion named Cornelius who was ready to accept Christ. Carnivorous Christians know and enjoy the message of Peter's vision. But the vision does not directly address the subject of eating blood, unless that’s included in the revocation of kosher law. The Bible’s first prohibition against consuming blood comes in Genesis 9:2-4, where God tells Noah, "Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it." This prohibition was most likely a ban on eating raw blood (i.e., uncooked meat). For the first time, animals were an allowable food source, and God was making sure that Noah did not eat them raw. A Jewish Targum comments on this verse: "But the flesh which is torn from a living beast at the time that its life is in it, or which is torn from a beast while it is slain, before all its breath is gone out, ye shall not eat.” Later, the prohibition of Genesis 9:4 is iterated in the Law of Moses. Leviticus 17:14 gives the reason behind command: “For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life.” It’s important to understand that New Testament believers in Christ have freedom from the Law, and we are to “stand firm” in that liberty (Galatians 5:1). We are not under the Law but under grace. “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink” (Colossians 2:16). So, eating a rare steak, blood sausage, blood pancakes, blood soup, or blood tofu may not be palatable to all Christians, but it is allowable. There is another passage to consider. In Acts 15, a question arose in the early church concerning what was necessary for salvation. Specifically, did a Gentile need to be circumcised in order to be saved (verse 1)? The issue came up in the church in Syrian Antioch, which had a mixture of Jewish and Gentile converts. To address this important issue, the leaders of the church met in Jerusalem for the very first church council. They concluded that, no, Gentiles did not need to follow Mosaic Law; circumcision is not part of salvation (verse 19). However, in verse 29, the leaders compose a letter with these instructions for the Gentiles in Antioch: “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.” At this point, we must keep the context foremost in our minds. These four commands from Jerusalem to Antioch all dealt with pagan practices associated with idolatry. Most, if not all, of the Gentile converts in Antioch were saved out of paganism. The church leaders were exhorting the new Gentile believers to make a clean break from their old lifestyles and not offend their Jewish brothers and sisters in the church. The instructions were not intended to guarantee salvation but to promote peace within the early church. Later, Paul dealt with the same issue. It is perfectly all right to eat meat offered to idols, he says. “Nothing is unclean in itself” (Romans 14:14). But if eating that meat causes a brother in Christ to violate his conscience, Paul “will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall” (1 Corinthians 8:13). This was the same concern the Jerusalem leaders had in Acts 15: if the Gentile believers ate meat with the blood in it, the Jewish believers might be tempted to violate their conscience and join them in the feast. One’s conscience is a sacred thing, and we dare not act against it (see 1 Corinthians 8:7-12 and Romans 14:5). In short, ordering your steak rare or well done is a matter of conscience and of taste. What enters the mouth does not make us unclean (see Matthew 15:17-18). Eating black pudding may not appeal to everyone, but it is not a sin. We live under grace. We have liberty in Christ. Others may have different convictions about food and drink, and in that case we voluntarily limit our freedom in order to better serve them and God. “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification” (Romans 14:19).

Bird sacrifices to cure leprosy (Leviticus 14:3-7)—The verses talk about an extremely detailed process of how to cleanse lepers; part of that process was capturing two birds. Apparently, the cure worked. Of course, it won’t work today; but that’s not the point. The point of God instructing His people of how to cure lepers was to show His power at the time for the Israelites.

The chair now calls upon ADMIN to continue the debate.

Krazy

Thank you ADMIN for another round.

Logic

This is the heart of the debate. Everybody needs to have a foundation for logic. To answer the question for why it’s true. Some people take a pragmatic position for why it’s true by saying that it works. But again, unfortunately, that isn’t the question. We all know that they work. They work because they’re true. The question is why they are true. Unfortunately, the opposing side has not explained why they are true. ADMIN said “I know that it’s true because it yields a true conclusion…” No, it yields a true conclusion because it works. But why does it work? That hasn’t been answered by the opposing side. He said “Just because I don’t prove why it works…” The Bible can answer why it works.

Logic is immaterial, unchanging, and universal. They are this way because they are a reflection of the way God thinks, who revealed some of His thoughts through His Word.

They are unchanging because if one believes that logic can change, then for all you know, logic has changed and contradictions are now valid. In that case one could have no problem with contradictions. This is an absurd proposition. If one wants to believe that; that’s fine. But then he just left logic and therefore his future arguments cannot hold.

They are universal because if you believe that logic is relative, then you don't. If logic does not apply universally, then it does not necessarily apply to this post, and you could have no problem with any contradictions. Again, if logic couldn’t be applied everywhere, then you couldn’t know that they at least apply outside of your cranium or somewhere else in space in general.

They are immaterial because the nature of matter changes. Logic cannot change, as explained earlier. Also, chemical reactions aren’t necessarily true or false. They just “are”. They’re just that—reactions. So if logic is made up by the electro-chemical reactions in the brain, we would have no reason to think that the law of non-contradiction (or any law of logic) is true, if it is simply a chemical reaction. Second, if laws of logic are chemical reactions, then they are not laws and they are not universal; they would not extend beyond my brain. In other words, we couldn’t argue that contradictions cannot occur on Mars, since no one’s brain is on Mars. In fact, if the laws of logic are just electro-chemical reactions in the brain, then they would differ somewhat form person to person, because everyone has different reactions in his or her brain.

The fact is that the laws of logic are contingent unto God’s nature. The laws of logic are universal, unchanging, and immaterial; which are the characteristics of God as stated in the Bible (Jeremiah 23:24; Psalm 139:7-10; 1 Kings 8:27; Psalm 90:2; 1 Timothy 1:17; John 4:23-24). And since He cannot lie (Titus 1:2) and He knows everything (1 John 3:20), what He says in His Bible is true and infallible.

ADMIN said “It’s not me that’s bringing the claim here, so I won’t allow pro to push this onus on to me”. He’s basically saying that he doesn’t have to explain why logic is true. But everybody needs a reason to say that something is true. If one says that something is true, he needs to have a reason for saying so. Saying why logic is true is a high onus, but it ultimately needs to be answered by every human being; because nobody is allowed to be arbitrary. The fact that it’s a high onus is the reason why it can only be explained by an infallible, all-true God who wrote an infallible, all-true Bible.

Only the Bible can give an account for why these laws are unchanging, immaterial, and universal. So the Bible is true (infallible) because if it weren’t true, then we couldn’t prove that anything is true (because there wasn’t a foundation for logic). That is the proof of Biblical infallibility.

In closing

Originally, the uniformity of nature and absolute morality were part of the ultimate proof, but they still rely on the foundation for logic. I still argued them last round(s) for the fun of it. Time runs forwards; it’s true, even if people deny it. Relative morality cannot hold up to it’s own standard (If absolute morality isn’t true, is it absolutely true that morality is relative?)

It seems like the opposing side doesn’t quite understand the argument. I listed the subordinate proofs (such as scientific accuracy, indestructibility, etc, etc, etc…) thinking that the opposing side would give an account for how we can have a foundation for logic without the Bible first. But since so far, that has not happened. If he wants to rebut the subordinate proofs, thats fine. But that’s missing the point. A foundation for the unchanging, universal, immaterial laws of logic is necessary before future argumentation.