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Appologetic's Bible

So my mother told me that she and my dad have begun to question their faith and the morality of the god of their faith in particular. She said they had read some passages in church that they found disturbing and I thought this was a very good thing. I enouraged her to look into it and find out what it was that bothered her most, So she and dad started reading the entirety of the bible, a few chapters a day over their dinners. I thought that I would offer myself in assistance and try to let them see by example that not believing doesn't negate the possibility of living happily.

So the next time I was over I offered to join them in their reading and discussion. Come to find out they're reading the Appologetic's Study Bible.

http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/apologeticsbible/

If you have not seen this book it is filled with side articles and notations containing every logical fallacy imaginable in an effort to try to make sense of the passages that give people problems with their faith. Needless to say I was appalled to see that these arguments and fallacies were coaxing my parents back into quiescence. When I attempted to point this out it became a big argument and my parents got fairly upset and I went home with no idea where to go next.

Please advise! What do I do so as not to seem as though I am actively trying to destroy their faith?

Tags: appologetic, bible, fallacy, help, parents

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Vann on March 7, 2012 at 11:32pm

I'll have to look into this myself. Sounds good!

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Permalink Reply by James stillwell on March 7, 2011 at 9:07pm

Watch my show on YouTube entitled" OpenAiratheist" . I'm an ex open air preacher/theologian/ apologist and I would like to help. Watch my video entitled" the 4 gospels exposed" and other episodes with your parents I think this will help you. Please don't be afraid to ask questions I'm also skilled in the original language of the new testament, church history ,theology ,textual criticism etc.

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Permalink Reply by James stillwell on March 7, 2011 at 9:07pm

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Permalink Reply by paul babcock on April 23, 2011 at 10:51am

Here is something. The bible is clear in that it states that it is meant to be taken literary and in its entirety.

Taking the bible instead, mearly as a sourse of stories and moral guidance and not the literal revealed word of god begs comparisons to other stories and sources of morality. In these comparisons the bible seems to be lacking. One example is how the bible clearly has no problem with slavery. And it is loaded with bits of advise that are absolutely abominable. No reasonable person for a second would think it at all reasonable to stone to death kids who sassed their parents, or people who work on the Sabbath or commit adultery, unless they were directly told to do so by GOD.

Aesops fables and Shakspeare ate both considered stories with superior morals.

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Permalink Reply by Matt VDB on April 24, 2011 at 1:17pm

In the spirit of my last reply to this thread, "There's enough good arguments you can make without having to use historical arguments which rely on oversimplification.", here I am again.

"The bible is clear in that it states that it is meant to be taken literary and in its entirety."

Really? Where does it say that?

Considering the Bible is simply a large collection of different books by different authors over almost a millenia of Jewish-Christian thought, "the Bible" never refers to "it" as to be taken literary and in its entierity. In fact the Bible never refers to itself at all, because as I said, none of the individual authors were aware that they were writing something which would later be regarded as Scripture.

Besides, the idea that the Bible is meant to be taken literary is a modern protestant invention and one that has little or no scriptural basis; much of the stories in the Bible are clearly symbolic and allegorical. It is unclear to us to what extent Jews and Christians of the time would have actually thought that -say- the miracles of Jesus literally happened and to what extent they saw them as symbolic ways of making a point.

But that it was not regarded as literary in its entierity is beyond dispute. You will have to go to great lengths to find any early Church Father at all who expressed any literalist belief. Most of them (thinkers like Augustine included) quickly gravitated towards the understanding that scriptural texts werecomposed of several layers of meaning (literal, moral, allegorical or eschatological); if one meaning did not make sense or seemed to not tell the whole story, they sought for meaning on a different level of interpretation. The Catholic Church uses these criteria to this day.

Hope that reality check doesn't interfere with the polemical point you were making.

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Permalink Reply by paul babcock on April 23, 2011 at 11:04am

Or another tactic of these theist apologists in dealing with the bible contradictions or bits of absolutely horibly advice is to claim that it doesn't really say what it seams to be saying.

For example, when it is pointed out to them that it appears to say that it is allowed to heat ones slaves to death under the right conditions, theists will respond with something like how that was meant for them there and then and that that bit is not meant to apply to us here and now. In taking this tact, theists have to ignore that that contradicts what they have said the bible claims in every other instance.

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Permalink Reply by TobyTime on April 23, 2011 at 4:20pm

Hello Alli, One of the things I do is try to get my religious friends and relatives to compare bible stories where they are told more than once so they can see the contradictions and inconsistencies. With it being Easter I just compiled a list of contradictions from the gospels about the resurrection.

You can find it here: http://arguingidiots.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-happened-on-easter-m...

You can also look at the two creation stories, the two different Noah's ark stories, the two very different genealogies of Jesus, the Christmas stories and the two different deaths of Judas as a start. There is another good list of things to look at here: http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/darkbible5.htm

I would not show them these web sites directly but look at them yourself and use that info as a guide when you study with them and let them discover some of the issues themselves, maybe with a direction from you.

As for the evil in the bible, it's too abundant to ignore. I wish you the best!