Did you know that, with the exception of a few historical "approximations," there are no "verifiable facts..."

Question

...at all in The Bible...?

What people said, what they said happened, and what those happenings mean is all...

"Interpretive Assumptions..."

I'm going by the definition of the words "Fact" and "Verifiable" as put forth in the English Dictionary...

Why do so many people use the word "fact" when what they're really saying is "assumption" and "belief" and "faith?"

There's a very big difference in the meanings, I would appreciate if people would start using the appropriate words for the appropriate points they're trying to make...

Wouldn't that strengthen their viewpoint if they were more accurate in their choice of words...?

Answer 1

i agree gree.... bunch of pee pee.... me go swing on tree tree

Answer 2

The words "knowledge," "truth," and "fact," have all been conflated in today's age (the original Greek sense of Truth is "unforgetting," and the original Germanic sense of Truth is "betrothed""). The word "fact" is more like an "item," or a "thing."

So, even though these words are all convoluted, we still have to use them, because those are the only contexts within which to communicate with others. Why should it be up to Christians to reapropriate such weighty and all-encompassing terms? I think, if we are all searching for truth, it is up to all of us to excavate the original meanings and semantics of words.

But if you say that no "facts" can be derived from the bible, than you also have to concede that none of our knowledge of "ancient history" is fact either (Alexander the Great, Greek history, etc) because the source for those "facts" come from documents akin to the bible in terms of historicity. Do you honestly think that Plato's Republic is any more historically "factual" than the bible just because it was a philosophical and not a religious document? All documents of that age had major agendas, not just the bible. So you have to weigh the bible WITH everything of its time, not mindlessly AGAINST it as if it's inherently "worse" and "less factual" because its describing a spiritual agenda.

Answer 3

This is the same logic that is trying to convince the world that the Holocaust never happened.

By following your line of thinking, we can never know anything that we do not personally experience. And even then it is still open to our own interpretation of the event. Did the World Wars happen? Did the French Revolution happen? Did the Hundred Years War ever happen?

For the record, the New Testament history books of Luke and Acts are considered the two most reliable historic documents from before the fall of the Roman Empire--their only discredit being that they describe supernatural events as part of their history. But they have been used to confirm countless other historic documents from the same period.

Answer 4

The bible refers to many supernatural events. Why does science have the last word? Science has been a growing field since its inception, centuries ago. Many miracles have been explained in principle and we have learned to do many wonderful things But science has not closed it's doors on learning. Science cannot fully explain much of anything. It is built upon a few facts that would fit on a single sheet of paper and the theories and suppositions of such a number that many books would not have enough room.
Christ rose from the dead. It was reported in the bible and in another pagan document about a century later. An enormous effort to suppress this was taken by the Judaic Church leaders.
Just more information. why does the scientific community try so hard to write this off as false? simply because they do not understand it? Seems that would be cause for investigation not refutation. But Science is as much a religion as any other now days. and its church leaders have as much to loose.

Answer 5

SDW-please show me one non christian site stating Luke and acts are historically reliable.

Christians giving christian history is like asking nazis about the holocost . I am not comparing christians to nazis, just pointing out how biased that opinion would be.

Christianity as an oppressed faith had a lot to gain by massaging history. What would be gained by chainging the history of Alexander or Napolean. To some extent all accounts of people past and present tend to be altered from reality.

Answer 6

Did you know that anything taken to it's extremes becomes it's own opposite? Are you a student lawyer or something?

The more accurate the choice of words, the fewer (if any) would have a clue as to what is intended to be communicated. How many Pulitzers have you won, anyhow?
Joke! Have a fantastic week!

Answer 7

My friend
what are you doing?, the average person would not understand
"Interpretive Assumptions..."
It reads like Shakespeare.
EXAMPLE "and god made the world in7 days"
TRANSLATION doth did the creator create and did hence proclaim thou shall see a happening occur and on this creation shall there be a sphere that thou shall maybe or may not proceed to freefall off such edge of sphere and thou shall wait until the moulding of this sphere sets fair and true and this
creation shall from hence forth be hallowed with such
pronunciations be pronounced as a name you will from this
time be called sphere with the edges?

Answer 8

Lots of cities and peoples mentioned in scripture were doubted for centuries until archaeologists finally found solid evidence... which supported the Biblical narrative. For instance, the Hittites were thought for centuries to be a fictional tribe invented by Biblical authors. However, in the late 19th century, irrefutable evidence was found which confirmed their existence. The span of time from their first mention in scripture until scientists found remains of their civilization was ABOUT 35 CENTURIES.

Have you noticed that the same is true of many elementary biology texts, that they CONFUSE ASSUMPTION AND THEORY WITH "VERIFIABLE FACTS"?

What FACTS are behind Darwinistic theory and macro-evolution?

What about the FACT that NO POSITIVE INHERITED MUTATION creating a new species better adapted than its ancestors HAS EVER BEEN OBSERVED. Evolution by natural selection would require BILLIONS of this type of mutation to be true, and science has NEVER OBSERVED EVEN ONE.

Our educators have trouble facing the FACT that science is pretty good at describing WHAT IS, but rather weak on PROVING HOW IT GOT THAT WAY.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH LEAVING "ORIGINS" WHERE THEY BELONG, WITH OTHER THEORIES, INSTEAD OF BLINDLY ACCEPTING A WEAK THEORY ON PHILOSOPHICAL RATHER THAN SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL ELSE.

If evolution had been treated FAIRLY for the last half century, WE WOULD PROBABLY HAVE A BETTER, MORE SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND THEORY NOW. As it is, any scientist who attempts to come up with a bio-genesis theory with fewer holes is immediately met with fierce opposition... on PHILOSOPHICAL, NOT SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS.

Lets get the philosophers out of the laboratories and let scientists do science and try to devise a BETTER THEORY, ONE BASED ON BETTER SCIENCE.

Answer 9

Interesting....
You know, one lady tried to convince me one day that the sky was purple. I told her, no-it's blue. She responded, no it's purple. Then I realized- she was colorblind and I had thick sunglasses on...but we could both at least see and enjoy "our" vision of the sky.
If we all believed the same thing, life would be a hell of alot less interesting. Plus, we wouldn't have anything to comment about here on Y/A.
Peace.

Answer 10

Not really and not always.What if accuracy kills the validity of the very point they want to establish?Most faiths flourish in ambiguity and innuendos and they would rather stick to that.On the rest part of your contention,I couldn't agree more.

Answer 11

"How do you so glibly sit in judgment on something you've never read? "

You know this how? It is quite possible you are a s s-u-ming something rather that stating a fact.

You just proved the questioner's point perfectly.