Favorite Biblical Inconsistencies

[neilgoose]

Interesting thread.

Can some Christians explain the inconsistencies over here?

Thanks.

 

[mathewho]

yes i really agree with you wow! you know very much about him that's good!

 

[drifter]

Interesting thread.

Can some Christians explain the inconsistencies over here?

Thanks.

im afraid they cant ...but yet they blindly believe . what is faith ? faith is a thing that dont need any answer even its bullshit ..

 

[Goodnews]

That being said, let me now present some of my all-time favorite Bible theory inconsistencies.



If God is all-powerful, why did He take 6 days to create the universe, resting on the 7th? Why didn't He just snap his proverbial fingers and create everything all at once, and not need rest afterwards? Doesn't sound so all-powerful to me.


The great flood: Why not just kill the people, and not all the animals? 40 days seems like overkill, doesn't it? Why torture the damned by drowning them slowly, instead of killing them in a blink with the all-powerful hand of God? After God killed all the people on the planet, why not make a better human, instead of allowing the species to continue after it had proven itself unworthy?


Why do other planets and stars exist? Whole galaxies? Why did God go to such extents to make us disbelieve the Bible?


Why are we here? If it is "to serve god", why does God need to be "served", and why can't we do it from heaven?


We have free will, but God already knows who will sin, who will accept Him, etc, for all eternity (since he has perfect knowledge of the future). He has in effect known you would be reading this article since the beginning of time. Given that, why not just send our souls (and those of our descendants) to Heaven or Hell, depending on what He knows we'll do?


Why does God care if he is praised? He is this all-knowing, super being, why does He care if we mere humans give him credit for creating all this?


How can anyone justify the fact that this merciful, loving god is sending all non-Christians to Hell, no matter how good they are? However, terrible people, including Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer, could go to Heaven if they accepted God before death


Why does this wonderful, forgiving God hold Adam's sin over all our heads? Why must we all pay for this by being permanent sinners? Again, God made the rules and this is God's choice, so you're going to have to explain why God CHOOSES to hold this incredible grudge.


If God was so angry, why didn't he just kill Adam and Eve and start over? He killed a lot of other people in the Bible for less.


Where did God come from? How did He get created? Why is it a valid argument to say that He "always existed", but an invalid argument to say the same thing about matter and energy?


If God is trying so hard to be near us, why doesn't He show himself? I mean, really, show himself to all of us? Why have there been no miracles since the Bible (note, I mean REAL miracles like the spontaneous end of disease or hunger)? Why not show yourself by giving all humans perfect knowledge of your existence (like angels) if it's so important to be praised by us?


Hell is used by many as a good reason in and of itself to practice religion. Hell, in theory, is so bad that the mere possibility of its existence - no matter how small - warrants prayer to God. This implies that religion is a self-serving decision, not an exercise in humility or praise. In other words, greed. Yes folks, one of the seven deadly sins. Furthermore, since God can apparently read minds, He will easily see through your futile attempt at deceiving Him and send you to Hell. Therefore, by this argument, prayer is useless; you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.


Why believe the Bible over other stories of gods, like the Greek gods, Roman gods, or Celtic gods? They also answer all the questions, just like the Bible, and they all have the same corroboration (none) so why believe one over the other?



There's more! Let's talk Jesus!


What was Jesus' purpose? Common answer: "to save us from our sins." Why have a son (why not God himself), and why did he have to die for our sins? Why didn't God just "save us" himself? He is God, right? He can do whatever he wants, so why the whole Jesus thing?


Another response is to say that Jesus gave God a sense of what it's like to be human. Jesus did not give God a sense of life as a human. First of all, since God is all-knowing, he already had such a sense. Second, you can't get a sense of being human by walking around being the son of God. In order to know what it's like to be a human you need to go completely through life as a human. You need to fall in love, get married, have kids, pay taxes, and, most importantly, fail at something (which theists maintain did not happen, see #3). This response leads us to believe that God has no idea of what these basic principles are like.


Jesus was also supposed to be 100% perfect. Then why aren't we all Christian? He didn't do a perfect job of converting people (that was his purpose, right?), He didn't do a perfect job of spreading the message of peace (crusades, holy wars) despite a PERFECT knowledge of humans.

A perfect, all powerful being can only do something with perfect results. Ergo, either God did not intend to save all humans, rather a precious few, or he is imperfect. You choose.


"Jesus was God's intermediary." Why does an all-powerful being need an intermediary? He could give us all perfect knowledge of His existence with a snap of the fingers. Surely he could just, I don't know, talk to us?


"Jesus chose to die to take our place?" Nope. God made the rules, he can change them. He didn't need Jesus to save humans, all he needed to do was forgive sin. All God had to do was change his mind!
No, Jesus was neither useful nor needed. He did nothing God himself couldn't have done better, quicker, and easier.

Now, in synopsis, here are some interesting "facts" about God.

He knows the future, so he has known forever that Humans would be created, that he would flood the Earth, that he would send Jesus, and that most would reject Him. In effect, he set up his "children", whom he supposedly "loves", for that eternity in Hell.


He knows that, since Adam, billions of good, loving, hard-working people are spending an eternity in Hell because of ignorance and God's vanity, which He could reverse instantly but chooses not to.


He created awful diseases by the score and unleashed them on "his children" without care (even those who love and obey Him). He could cure all (God-made) diseases by snapping his fingers, but he won't.


He made the rules, and has the power to change them at will, but won't. In a snap, he could change everything, make all souls of good people go from Hell to Heaven, but refuses to do so.
What does this tell us about God? Well, there are only four options that are not contradictory to the above facts:



He is not nearly as powerful as we think he is - unlikely, because if he exists, he is strong enough to create the universe (even if it did take him 6 days)


He is stubborn to the point of malevolence - improbable, because he knows the future. Stubbornness implies unwillingness to change in light of new information, but an omniscient God would know all the information right from the start. Therefore, this option only holds water if God exists, but is not omniscient or all-powerful.
He is inherently malevolent - Logically flawed, just as a benevolent god would not unleash disease, pain, hunger and torment on his people, so would a malevolent god be loath to give us children, sunsets, and chocolate.


He is nonexistent, and the Bible is a work of fiction laden with massive flaws in logic, because it was made up by flawed humans over a period of time in an effort to subdue the masses. Any way you slice it, common sense and a little education always brings you here

I find it very interesting that questions concerning God and His existence only address to Christians. I have never even read a note questioning the existing of 'god' of other religion. The questions on God should be applicable to all religions but why only the God of the Bible, Jesus is subject to such attack. For example, if God is so merciful, why He allows suffering? This question should be applicable to all religions not just in Christianity. (In fact, the Bible has the answer to this question - all suffering is because of man's evilness like pride, envy, covetousness, greed, self-centered, selfishness, hatred, revengfulness, etc.). Sorry to those Buddhists, can I also ask the same question: If Buddha is so good why can't he just let all people go to heaven? Why some have to be re-born as animals first? (This is just an illustration on my part that we can address this type of question to all religions but again my point is that Christianity is always being attacked on such questions but other religions seem to be able to get away with such questions. Again - thousand apologies to faith of other religions if my comment is offensive. I don't mean it but just to defend my faith as Christian and to illustrate that all the questions concern God like if God is so good, why He allows suffering; if God is so God why we have earthquake; if God is so God why some are born blind also apply to other religion faith.

 

[drifter]

I find it very interesting that questions concerning God and His existence only address to Christians. I have never even read a note questioning the existing of 'god' of other religion. The questions on God should be applicable to all religions but why only the God of the Bible, Jesus is subject to such attack. For example, if God is so merciful, why He allows suffering? This question should be applicable to all religions not just in Christianity. (In fact, the Bible has the answer to this question - all suffering is because of man's evilness like pride, envy, covetousness, greed, self-centered, selfishness, hatred, revengfulness, etc.). Sorry to those Buddhists, can I also ask the same question: If Buddha is so good why can't he just let all people go to heaven? Why some have to be re-born as animals first? (This is just an illustration on my part that we can address this type of question to all religions but again my point is that Christianity is always being attacked on such questions but other religions seem to be able to get away with such questions. Again - thousand apologies to faith of other religions if my comment is offensive. I don't mean it but just to defend my faith as Christian and to illustrate that all the questions concern God like if God is so good, why He allows suffering; if God is so God why we have earthquake; if God is so God why some are born blind also apply to other religion faith.

you want to know why ? because no other religion collect money by walking around the table 3 times on every sunday and on top of that demand 10% of your pay ..and they got the cheek to tell ppl " money not important " . other religions just put a donation box ...

 

[commoner]

are you saying you cannot explain the inconsistencies of christianity? why don't you start a thread on buddhism/muslim/atheists inconsistencies...

besides telling people you cannot because his ways are higher than your ways, he works in mysterious ways, he has a plan for you to be revealed later, he loves you and die for you,,, answer them...

 

[commoner]

another inconsistency is

why God make the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th day? my question he worked for 6 days and stopped. Working for 6 days and rest on 7th day in human and God is tired and rested? God followed the human calender, with a 7 days week?

 

[Ash007]

I'll try and answer some of the question regarding Buddhism. I have very limited knowledge of it but I think I maybe able to point you to some insights in the "religion". Sorry if I can't answer all of them.

First of all, its a misconception that Buddha is "god" under Buddhism. Being a Buddha means you have reach an "enlightened" state. You have escaped the cycle of life and death. This is in essence one of the four noble truths in Buddhism. In fact, Sidartha, the current Buddha that most worship, acknowledged that others before him have attained this state but they were forgotten.

Many have the misconception that Buddhism is similar to monotheist religion. In my personal opinion, Buddhism is more a philosophy rather then a religion.

The four noble truth.
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html

1. Life means suffering.

2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

4. The path to the cessation of suffering.


I think if you went to site above it would explain each with regards to Buddhism. So yes, I believe that it is different to Christianity with that regards.

As an example, a Christian once asked me how does Buddhism explain about creation. The creation of the universe etc, after asking around for a while, I found that the answer is simply, Buddhism don't explain it at all. The world existed as it is today because it has. There are no creation myth/scriptures etc in Buddhism to say how the world is formed. With that regards, Buddhism would acknowledged how the world is formed if a scientific prove is given I suppose.

I hope you don't try and lump all religion together. Its not religion that I'm against. I personally find all religion to be intriguing. Its the idiots that use religion in an organised way that I find appalling.

I find it very interesting that questions concerning God and His existence only address to Christians. I have never even read a note questioning the existing of 'god' of other religion. The questions on God should be applicable to all religions but why only the God of the Bible, Jesus is subject to such attack. For example, if God is so merciful, why He allows suffering? This question should be applicable to all religions not just in Christianity. (In fact, the Bible has the answer to this question - all suffering is because of man's evilness like pride, envy, covetousness, greed, self-centered, selfishness, hatred, revengfulness, etc.). Sorry to those Buddhists, can I also ask the same question: If Buddha is so good why can't he just let all people go to heaven? Why some have to be re-born as animals first? (This is just an illustration on my part that we can address this type of question to all religions but again my point is that Christianity is always being attacked on such questions but other religions seem to be able to get away with such questions. Again - thousand apologies to faith of other religions if my comment is offensive. I don't mean it but just to defend my faith as Christian and to illustrate that all the questions concern God like if God is so good, why He allows suffering; if God is so God why we have earthquake; if God is so God why some are born blind also apply to other religion faith.

 

[Goodnews]

are you saying you cannot explain the inconsistencies of christianity? why don't you start a thread on buddhism/muslim/atheists inconsistencies...

besides telling people you cannot because his ways are higher than your ways, he works in mysterious ways, he has a plan for you to be revealed later, he loves you and die for you,,, answer them...

Giving 10% (or tithing) as what we Christains called is of free will. Like all worldly activities, when money is involved, inevitably, ugliness will surface out. No institution whether religious or secular can spare from it. It boils down to human evilness. True that there are seemingly 'inconsistencies' in some bible writings (or paradoxes), but there is only one and one message in the Bible: Man is sinful and God is holy. Man cannot see God because of sin and we need God to reconcile back to Him. This is done through the death of His Son, Jesus. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, this is the message, absolutely no contradiction.

I fully respect the faith of others so I will leave it to my fellow brothers and sisters to choose to believe in whatever they think it's right. But as Christians we just want to share with others about the love of our God.

Again, brother Commoner, since Jesus times, money has been the main cause of trouble. Jesus was very angry when He saw people doing business in the temple. He even overturned the tables, scolded the people and many of them were even religious leaders. I admit - there are churches preaching prosperity messages and the preachers will tell you that if you give x dollar God will reward with you 7 times. To begin with, are they really Christians? Jesus has said that when He comes the next time, many will cry out to Him, Lord Lord, I have done this, I have done that. But He is going to rebuke many of them and say to them, "Go away, you evil doers. I never knew you!"

Let's be fair to all religions, there are black sheep everywhere - in churches, in temples, in comercial organization, in governments, in charitable insitutions and sadly at home. We have read father disowned children and children disowned father - reason money. In the newspaper one or two days ago, a billionaire businessman was sentenced to death because he hired someone to kill his business partner because of money and business disputes. He is already a billionaire; what more does he want? The only hope we have is in God. But again, everyone has his own 'God'. Who is right and who is wrong? Which God is true and which God is false. Everything will depend on our heart. As for me, I have Jesus in my heart and He will always be in my heart. For me is very simple: I compare myself to the Bible teaching, of what I do now, of what I did in the past, of what are in my thoughts, I just feel many a times at great disgust at myself. Absolutely nothing good in me and I have to keep praying to Jesus please turn my heart and my mind and help me to think the way You want me to think and to do those things You want me to do. Needless to say, I fail every day but God's is good. He will pick me up and help me to start all over. I can hear His voice: son, don't be discouraged. I am with you, always!

 

[drifter]

free will donation must cap at 10% of your monthly pay ? thats why i say inconsistencies.

 

[commoner]

if you read the paaragraphs written by drifter, it was not about money about the inconsistencies.

he is questioning the bible, the controversies regarding "supposedly" omnipotent/omniscience and all-loving God.

my question to God is simple: why a loving God creates an "eternal" hell for someone who simply refuse to believe in jesus.... a petty God

 

[drifter]

if you read the paaragraphs written by drifter, it was not about money about the inconsistencies.

he is questioning the bible, the controversies regarding "supposedly" omnipotent/omniscience and all-loving God.

my question to God is simple: why a loving God creates an "eternal" hell for someone who simply refuse to believe in jesus.... a petty God

bro...dont need to explain so much ...hes having a blind faith that what i can say ...

 

[commoner]

when people are blind, we help them when we can,,,, cannot let the blind fall into the pit. Since they have potential to be good people to help the unfortunate, why not show them the better way. rather than feeding the church and pastors, how about feeding the poor and the others....

cheers

 

[drifter]

when people are blind, we help them when we can,,,, cannot let the blind fall into the pit. Since they have potential to be good people to help the unfortunate, why not show them the better way. rather than feeding the church and pastors, how about feeding the poor and the others....

cheers

these kind of ppl ..dont waste our time explaining to them ..they will never repent..i prefer doing the opps ..whack them until they wake up ... thats what im here for . we are doing mankind a big favour .

 

[neilgoose]

Thot I pen some of my thots on some of the comments made in the past few days here.

1.

im afraid they cant ...but yet they blindly believe . what is faith ? faith is a thing that dont need any answer even its bullshit ..

Faith is believing somethg which nobody can prove. Else it will be called fact. In fact science requires lots of faith too... maybe in a lesser degree than religions in general. There is no such thing to me as "blind faith" coz all faiths are pretty much, "blind".

2.

I find it very interesting that questions concerning God and His existence only address to Christians.

I think the reason is simple. Coz this forum has got quite a few Christians posting abt the religion. So the intended msg from non believers here in Sammyboy are to Christians and Christianity.

Atheist and agnostics will cleverly tell all Christians that they do not just reject Jesus as the saviour, they reject 10,000 other Gods too. So Christianity is just that 10,001th God that they reject amongst the other deities and Gods like Thors, Horus, GuanYin and the Islam God.

So pls do not take it personally that other people do not believe in your God. They also rejected thousands of other Gods.

3.

Sorry to those Buddhists, can I also ask the same question: If Buddha is so good why can't he just let all people go to heaven? Why some have to be re-born as animals first? I don't mean it but just to defend my faith as Christian

This is pretty appalling. Can the Christians here do some read up first before spouting nonsense on Buddhism?

4.

you want to know why ? because no other religion collect money by walking around the table 3 times on every sunday and on top of that demand 10% of your pay ..and they got the cheek to tell ppl " money not important " . other religions just put a donation box

Personally, I have no problem with this as long as the money is put into good use like helping the needy and less fortunate. The sad part is that probably much of this money is used to build an even bigger church, increase the payroll (to grow the church), and do God's work all within the church. Think about it, while the Christians sing about how much they love the Lord and how much the Lord love them, they shld consider the misfortune that falls on hundreds and thousands of people in vicinity outside the church. Seems like the Lord love only the fortunate ones who are able to give tithes?

5.

why God make the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th day? my question he worked for 6 days and stopped. Working for 6 days and rest on 7th day in human and God is tired and rested?

This is a petty question to ask a Christian. The best way to question a Christian who treat the Bible as unfalling and the word of God, is to question them on the numerous inconsistencies in the Bible.

6.

As an example, a Christian once asked me how does Buddhism explain about creation. The creation of the universe etc, after asking around for a while, I found that the answer is simply, Buddhism don't explain it at all. The world existed as it is today because it has. There are no creation myth/scriptures etc in Buddhism to say how the world is formed. With that regards, Buddhism would acknowledged how the world is formed if a scientific prove is given I suppose.

Yup, think Buddha didnt answer this question. If Buddhism has a answer to the question of who is the Creator, the answer will be "YOU YOURSELF". No God or divine being created the world, you did. You create the world around you. You create your own world, your own karma etc.

7.

Giving 10% (or tithing) as what we Christains called is of free will.

Free will is an oxymoron. The 2 words are opposite of each other.

8.

he is questioning the bible, the controversies regarding "supposedly" omnipotent/omniscience and all-loving God.

my question to God is simple: why a loving God creates an "eternal" hell for someone who simply refuse to believe in jesus.... a petty God

This to me, is a key question in Christianity anyone MUST ASK. Is the Judiah God all loving? I think I have the answer to this.

I urge all Christians to be "thinking followers"... not just a faith follower. For all you know, God in the end will reward "thinking and questioning believers" and frown on believers who are fervent ly believeing just because your best friends and the chick you fancy is a believer.

 

[jw5]

these kind of ppl ..dont waste our time explaining to them ..they will never repent..i prefer doing the opps ..whack them until they wake up ... thats what im here for . we are doing mankind a big favour .

My favourite inconsistency is not within the bible itself, but rather the way some self professed believers lead lives that are so inconsistent from the bible.

 

[IR123]

Giving 10% (or tithing) as what we Christains called is of free will.

Is it one of free will?

Two methods had been used - threats and carrots:

(1) if you do not give, you will be cursed

(2) 10% is your obligation; give more and the more you give, the more you will received. How can you expect to receive more when you give 10% and your brother gave 50%? Is this fair?​

The worse part is that many non-christians assume that all churches follow the same practice:

(i) 10% is tithing

(ii) they put either the fear of God into you or let your greed/kiasuness take over.


Many non-christians do not come to Christ because they cannot / do not / not willing to give that 10%. Because every time they go to their church, they are given the same message, their cell-group monitor their giving and their giving track-record is an indicator for many things including church leadership.

Given all these, is tithing a matter of 'free will'?


We are Christians. Let us call a spade a spade. A will that is forced or manipulated is NEVER FREE-WILL.

Thank God that this money attitude is not practise in some of the churches.

In a composite picture of the better practices amongst some churches, the pastors cannot decide on their own salary (this is one of the greatest source of corruption), give business to their favoured members, use the church money for their own needs. You find the pastors of such churches do not concentrate a lot on tithing. Instead they concentrate on telling the congregation to give as they are able, that God bless a cheerful giver, why regular giving to the church is needed as they have to meet expenses, give an audited account of the expenses, paste their monthly statement of income and expenditure on the church grounds to the public, that what is important is the relationship between you and God - that you decide how much you want to give, and faithfully give it. It can be a matter of secret between you and God, or it can e a matter of church record - the choice is yours.

In another picture of the practices amongst other churches - the pastors and cell-group leaders keep track of your tithing, tell you that all money must come to the church and it is the church leaders who will decide how it will be spent - not you, tell you that you can walk into the church premises and see the statement of account, but the door is locked and there are two layers of secured doors to get through, that you will be blessed according to how much you give, that you can demand from God a 30-fold, 60-fold increase - so now that you know this secret, are you willing to put in more money into the envelope? every eyes closed, every head bowed, those who want can now stuff more money into the envelope and only God will know.

And if you did not give as you pledged, you will be sent letters of demand.

As in all human matters, do not let the issue of tithing affect your relationship with God.

God is not a money God.

Neither does He reward you because you give 50% or give 100% of monies you stolen from your business partner. But if you give 50% cheerfully, from the bottom of your heart, because you love Him, not expecting any reward in return other than the pure joy of thanking Him with what you have - rest assured, He sees and your reward is assured.

(But if you believe that God must pay you back 3000% for the 50% you gave - according to your belief in that pastor's words, well, you can hope)

[Like all worldly activities, when money is involved, inevitably, ugliness will surface out. No institution whether religious or secular can spare from it. It boils down to human evilness.

We are called to test all spirits.

If there are ugliness in the church, within limits, we can either stay to make it better or move to a better church and make it the best church for us.

 

[IR123]

Finally for the few of you who are bothered by the inconsistencies in scriptures, rest assured that there are no inconsistencies at all.

What you need to do is to ask yourself if these inconsistencies are overweighed by the consistencies in the Bible.

Find your own answers.

Because you have not believed in the answers given to you by others in the past.

 

[commoner]

Finally for the few of you who are bothered by the inconsistencies in scriptures, rest assured that there are no inconsistencies at all.

What you need to do is to ask yourself if these inconsistencies are overweighed by the consistencies in the Bible.

HUH? no inconsistencies or consistencies outweigh inconsistencies? Make up your mind

Also since you say there is no inconsistency, all I have to prove is just 1 inconsistency to debunk the bible is infallible.

 

[IR123]

Finally for the few of you who are bothered by the inconsistencies in scriptures, rest assured that there are no inconsistencies at all.

What you need to do is to ask yourself if these inconsistencies are overweighed by the consistencies in the Bible.

HUH? no inconsistencies or consistencies outweigh inconsistencies? Make up your mind

Also since you say there is no inconsistency, all I have to prove is just 1 inconsistency to debunk the bible is infallible.

Commoner, whatever you believe or do not believe, the benefits or consequences are yours, only yours and truly yours.

Now, if you believe that there are inconsistencies in the Bible and THEREFORE you choose not to believe Christ, that is your choice.

Also, if you choose to blaspheme against God, that is also your choice.

However be warned that there is a price to pay for your particular type of choices. And that is eternal damnation.

Whether you want to believe that is also your choice.

If your choice happened to be wrong, then you will face Judgment.

On the Day of Judgment, don't go whining that no one tell you otherwise.