Actually, the words of those friends are canon - it's part of the canon, as Job is canon for Evangelical Christians. God chastising the friends is also part of canon, given that God chastises them in Job.

This perfectly displays why religious doctrine completely fails at falsification.

Does it ever bother you that know one can call your beliefs into question?

Are you comfortable in the fact that you are your own justification?

Being an evangelist, how can you justify proselytisation when your own beliefs are inherently subjective and impervious to argument?

He points this out in his treatment of the bible. Does the bible seem wrong? Human error! Does the bible seem right? Its God of course!

He even goes so far as to say that God will let us know some things, but won't let us solve other mysteries. If this isn't the biggest intellectual cop-out, I don't know what is: "If something makes sense, run with it; if something doesn't make sense, run with it."

I'm not sure what being an Evangelical and proselytizing people has to do with reconciling certain scripture passages. But, to humor you, considering that I believe Hell is a real place, as is Heaven, conversion to Christianity is the only way for salvation, according to my beliefs. Conversion of the heart is required. In the same way as, I'm sure, you wouldn't allow a drowning family member to die, I wouldn't let a family member go to Hell, as I see it (assuming you can swim).

What's more, I'm not sure how justifying myself came into it... I was talking about reconciling scripture passages with the whole of scripture.

Here is my point:

It is a matter of subjective faith or knowledge that you accept the bible as being completely correct, and this particular understanding is the basis of your belief in God. I am having a difficult time imagining any other manner by which someone can verify the contents of the bible or any other religion for that matter.

If this is the case, and you understand that your belief is founded in your own subjective experience, how can you expect anyone to want to listen to you proselytize or relate at all to what you are saying.

After all, is there any amount of proselytizing I could do to turn you against your Christian beliefs?

I'm not sure what being an Evangelical and proselytizing people has to do with reconciling certain scripture passages. But, to humor you, considering that I believe Hell is a real place, as is Heaven, conversion to Christianity is the only way for salvation, according to my beliefs. Conversion of the heart is required. In the same way as, I'm sure, you wouldn't allow a drowning family member to die, I wouldn't let a family member go to Hell, as I see it (assuming you can swim).

There are no mistakes in scripture. All of it is truth, in so much as showing people a true thing.

What causes us to question some parts of the bible, human fallibility, is a common characteristic of the entire bible. If you say that we shouldn't take this part as complete truth because it was written by a person who could have erred, I can point to any part of the bible and make the same dismissal.

If you wish to compare it to Homeric works, treat it as such: fiction.

They may hold their studies to a far greater standard than me, but I do not believe anyone can hold their beliefs to as high a standard of justification and be religious or hold faith in scripture. I don't even know what standard of justification most theologians apply to their religious knowledge. It can't be consistent with any modern standard.

You talk down the bible so much that I wonder what you actually take from it. When you say that you "accept the whole book, cover to cover", do you simply accept it as classic literature?

I am convinced that this is a common trait in all religious doctrine. I try to be respectful to religious belief, but that only extends to the chance that religious belief can be founded completely subjectively and still be true.

What do you mean Heaven and Hell are real places? Can you give me some directions, I'm thinking of making a summer road trip. Thought I'd hit the hot spots and the shining cities. Would be a great trip before semester starts again.

Christianity is the only way to salvation? Who's Christianity? Yours or mine? Or someone else's Christianity?

What would a mistake in scripture look like? If we are going to say that scripture does not have any mistakes, we must know what such a mistake would look like.

Because you can't see it, it doesn't exist? I suppose that means that the South Pole doesn't exist. Or because you can't get directions to it, it doesn't exist? I suppose you would have said Troy didn't exist, before it was found in the 1870's. Arguing something doesn't exist because you can't see it is foolish. Certainly one could argue, "pink unicorns don't exist", since they can't be found. But, that is because the thing imagined is a physical thing. If that physical thing doesn't exist in the physical world, it is not real. Heaven is a spiritual thing. Just as I wouldn't argue that the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't real because you can't see it, you shouldn't argue against Heaven by lack of evidence.

You tell me. How can I speak for your Christianity?

I would say that the Bible is clear about salvation. The Christianity that is affirmed by that scripture would be the one that also achieves that salvation described.

I would say that a "mistake" in scripture would be a contradiction or an obviously false statement.

One of the early books considered for the scriptures was denied because it said that leopards can change their spots. In another place in scripture, it used the fact that leopards can not change their spots as evidence for a point. Thus, the two contradicted one another. That would be a "mistake". Obviously, a book containing mistakes would not be canon, if it also affirms that it is inerrant. One could argue that such scrutiny for the canon left the Bible without obvious mistakes. But I digress, my point is what a mistake would be in scripture.

Deuteronomy Chapter 13

1 All this word which I command you, that shall ye observe to do; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. 2 If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams--and he give thee a sign or a wonder (Preforms Miracles), 3 and the sign or the wonder come to pass (And his magic works), whereof he spoke unto thee--saying: 'Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them'; 4 thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God putteth you to proof, to know whether ye do love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 5 After the LORD your God shall ye walk, and Him shall ye fear, and His commandments shall ye keep, and unto His voice shall ye hearken, and Him shall ye serve, and unto Him shall ye cleave. 6 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken perversion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage, to draw thee aside out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee.

I see your point. However, you have to remember that what you are doing is applying your own idea of it being subjective to all religions. Isn't your idea of subjectivity also subjective? Where does this chain end?

On the other hand, is there anything I could do to turn you to my beliefs?

Anyways, this whole thing is off the subject. The question, I believe, was how Christians can permit such passages of scripture in their Holy Bible. Although the next step would be your questions of seeming circular arguments from God and the Bible both, but that ends in the same stalemate that's been going on for years.

But I suppose that's your ultimate point, isn't it? No new ground to gain, right?

I don't know if you are questioning whether truth is relative itself, but I found the idea of subjective religion in objective reason. I can argue about the truth of this topic.

My ideas of truth are rather convoluted, I will admit that. I kind of use a combination of correspondence, coherence, minimalist and consensus theories. The only modicum of truth we can achieve would be achieved between people concerning both the correspondence of statements and things and the coherence of ideas in a system of propositions. In other words, truth is based (generated might be a better term) in one person convincing another person that a statement corresponds with reality and makes sense with other knowledge.

Correspondence is established by testing, with the individual doing the convincing providing a method for the other to test and empirically verify the statement.

Since no religious proposition can be tested, religion as a whole fails my standards.

Then how do you explain extant contradictions?

I agree, Heaven is a spiritual thing. Which means it does not exist in reality; Heaven is language used to describe something that transcends language, the spiritual.

I really like the Flying Spaghetti Monster analogy. Seriously.

You're saying that reason is objective, but religion subjective? I suppose that means that everyone who reasons will reason the same? Or reach the same conclusions? Obviously that's not the case. Perhaps I'm not understanding what you're trying to say. Can you clarify?

I see the problem, now. Unfortunately, nothing can really be known as truth by your ideas, can they? Everything would go back to the senses, but how far can that take you? Aren't they as subjective as people's ideas?

If I convinced you of my ideas, wouldn't that make mine right? But if you convinced me of yours, yours would be right? I don't see how anything can fit your test.

Take the example of a man who wears a sweater that is half red and half blue. The half blue side is on the left, and as he passes people on the left, they see it as a blue sweater. On the right, conversely, is the red side, and as he passes people on the right, they see a red sweater. After the man walks away, the two groups of people begin talking, and realize that the other group has "misinterpreted" what color the sweater is. They begin to argue. The man is long gone, so they can never ask him for his answer.

Wouldn't you say that the group that convinces the other is right? Or, if they do not convince the other group, that idea fails the test? But what of the fact that in reality, the sweater is actually half blue and half red, and no one knows it but the man wearing it?

I would say there are none. We would start to fire back and forth with scripture that seems to contradict itself and my defense of it, but I am tired and still haven't finished my paper due Friday, and a book review due tomorrow on "the Problem of Evil", so I'll just say that it's been done for millenia, this argumentation about errors or mistakes in scripture and the justification of them.

Yes, I believe that the rules of reason are fairly standard to human understanding, but that does not imply that all will reach the same conclusions. It does mean that two individuals given a set of premises should reach the same conclusion. This has to do with the coherence portion of truth and knowledge; everybody has the same idea of the relationships "this makes sense" and "this doesn't make sense".

To say that everyone will reach the same "conclusion" (that isn't the best word but it works for the time being) would neglect the other portion: correspondence. Correspondence is established empirically, people can experience reality and verify whether a proposition corresponds to it.

Finally, while I take it that no one can have objective religious experience, I cannot deny the possibility of subjective religious experience.

Put another way, no person can say "Do you see this, this is evidence of God". A statement of this manner cannot be tested by another person, as it cannot possibly be found to be false. A person can, however, experience something, take it as evidence of God and be correct about it, even if it is as simple as feeling that God exists.

So religious truth can exist, it is simply relative only to the individual believer.

Ultimately this is an attempt to get around what is extreme skepticism about the relationship between human understanding and reality and the minimalist position that attributing truth to a statement really adds nothing to the statement. Like I said, it is convoluted.

As for your example, it would not be possible for consensus to be achieved without violating the correspondence test.

And by my estimation, the two of you could never reach a consensus.

Firstly, am I correct in saying that you believe the bible should be used as a moral reference rather than a religious reference, similar to Aesop's Fables?

As for my attacks on religion as a whole, I do not know what modern theory of truth would support the statement that any religious belief is true. Could you point one out?

The entire reason I brought up falsification is to point out that religious beliefs are inherently untestable. Belief that is actually untestable is rather flimsily held belief; would you not agree?

I would say there are none. We would start to fire back and forth with scripture that seems to contradict itself and my defense of it, but I am tired and still haven't finished my paper due Friday, and a book review due tomorrow on "the Problem of Evil", so I'll just say that it's been done for millenia, this argumentation about errors or mistakes in scripture and the justification of them.

I would say it transcends experience. I don't think that's the same as not existing in reality. Attributes of objects that exist beyond our empirical knowledge still exist in reality. I wonder if we're saying similar things?

Put another way, no person can say "Do you see this, this is evidence of God". A statement of this manner cannot be tested by another person, as it cannot possibly be found to be false. A person can, however, experience something, take it as evidence of God and be correct about it, even if it is as simple as feeling that God exists.

So religious truth can exist, it is simply relative only to the individual believer.

No. The Bible is a great moral reference, like Aesop's Fables, but the Bible goes deeper than Aesop's Fables. The Bible is a spiritual text.

You mean scientifically untestable. Religious beliefs most certainly can be tested. Most, however, cannot be tested, as yet, in a scientific context. And no, I would not agree that truth outside of science is flimsy. Science is wonderful, but science does not have the answer to every question in life.

Just like moral truth, eh?

Oh, and reason is not objective. Objectivity is an ideal that reason and science strive for but cannot achieve. It's good to try in some cases, again, logic and science are wonderful tools. But at the end of the day, everything in human experience is necessarily subjective.

No one can have objective religious experience, and no one can have objective experience period. It's impossible.

Probably, but there is an important distinction. Heaven and Hell are states of being. We are in Heaven and Hell right this very moment. Heaven and Hell, and the language around the terms, describe the psychological disposition of people - sin creates Hell, and living right creates Heaven.

Heaven and Hell are not like the South Pole, or a city we now call Troy, or even the Hitites. They are something like the mythological Troy. Heaven and Hell do not exist in reality as locations, but they exist within our minds and exist because of the way we live.

How can you make the case that the human race is deserving of salvation in any way, explictly doing so by a "works-based" method. I believe that it would substantially be more plausible to believe that an intercession must take place for salvation (concerning religions of theistic deity/deities).