Evidence for God from Science

Hey guys I have a real hardened agnostic friend at school named Vincent who I want to answer a series of questions for to get him thinking. He says he is good at analyzing things and he has been recently calling the bible archaic and stuff like that. I need your help to consolidate pieces of wisdom and evidence to effectively answer this question. He said he would be happy if I brought any material to discuss with him and if he replies.
I will post it to you guys.

What gives credence to the idea that the Old testament has a divine touch whereas all other ancient story texts are false?

Give it your best.

wrain62 wrote:Hey guys I have a real hardened agnostic friend at school named Vincent who I want to answer a series of questions for to get him thinking. He says he is good at analyzing things and he has been recently calling the bible archaic and stuff like that. I need your help to consolidate pieces of wisdom and evidence to effectively answer this question. He said he would be happy if I brought any material to discuss with him and if he replies.
I will post it to you guys.

Why do we think the Old testament has a divine touch whereas all other ancient story texts are false?

Give it your best.

Fulfillment of prophecy.

Byblos wrote:Fulfillment of prophecy.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibletru.html

Anything to add to this page?

I think Josh McDowell does a fine job of consolidating the arguments and evidence to answer these questions, in "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict." The negative is that they are in more of a text book format. (Not a negative for me.) His book deals with the other more basic defenses of the OT, and then deals with the prophetic in quite a bit of detail. I would say exhaustive.

The answer is that without the Bible, God's revelation of Himself, we would not be able to know anything in a meaningful way. Ask him on what authority he will call Scripture archaic? Somewhere in the discussion, he will reveal his own ultimate authority and basis for knowledge. Should be easy pickings from there.

puritan lad wrote:The answer is that without the Bible, God's revelation of Himself, we would not be able to know anything in a meaningful way. Ask him on what authority he will call Scripture archaic? Somewhere in the discussion, he will reveal his own ultimate authority and basis for knowledge. Should be easy pickings from there.

Does that not work both ways? If the bible is not God's revalation of himself, or not a particularly special revelation, then somewhere in the discussion it's on your authority to assign the notion, whichseems frankly ridiculous to me, that without it we would not be able to know anything in a meaningful way.

Proinsias wrote:

puritan lad wrote:The answer is that without the Bible, God's revelation of Himself, we would not be able to know anything in a meaningful way. Ask him on what authority he will call Scripture archaic? Somewhere in the discussion, he will reveal his own ultimate authority and basis for knowledge. Should be easy pickings from there.

Does that not work both ways? If the bible is not God's revalation of himself, or not a particularly special revelation, then somewhere in the discussion it's on your authority to assign the notion, whichseems frankly ridiculous to me, that without it we would not be able to know anything in a meaningful way.

If "Basis for knowledge" = "Philosophy" = "Worldview", it seems to make total sense.

To clarify,

Christians know that the Bible is God's Word because God has revealed that to us. God's revelation (both natural and special) is the only valid source of knowledge. Of course, unbelievers (of all sorts) reject revelational epistemology, and thus are limited to either empiricism, idealism, or rationalism, neither of which can account for objective knowledge (idealists, in theory, don't even believe in objective knowledge. In practice, they can't help themselves).

In short, the unbeliever, because he rejects revelational epistemology, has no basis by which he can claim to know anything.

wrain62 wrote:Hey guys I have a real hardened agnostic friend at school named Vincent who I want to answer a series of questions for to get him thinking. He says he is good at analyzing things and he has been recently calling the bible archaic and stuff like that. I need your help to consolidate pieces of wisdom and evidence to effectively answer this question. He said he would be happy if I brought any material to discuss with him and if he replies.
I will post it to you guys.

What gives credence to the idea that the Old testament has a divine touch whereas all other ancient story texts are false?

Give it your best.

It's story of redemption, Christ (or G-d) dieing for His bride in order to re-unite the 12 tribes of Israel back to His house of Israel.

In a nutshell..

The earth's crust is archaic but we still walk on it and it still holds us up. The fact that something is old has no bearing on whether it is true or not. Archaic in that context is not a criticism, it's an indication of the mindset of the one looking for reasons to discredit something without doing the hard work of examining it and suspending judgment until that work is done.

Canuckster1127 wrote:The earth's crust is archaic but we still walk on it and it still holds us up. The fact that something is old has no bearing on whether it is true or not. Archaic in that context is not a criticism, it's an indication of the mindset of the one looking for reasons to discredit something without doing the hard work of examining it and suspending judgment until that work is done.

Okay. So itis essentially a fallacy to discredit a work simply because it is archaic.

Points in the thread to answer the question so far:

Canuckster1127 wrote:The earth's crust is archaic but we still walk on it and it still holds us up. The fact that something is old has no bearing on whether it is true or not. Archaic in that context is not a criticism, it's an indication of the mindset of the one looking for reasons to discredit something without doing the hard work of examining it and suspending judgment until that work is done.

Fallacy to critisize because of age.

Gman wrote:It's story of redemption, Christ (or G-d) dieing for His bride in order to re-unite the 12 tribes of Israel back to His house of Israel.

In a nutshell..

40 Authors over a period of more than a thousand years tell one story about the unifying(or communifying) covenant between Isreal(all mankind as well?) and God.

puritan lad wrote:The answer is that without the Bible, God's revelation of Himself, we would not be able to know anything in a meaningful way. Ask him on what authority he will call Scripture archaic? Somewhere in the discussion, he will reveal his own ultimate authority and basis for knowledge. Should be easy pickings from there.

His basis for knowing anything would probably not be reliable, but I am having a hard time understanding. Explain more about the nature of this objective knowledge from God and its relationship with the bible.

jlay wrote:I think Josh McDowell does a fine job of consolidating the arguments and evidence to answer these questions, in "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict." The negative is that they are in more of a text book format. (Not a negative for me.) His book deals with the other more basic defenses of the OT, and then deals with the prophetic in quite a bit of detail. I would say exhaustive.

Defense of the validity and special meaning of the prophesy and history, perfect.


Any comparison works with the old testament vs. other mythologies? Archeological confirmations I can find online here and other places?

Anything you want to bolster or add I would be grateful for. Thank you guys.

wrain62 wrote:

Gman wrote:It's story of redemption, Christ (or G-d) dieing for His bride in order to re-unite the 12 tribes of Israel back to His house of Israel.

In a nutshell..

40 Authors over a period of more than a thousand years tell one story about the unifying(or communifying) covenant between Isreal(all mankind as well?) and God..

Yup..

My response to what you all have said...

Fulfillment of prophecy? I'd like to see that. And, if indeed that makes the Bible perfect, why isn't Nostradomisity the ultimate truth? And saying your prophecies are "special" doesn't really hold water either...because everyone says that about their predictions.

Because God told us it was true: Well, Zeus "told" the Greeks he was real...Almost every religion says somewhere that it's teachings/stories are true because some divine entity said so. and they could equally claim that because they believe their God/Gods are superior, that their revelation is best. So that argument is kind of flat. And, for the record, barring any of you being the pope, God did not reveal the Bible's truth to you, he did so (according to the Bible) to long-dead people. The archaic argument is really only applicable here because you, just like every other religion, can't actually say your deity walked up to you and told you so, he did so to the people who wrote the Bible.

Saying it's a brilliant story of redemption and saving humanity is cool, but there are lots of ancient stories about that (many older than the Bible) that you can point to as well, so again this doesn't say anything about Christianity, just that it's stories sound similar to a ton of stories from the ancient world.

The point about us knowing nothing without the Bible is absurd...We knew and learned lots before it and lots afterward too...but it's not all because of the Bible. Are you saying everything prior to the Bible was meaningless knowledge? Yes, Christianity led to some cool advancements in art, literature, etc. but the entirety of our knowledge of existence is not meaningless without Christianity.

Not saying there aren't points out there to back up your idea, but these are my counters to what's here. I guess it just boils down to you guys are saying that your Bible is "special" compared to everything else despite having nearly equal parts...It's just that you can't argue that logically because it can be countered with every other religion throughout history. So on those points, I can see your friend winning that battle at least.