Fallacy

[sparklecat]

"If you don't believe all of the Bible is true, how can you believe parts of it are/If you don't trust the beginning, how can you trust what comes after/etc"


There must be a name for this. Or perhaps an example of exactly how we do this sort of thing every day? I'm getting rather tired of explaining why this statement is wrong...

[DarkMagician]

I think it's slippery slope.
If you discard a piece, what's to stop you from discarding it entirely.

[epepke]

Originally posted by sparklecat
"If you don't believe all of the Bible is true, how can you believe parts of it are/If you don't trust the beginning, how can you trust what comes after/etc"

There must be a name for this. Or perhaps an example of exactly how we do this sort of thing every day? I'm getting rather tired of explaining why this statement is wrong...

I think you're looking for "fallacy of comosition" and "fallacy of division," which are flip sides of the same coin. The fallacy of composition involves presuming that properties of the parts apply to the whole, and the fallacy of division involves presuming that properties of the whole apply to the parts.

Most people just use "fallacy of composition" to mean both.

[elliotfc]

Originally posted by DarkMagician
I think it's slippery slope.
If you discard a piece, what's to stop you from discarding it entirely.

Anything, really. I discard a banana peel, but eat the banana.

-Elliot

[Lord Emsworth]

Originally posted by Sparklecat
"If you don't believe all of the Bible is true, how can you believe parts of it are/If you don't trust the beginning, how can you trust what comes after/etc"

There must be a name for this. Or perhaps an example of exactly how we do this sort of thing every day? I'm getting rather tired of explaining why this statement is wrong...

It's a bit tricky since these are questions, so the speaker doesn't really make a statement. But anyway the first question seems to be founded on the assumption that either all in the Bible is true or all is false. This would be a false dichotomy.

[c4ts]

It's a double fallacy. The false dichomoty creates a slippery slope.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Sparklecat,
It looks like a false dichotomy, just as Lord Emsworth says. Perhaps you could point out to your opponent that there is another option:putting more trust in the account given in the Bible where it can be independently corroborated, and less where it cannot.
Regards.

PS Like the avatar! I never knew cats could look smug.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by c4ts
It's a double fallacy. The false dichomoty creates a slippery slope.
Are you sure it isn't the false dichotomy and the banana peel that causes the slippery slope?

However, in a special case, this argument has merit, and that is where the Bible believer has stated that the Bible is the inerrant work of God. In that case, a single instance of a mistake is enough to disprove biblical inerrancy. It doesn't appear that Sparklecat is presupposing such a thing.

[elliotfc]

Originally posted by Tricky

Are you sure it isn't the false dichotomy and the banana peel that causes the slippery slope?

However, in a special case, this argument has merit, and that is where the Bible believer has stated that the Bible is the inerrant work of God. In that case, a single instance of a mistake is enough to disprove biblical inerrancy. It doesn't appear that Sparklecat is presupposing such a thing.

Unless the errors are not really errors; i.e., what we call errors were really intended by God to be there.

Not that I hold the above sentiment as a personal belief. Our human standards of error might be irrelevant.

Just a thought.

-Elliot

[max]

It is a long time since I read the bible but I vaguely remember that right at the end it says that the book is made up of God's word and no word should be added nor taken away. Therefore it leads the reader to believe that all of it is God's word.
My own opinion is that the book is a record of some instances over a period of two or three hundred years. It is not a full and comprehensive record of the times. Jesus is portrayed as some sort of angelic being when in fact he was quite a rebel, no not a rebel, I can't think of the word.....rather like our Arthur Scargill. A political figure purely for the worker and against establishments.
Nothing is told in the bible about that side of him. The incident whereby he tips over the stalls of the people selling their wares in the synogue is written as though he was offended that it was happening in his father's house, when he was really getting at the Romans and their occupation there.
Another point is that God never spoke, he can't he is in spirit form. if he exists at all.
I believe,therefore, that it is all written and made up by man.
If one believes that the prophets of that time had dreams whereby God sent messages, then one would have to believe that those kind of dreams (from the other side) still occur today. On this forum,however, there are few who will accept that.

[elliotfc]

Originally posted by max
The incident whereby he tips over the stalls of the people selling their wares in the synogue is written as though he was offended that it was happening in his father's house, when he was really getting at the Romans and their occupation there.

In the temple? The moneychangers? What did that have to do with the Romans?

Jesus had basically nothing to see to the Romans. Just look at his "dialogue" with Pontius Pilate. If Jesus was aout getting at the Romans, surely he would have vented right about then.

Another point is that God never spoke, he can't he is in spirit form. if he exists at all.

Right, which is why the Bible can't be the literal, hand-written words of God. I admire the spirit and spunk of the Revelation writer. He meant well, and he did the best he could, and I think he was inspired by God, and he no doubt felt he was inspired by God.

I believe,therefore, that it is all written and made up by man.

I've got this book that I'm working on, the working title is "Why didn't Jesus write the Bible?" Of course men wrote the Bible, that is indisputable. God had one chance to write the Bible, that would have been during the lifetime of Jesus. And Jesus didn't write the Bible. I understand the spirit/sentiment of "God wrote the Bible", but it isn't literally true, and a literalist Bible believer should be able to understand that. Sigh.

If one believes that the prophets of that time had dreams whereby God sent messages, then one would have to believe that those kind of dreams (from the other side) still occur today. On this forum,however, there are few who will accept that.

No. You could believe that messages/visions ended at any time. If they come from God, it would be God's perogative when they happen and to whom.

-Elliot

[Ruby]

Originally posted by sparklecat
"If you don't believe all of the Bible is true, how can you believe parts of it are/If you don't trust the beginning, how can you trust what comes after/etc"


There must be a name for this. Or perhaps an example of exactly how we do this sort of thing every day? I'm getting rather tired of explaining why this statement is wrong...

Having just recently come out of Christianity, it has taken me awhile to accept the bible as myth. In fact, even though I find the bible full of contradictions and fallacies, I still wonder if there are some truths in it....stories that have been stretched. On the whole, I do think that most of the bible is myth.....it has to be. It does not add up and it does not work.

I've had the same question you posted, thrown at me many times...not so much now...but when I still felt some of the bible was really true. It did frustrate me...but it gave me pause. Still, I have no problem believing that a grain of salt of truth is in the bible....as I can almost any holy book. That's probably one reason I am a Unitarian!!





:)

[Dorian Gray]

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#bifurcation

The Fallacy of Composition is to conclude that a property shared by a number of individual items, is also shared by a collection of those items; or that a property of the parts of an object, must also be a property of the whole thing. Examples:

"The bicycle is made entirely of low mass components, and is therefore very lightweight."

"A car uses less petrochemicals and causes less pollution than a bus. Therefore cars are less environmentally damaging than buses."

You could remove everything from the Bible except the phrase admonishing you not to remove anything, and it would have as much credibility.

What are the books that were taken out of the Bible already? I haven't managed to come across them.

[sparklecat]

*grins* So in other words its a whole mass of fallacies.

Thanks for the advice on how to address it. Yes, I get this from those who say the Bible is inerrant, when I say I believe some is in error.


Lord Muck O Gentry- Good way of putting it; concise. I get a bit frustrated after 1/2 hour discussions on the matter where I'm trying to say basically the same thing. Oh, and thanks, I like my avatar too :D

[epepke]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray
What are the books that were taken out of the Bible already? I haven't managed to come across them.

You could look at the Jerusalem Bible to find the books that were taken out for the Protestant Bibles. It's also quite a nice translation; I think J.R.R. Tolkien worked on it.

For the rest, there's a book called The Gnostic Gospels that has some of them. The Gospel of Thomas is most interesting, as it is the only Gospel claimed to have been written during Jesus' lifetime.

[elliotfc]

Originally posted by epepke


You could look at the Jerusalem Bible to find the books that were taken out for the Protestant Bibles. It's also quite a nice translation; I think J.R.R. Tolkien worked on it.

For the rest, there's a book called The Gnostic Gospels that has some of them. The Gospel of Thomas is most interesting, as it is the only Gospel claimed to have been written during Jesus' lifetime.

I think the dates are around 55-60 AD, an internet search would come up with that information. Mark is usually dated around 65-70 AD.

-Elliot

[Keneke]

Originally posted by max
It is a long time since I read the bible but I vaguely remember that right at the end it says that the book is made up of God's word and no word should be added nor taken away.

That line comes from the "Book" of Revelations, and it is not meant to be applied to the rest of the Bible. The collection of all the different books into one Bible came later.

[max]

doh.......nearly 63 and still thinking it referred to the whole book!!!:o