Penn & Teller :wub:! The Bible

[Helm]

Some good points on the Bible raised there, along with a couple of interesting things I didn't know about before, there was apparently more than one guy at the time who did the healing the sick and resurrection from the dead trick.

[Machiavelli25]

Can you summarize what they are arguing? I don't have time to watch those videos, and can't anyway on this computer.

[Helm]

"Penn and Teller are magicians who have a hit TV show called “” on Showtime. In the show they mock, criticize and point out common misconceptions held traditionally by others. I do not have showtime at home but I have watched some of their videos on you tube and they were informative, not to mention hilarious. If you have Netflix then you can watch some of their episodes on dvd too.
Here’s one of their episodes (in 3 parts) in which they make fun of the bible and points out to its logical fallacies. There are tons of such logical fallacies in every religious text (why you ask? because these crappy pieces of literature were all written by semi-literate charlatans pretending to be God!!) and a half-hour show can only point to so many. Although we are grateful that some brave folks (and doubly brave if you are a critic of Islam) have taken the time and patience to point them out, there is no substitute for reading these texts and finding these dollops of pristine bovine deficate yourselves.

The Persons interviewed in these videos were
Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University
Michael Shermer, Director of Skeptic society
Some verses from the Bible as discussed in the videos
Exodus Chapter 21
Verse 7: “If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.
Exodus Chapter 35
Verse 2: “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.
Corinthians Chapter 11
Verse 14: “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him”
Leviticus Chapter 15
Verse 19-24: ‘When a woman has a discharge, if her discharge in her body is blood, she shall continue in her menstrual impurity for seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening. ‘Everything also on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean, and everything on which she sits shall be unclean. ‘Anyone who touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. ‘Whoever touches any thing on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. ‘Whether it be on the bed or on the thing on which she is sitting, when he touches it, he shall be unclean until evening. ‘If a man actually lies with her so that her menstrual impurity is on him, he shall be unclean seven days, and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean."

[basics]

" Some good points on the Bible raised there, along with a couple of interesting things I didn't know about before, there was apparently more than one guy at the time who did the healing the sick and resurrection from the dead trick."

Helm,

Your source can verify these things? Sorcery was quite an art then so perhaps it was them that used tricks?

Look, I personally have seen arthritic hands being corrected by the power of prayer. That was no trick. I saw a young female child whose squint eyes had been corrected by the power of prayer. That was no trick. I had a friend, a Nimrod Pilot, who related to me how on takeoff all his systems shut down including the engines. At the calling out of the name of Jesus, that He made all things, the systems came back on as did the engines. This being verified to me by another of the flight crew. That was no trick.

I have gone miles with no petrol registering and once in the middle of the night when I did run out a simple prayer for the liquid brought within minutes a man who just happened to have a jerry canfull and who gave me it although I at that precise time had no monet to pay for it. He left me his address and when I got some dough I popped it in his letterbox. These were no tricks. Oh it's easy to mock God and the Scriptures when one doesn't know the power of God but it is that power we who do see in action all the time.

[Helm]

Helm,

Your source can verify these things? Sorcery was quite an art then so perhaps it was them that used tricks?

Look, I personally have seen arthritic hands being corrected by the power of prayer. That was no trick. I saw a young female child whose squint eyes had been corrected by the power of prayer. That was no trick. I had a friend, a Nimrod Pilot, who related to me how on takeoff all his systems shut down including the engines. At the calling out of the name of Jesus, that He made all things, the systems came back on as did the engines. This being verified to me by another of the flight crew. That was no trick.

I have gone miles with no petrol registering and once in the middle of the night when I did run out a simple prayer for the liquid brought within minutes a man who just happened to have a jerry canfull and who gave me it although I at that precise time had no monet to pay for it. He left me his address and when I got some dough I popped it in his letterbox. These were no tricks. Oh it's easy to mock God and the Scriptures when one doesn't know the power of God but it is that power we who do see in action all the time.

If all that's true why would he help some people who ask for his help some of the time and not everyone all of the time? Why help out someone running low on fuel in a car and not say someone of dying of cancer?

[Keravnos]

If all that's true why would he help some people who ask for his help some of the time and not everyone all of the time? Why help out someone running low on fuel in a car and not say someone of dying of cancer?

As is mentioned in the Bible...

You were upset about this little plant, something for which you have not worked nor did you do anything to make it grow. It grew up overnight and died the next day. Should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!

(Jonah 4:9-11)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah

What the story of Jonah from the Bible seems to indicate to me is that we can't ever presume to know what God's will is.
---------------------------

God sent Jonah to save Nineveh and after a lot of pain, doubt and suffering in Jonah's part, he did succeed in saving Nineveh. As the Good Book says...120.000 people (and their livestock) are more important to the wishes of one man. Jonah understood this, and even as he did understand it, he did complain about his own suffering because of the heat, asking that his life be taken away.

I think this is a very good example on our own failings as mere mortal men. We would put our own suffering and misery above that of the others, the vast majority of people that God has always been trying to save. Even Prophet Jonah who accomplished to save Nineveh through the Will and Words of the Lord, when he found himself in a very difficult situation, even he who should know better, put his own suffering in front of all the others. Hence what LORD God in his infinite wisdom had to reply the following...

You were upset about this little plant, something for which you have not worked nor did you do anything to make it grow. It grew up overnight and died the next day. Should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!

(Jonah 4:9-11)

I guess we are all built that way. Our own selves before anything else. Yet, LORD God tries as He always has to save as many of us as possible. To lead us to a better world through our own actions, which should be based on the words of the Prophets, Jesus Christ and His Apostles. Each one of us is too weak, too frail, too insignificant. Yet, the whole of us, we are the crowning achievement of the legacy of God's creation. We must act like it, for once.

[Phier]

Half an hour is way to short of a time to do a show on the bible.

They barely scratched the surface.

[Don in the North]

" Some good points on the Bible raised there, along with a couple of interesting things I didn't know about before, there was apparently more than one guy at the time who did the healing the sick and resurrection from the dead trick."

Helm,

Your source can verify these things? Sorcery was quite an art then so perhaps it was them that used tricks?

Look, I personally have seen arthritic hands being corrected by the power of prayer. Psychological pretence. this was a trick, a trick of the mind. i guarantee if this person concerned isnt dead their arthritis has returned. That was no trick. I saw a young female child whose squint eyes had been corrected by the power of prayer. omg i said out loud as i read this. child wanted attention and it got it.
simple. That was no trick. I had a friend, a Nimrod Pilot, who related to me how on takeoff all his systems shut down including the engines. At the calling out of the name of Jesus, that He made all things, the systems came back on as did the engines. This being verified to me by another of the flight crew. That was no trick.drunken banter. every year thousands of planes experience this due to maintanence ineptitude, his shouting out jesus was purely coincidence. if he hadve followed his pilot training like every other level headed pilot he wouldve stabilized the aircraft for a crash landing and the power wouldve been restored at the exact same time anyway.
pure coincidence being subjugated towards a religious conversion/righteousness point of view.

I have gone miles with no petrol registering and once in the middle of the night when I did run out a simple prayer for the liquid brought within minutes a man who just happened to have a jerry canfull and who gave me it although I at that precise time had no monet to pay for it. honestly another coincidence. i dare you to drive out again without any fuel and this time pray for someone to come by.
i guarantee the person who comes by will have to give you a lift to the petrol station, but i digress you will probably consider their mere arrival an act of god.
this is not the case, you stay on the road and someone will eventually drive past.
fact.
He left me his address and when I got some dough I popped it in his letterbox. These were no tricks. Oh it's easy to mock God and the Scriptures when one doesn't know the power of God but it is that power we who do see in action all the time.

its easy to claim to 'know' the power of god when in all honesty, you are just seeing what you want to see in your examples.

Interesting, they tell you that the Bible is bull, but they cannot disprove the existence of Jesus. Fail.

interestingly, religious people will tell you jesus did exist, but they cannot prove he existed because there is zero evidence.
turin shroud - 12th century french crusader
original cross - mysteriously gone
tomb of jesus - an elaborate and expensive fake. admitted fake

and finally, the romans kept record of everyone they crusified.
interestingly, jesus' name is not present nor mentioned.

so perhaps they dont need to disprove jesus' existance, because there is zero proof that he existed in first place?
and no.
the bible is not proof.

to illustrate my point on that, i have a read a book that claimed purple monkies lived on the moon.
the statement itself is several centuries old, but we know this isnt the case as we can see the moon, and there are no purple monkies living there

[Wilder]

interestingly, religious people will tell you jesus did exist, but they cannot prove he existed because there is zero evidence.

Oh dear, we're going down this road again...

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

interestingly, religious people will tell you jesus did exist, but they cannot prove he existed because there is zero evidence.

Garbage. There is not "zero" evidence at all. There is precisely about as much evidence as we would expect for a Jewish peasant preacher: ie not much, but enough. Josephus mentions the execution of Jesus' brother James, the same James that Paul mentions meeting. Non-existent people can't have brothers who get mentioned by historians and mentioned in letters. On top of that, Tacitus attributes Christianity to a "Christus" who he says was crucified by Pontius Pilate. And Tacitus was a very careful historian who didn't trust hearsay and checked his facts from the vast documentation of the Senate archives.

That alone is good enough evidence to support the idea that Jesus existed.

and finally, the romans kept record of everyone they crusified.

That's nonsense.

interestingly, jesus' name is not present nor mentioned.

Interestingly, none of those records has survived. NONE of them. So what the hell are you talking about?

so perhaps they dont need to disprove jesus' existance, because there is zero proof that he existed in first place?

See above. The evidence for his existence is clear. The other claims that Christianity makes about him, however, is a whole other kettle of fish ...

[Don in the North]

Garbage. There is not "zero" evidence at all. There is precisely about as much evidence as we would expect for a Jewish peasant preacher: ie not much, but enough. Josephus mentions the execution of Jesus' brother James, the same James that Paul mentions meeting. Non-existent people can't have brothers who get mentioned by historians and mentioned in letters. On top of that, Tacitus attributes Christianity to a "Christus" who he says was crucified by Pontius Pilate. And Tacitus was a very careful historian who didn't trust hearsay and checked his facts from the vast documentation of the Senate archives.

That alone is good enough evidence to support the idea that Jesus existed.



That's nonsense.



Interestingly, none of those records has survived. NONE of them. So what the hell are you talking about?



See above. The evidence for his existence is clear. The other claims that Christianity makes about him, however, is a whole other kettle of fish ...

are you ing me?
all of them are references to CHRISTIANITY.
not jesus himself.
tell me, how many of them actually say they saw him in person?
shook his hand?

i want to see hard evidence not words that can easily be manipulated, or their meanings altered (unintentionally) over time.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Oh dear, here we go ...

are you ing me?

Er, no.

all of them are references to CHRISTIANITY.
not jesus himself.

Try to pay attention. Look carefully and you'll see that I deliberately excluded the various references which are simply to Christianity and only mentioned the ones that are specifically about Jesus himself. Those are Josephus and Tacitus. Josephus (Antiquities, XX.9)mentions "James, brother of Jesus who was called Messiah", says that he was executed by the High Priest Ananus in AD 62. Christian sources also talk about James, Jesus' brother, being a leader of the Jesus sect in Jerusalem and being executed by the Temple priesthood. And Paul mentions meeting this same James when he met with the leaders of the Jerusalem community in the 50s AD. So how do you explain Jesus having a flesh and blood brother who was executed by the High Priest and who was met by Paul if Jesus didn't exist?

Tacitus also talks not simply about Christianity but also traces it back to a human founder who he calls "Christus". He says that he "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus" (Annals, XV.44). Tacitus specifically talks about how he hated historians who relied on hearsay and how he researched his work from documentary sources. He regularly refers to using documents and reports from the Senatorial archives in Rome and in the passage in question he mentions how he is taking his account of the Great Fire and its aftermath from written documentary source materials. So how do you explain a careful historian like Tacitus, who hated Christians and Christianity, suddenly taking their hearsay at face value on the question of their origins? This was a superstitious cult that he called "a most mischievous superstition .... evil, .... hideous and shameful". You're telling me that this historian who reviled hearsay and hated Christians suddenly decided to believe these "shameful" slaves and Jews rather sticking to his own policy of careful research?

You really haven't done your homework on this, have you?

tell me, how many of them actually say they saw him in person?
shook his hand?

Don't be absurd. By those ridiculous criteria virtually no-one in the ancient world existed. Don't try to raise the bar higher for Jesus than you would for any other ancient figure. Did Tactius see Boudicca in person? Did he shake Arminius' hand? Use your brain, please.

i want to see hard evidence not words that can easily be manipulated, or their meanings altered (unintentionally) over time.

Then I suggest you steer well clear of the study of ancient history then sonny, because these kinds of fleeting references written long after the fact are all we have to work with for most ancient historical figures. Including many who were much more prominent than some dusty peasant Jewish preacher from the back of nowhere. Guess how many contemporary accounts we have of Hannibal, for example. Let me help you - NONE. Now if we have none for the man who was Rome's most terrible military threat, how stupid is it of you to expect something as ludicrous as "hard evidence" for some preacher from Galilee?

You clearly haven't thought this through rationally. Try that sometime.

[gambit]

Maybe they didnt call out "Jesus" quick enough.

[MaximiIian]

Good and interesting criticism. Seen the videos before.
Though it's really only relevant in regards to taking the Bible as inerrant Serious Business. Most Christians, as far as I'm aware, don't.

[jankren]

As if anyone gave a damn about the Bible anymore.

[Keravnos]

As if anyone gave a damn about the Bible anymore.

Some people do.

[jankren]

Some people do.

Its very hard to find someone who knows much about the Bible in USA these days.

[Wolfgang von Zweibrücken]

Its very hard to find someone who knows much about the Bible in USA these days.

You'd be surprised.

[Don in the North]

You'd be surprised.

like perhaps ted haggard, who admitted to breaking his own religions laws , repeatedly, while he was at the head of it?
surely if he knew and understood the bible, the whole predictament wouldnt have happened in the first place? isnt it his job to know and understand the whole bible?
hes american right?

[Gromovnik]

I wonder if they have the balls to mock some other books...