[Debate] - Religion

[sunzfan]

...well first of all, as I did mention before it was translated and passed down in much different manor than history books. Translators who mistook even 1 word would begin again.

...second, the bible itself speaks for not only its accuracy but it's divine nature. Long before "science" could prove these things, the bible said:

- The shape of the earth
"He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.

- The earth is suspended in nothing
"He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing" (Job. 26:7, NIV).

- The Stars are Innumerable
"He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars -- if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be" (Gen. 15:5, NIV).

The Existence of Valleys in the Seas
"The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of breath from his nostrils" (2 Sam. 22:16, NIV).

The Existence of Springs and Fountains in the Seas
"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month -- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened" (Genesis 7:11, NIV). See also Gen. 8:2; Prov. 8:28.

The Existence of Water Paths (Ocean Currents) in the Seas
"O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!...When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,...You made him [man] ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet...the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas" (Psalm 8:1,3,6,8, NIV).

The Hydrologic Cycle
"He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight" (Job. 26:8, NIV).
"He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind" (Job. 36:27-28, NIV)
"The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again (Ecclesiastes 1:6-7, NIV).

The Concept of Entropy
"In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded" (Psalm 102:22-26, NIV).

The Nature of Health, Sanitation, and Sickness
The listing for this section is too large for this page. But the scriptural references are Leviticus 12-14.

How would this knowledge be even remotly possible??!!

next...

there are thousands more New Testament Greek manuscripts than any other ancient writing. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure. That is an amazing accuracy. In addition there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000.

The fact is that the Bible has not been rewritten. Take the New Testament, for example. The disciples of Jesus wrote the New Testament in Greek and though we do not have the original documents, we do have around 6,000 copies of the Greek manuscripts that were made very close to the time of the originals. These various manuscripts, or copies, agree with each other to almost 100 percent accuracy. Statistically, the New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. That means that there is only 1/2 of 1% of of all the copies that do not agree with each other 100%. But, if you take that 1/2 of 1% and examine it, you find that the majority of the "problems" are nothing more than spelling errors and very minor word alterations. For example, instead of saying Jesus, a variation might be "Jesus Christ." So the actually amount of textual variation of any concern at all is extremely low. Therefore, we can say that we have an extremely accurate compilation of the original documents.