Scripture as bad evidence

Scripture as evidence?
Uh, no.

Written or inspired by god?
Firstly, scriptures are all written by Man. If you think god(s) wrote any of them personally, please go read up some history. Claims that they were inspired by god are unverifiable because (1) inspiration is subjective and (2) they are dead now, no one can check.

Like I said previously on the opening post to this series, evidence for god would be evidence of god manifesting. Scripture is poor evidence for any god simply because it is not necessarily the product of god.

This applies to all religions.


Since I have a tad bit more knowledge about the bible, I'll use it as the example.

The holy book of inconclusive authorship
If you still haven't realized, the bible is a collection of books. And for most parts, the authors are unknown.

For example, none of the old testament was written by Moses himself. They were likely to be at best hearsay written decades after the fact. Is hearsay reliable? After so many years, wouldn't embellishments inevitably occur?

Neither was the New Testament written by Jesus' actual disciples. The four gospels named after Jesus' disciples were written some 100-150 years after Jesus and his disciples were dead. They are second hand accounts. Where's the reliability in that?

What about the embellishments?
(Even it may adhere to the themes of the bible, is it still not an embellishment?)


If the bible is reliable, would you believe that claims of UFO abduction as well? After all, the claimants are alive and are first-hand accounts.


"Scientific" verses as proof of divinity
Seriously, no.

For every scientific truth in the bible, there is a couple of unscientific lie to complement. That is not proof of omniscient. If you're going to keep the hits and ignore the misses, you're cherrypicking your own damn holy book (big book of MCQ, eh?).

I've given an answer to such an argument previously, so I shall quote myself here:

Verses "hinting" scientific knowledge? Frankly, they are usually distorted or required extremely vague interpretations in order for the verse to make sense scientifically. Such "interpretations" have been done several times over by the devout looking for some anchor in reality for their beliefs. Just search Quranic science on Youtube and you probably get a dozen or more "examples".

For any verse to convince anyone that it hints scientific knowledge, it needs to be flat out obvious to anyone who reads it. And when I say scientific knowledge, I mean something big like a theory rather than a simple fact. Stuff like the "Earth is round" is barely substantial and hardly convincing. If a holy book have an entire chapter dedicated to the Atomic Theory, that would be convincing. However, I may not convert right away, more evidence would be required for a skeptic like me.

Not to mention, such bible science or quran science are usually made AFTER science itself have made the discovery. It is an dishonest attempt to frame the discovery to appear as though the "gods" got there first. It would be much more convincing if it was the holy books which prompted a research in science as opposed to framing the discovery as a religious idea after all the research was done.

However, that being said, evidence of god himself would be more convincing as opposed to hints of scientific knowledge in a 2000 year old book.

[Click here for original post]
[Take a look here (#699 & 700) if you're interested in some of the verses I've had to deal with]

Historicity Vs Divinity
Evidence that the events in the bible took place is not proof of god. Not even close.

First and foremost, let's deal with the old and ridiculous argument that goes: "The places in the bible are real - they prove that it all happened, god is real." Excuse me? That is evidence? By the same logic, we can deduce that Spiderman exist in real life because New York exist.

Events in the bible is not intrinsically linked to god. The wars and destruction, rapes and sacrifices, slavery and etc do not require god to occur. Ever noticed that all sides of a war say god is on their side but only the victorious "really" have god "on their side."

Even if historical evidence reveal that Jesus existed (although it is still highly debatable) but nothing has verified his divinity. The evidence where it really matters, that is Jesus' divinity, is lacking. Where is the extra-biblical evidence? The historians didn't bother writing about any of his miracles?


Canonization of the bible
The process that lead to the canonization of the bible is seemly arbitrary.

Check out a lecture on the history of the biblical canon
(by ACA board member, Matt Dillahunty - former fundamentalist christian)
► Powerpoint slides here
► Audio here

If you're skeptical of the source (and I think you might), then you can read this really long article.


For these reasons, I do not accept any holy book (in particular, the bible) as evidence of god. Furthermore, scripture is still poor evidence for any god even if accepted.