h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"if 10 people read the same history book they will get 10 different ideas of what happened"



If 10 people read the same history book about, for instance, the outbreak of the second world war, I would respectfully suggest that they would NOT get 10 *significantly* different ideas of what happened. In fact, their ideas of what happened should agree in all important respects - they would agree that the war was declared by Churchill on September 3rd, 1939, against Germany, for specific reasons to do with the invasion of Poland, etc. They may, depending on *which* of several different accounts of the same history they read perhaps disagree about the *reasons* why things happened - but unless they're reading some discredited revisionist history book they will certainly agree on important facts like dates and locations of battles etc.

By contrast, even among Christians themselves there appears to be severe disagreement about whether certain events depicted in the Bible even happened AT ALL. This is a qualitatively different kind of unreliability.

"You know yourself when you read a novel a film plays itself out in your head and when you go to the flicks what you see there is never half as good as what you experienced when you read the novel"

I disagree. I found the films of the Lord of the Rings to be a great deal superior to the experience of reading the book, which I found plodding and dull.

"When I read it I visualize a sequence of events. When you read the same text you might visualize a completely different sequence of events."

COMPLETELY???

Hang on. That's a pretty wild statement you're making there. You're suggesting that you read, say "Jesus turned water into wine", and you visualise a totally different thing happening than I do?

What scope is there for varying interpretation there? To me, it's a pretty straightforward reporting of a purported fact - there was water in a jug, the guy performed a "miracle", there was wine in the jug. Job done.

What is being REPORTED is surely not open to "interpretation". What IS open to dispute is whether the report is accurate. You may think it is. I suggest that, since it reports a violation of some fairly well established laws of the universe, that it is not.

We are not disagreeing over the interpretation of the story - only whether it is accurate or not. Do you see the difference?

"even if there was a television crew an even if the miracles were actual physical events there would still be a difference of opinion. People would say this is a David Copperfield, or this is a Yuri Geller, and so on."

Again, I disagree.

IGNORANT people (I include myself in this - see below) might say "this is a David Copperfield". It is incredibly important, when evaluating whether a report of an event is accurate, to consider whether the observers are qualified to hold an opinion.

I have some experience in the performance of magic. I am aware of many of the techniques and mechanisms behind popular illusions. I am not, however, a professional conjuror. I am not, therefore, a reliable witness to an event which *claims* to be a "miracle", but which might be achievable by mere conjuring.

What would impress me, if "miracles" were real and not just wish-fulfillment fantasy, is if someone - anyone - could perform one that a professional conjuror could not see through. If someone, anyone, could perform one under controlled conditions, they could make a million dollars, today, from the James Randi Educational Foundation. To date, although the award has been available for over a decade, nobody has claimed it. This, to me, seems suggestive that miracles are not real, but are instead a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

"The plain truth of the matter is that everybody has to decide the these things for himself based on his own life experiences and his own spiritual experiences."

I have had no "spiritual experiences". Where does that leave me?

"There is in reality no such thing as your >>objective observer<<. In my posting above when I tried to play the role I couldn't come to it. It is impossible."

I did point out myself that the "objective observer" is as mythical as your god. It is an ideal one can strive towards. You seem to have given up.

But if you continue on that line of thinking, the logical conclusion is that you reject the existence of objective reality altogether. The only "reality" for you is your own experience, and anything you experience is as valid as anything else.

On that basis, how do you know I even exist...?

SoRB

Son of Roj, the Bible IS a collection of HISTORY BOOKS. We can't agree what it all means. We can't even agree what our own e-mails mean. We can't agree on almost anything. We can only agree to differ.
People who read your WW11 History Book may not conclude that the war was declared for reasons to do with the invasion of Poland (and that's something that's within living memory).
It could be that knowledge of other documents (the Gospel of Thomas buried in Egypt for example )affect our reading of the Bible as they may do with your WW11 book when and if they are released into the public domain.
If I was a Christian and I converted you to my faith I could tell my disciples to say that I have performed a miracle. Lucky has turned Son of Roj into a Christian. He has turned water into wine. It's a miracle!
LUCKY TURNS WATER INTO WINE - READ ALL ABOUT IT!
I have not "given up" trying to be the objective observer.
I am merely stating that it is practically impossible. Ten people see a bank robbery. They all give a different account of what took place! QED.

"Son of Roj, the Bible IS a collection of HISTORY BOOKS."

So is the Lord of the Rings. Merely calling something a history book does not confer on it any authority.

"We can't agree what it all means."

Again with this obsession with meaning.

Please try to understand, I am uninterested in what the Bible "means", if anything. If it is to be of any use as a document of communication, its meaning should be clear. That it is not is merely annoying.

ALL I am concerned with is whether it is *accurate*. Meaning is irrelevant.

"We can't even agree what our own e-mails mean. We can't agree on almost anything. We can only agree to differ."

I'm sorry, I don't understand.

Are you implying that you and I could not agree on the meaning of a simple declarative sentence in English?

Try this on for size:

"Tony Blair is the Prime Minister of England, and has been since 1997."

I put it to you that you, unless you are being deliberately obtuse, could not come up with a "meaning" for that sentence that is significantly different than what I would give it.

I put it to you also that that sentence is an accurate piece of reporting about a fact in the real world.

Try this:

"William Hague is the Prime Minister of England, and has been since 1995."

I put it to you that this is also a sentence which we would both understand, to all intents and purposes, in EXACTLY the same way.

It is also INACCURATE. We agree on its MEANING, but its MEANING is irrelevant to its pretensions to ACCURACY. I hope you can understand the difference.

"People who read your WW11 History Book may not conclude that the war was declared for reasons to do with the invasion of Poland"

If you read just the one book, and that book states that the declaration of war was directly related to the invasion of Poland, it is difficult to understand why you would conclude differently. You have to be deliberately obtuse to do so in fact.

"It could be that knowledge of other documents (the Gospel of Thomas buried in Egypt for example )affect our reading of the Bible"

Well, indeed. Other documents cast doubt on the accuracy of the Bible's accounts of events. Which is precisely my point.

"If I was a Christian and I converted you to my faith I could tell my disciples to say that I have performed a miracle."

Convincing someone of an idea certainly doesn't count as a "miracle" in my book. Perhaps your disciples are gullible and very easily impressed...

"Ten people see a bank robbery. They all give a different account of what took place! QED."



Ten people see a bank robbery. They give different accounts of a BANK ROBBERY.

What you don't get is three accounts of a bank robbery, three accounts of a cookery demonstration, three accounts of a performance of "Nessun Dorma" by a fat man in a dinner jacket and one account of some bearded weirdo in a dress standing on a table doing conjuring tricks with a jug of liquid.

The problem with your Bible is not that it conflicts with reality and itself on details. It conflicts with reality and itself on huge and important facts. By suggesting this is in the same league as minor differences in witness reports to traumatic events you are fooling nobody but yourself.

SoRB

Son of Roj,
I promise I am not being deliberately obtuse. What I'm trying to put on the discussion table is the following:
You, I, the world and his dog (by the way, have you seen the cartoons - I've seen 3 and they wouldn't even merit a spot in Private Eye) all see, hear, smell, feel, interpret things in many different ways. That's my BIG MAIN POINT. The 1380 pages, 66 Books of the Bible written by 40 different authors are, cannot be, excepted.

You have your ideas about them and somebody else has his. Naturally since there are so many different books and so many different authors you cannot give them all equal weight unless you are of the firm belief that every word in the Bible is sacrosanct but even then it cannot be the case because as in the example of the New International Bible I cited somewhere or other more than 100 translators were involved in the translation. The NIV therefore cannot be the same as the King James for example.

To go back to my original point there are Daily Mirror and Daily Telegraph versions of the Bible. Even if you could create your mythical objective observer, whom I would presume to be a robot or computer of some kind, he, she,it would still have the problem of which version of the Bible to 'observe'.

Some of your points:
SoRB: The Lord of the Rings is a history book -
LL: YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS (SON OF JOHN McENROE).
SoRB: Are you saying you and I could not agree on the meaning of a simple declaritive sentence in English? -
LL: Depends on what the sentence is. Try this for size (taken completely at random) (Psalm 27): "I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Now tell me what the last 4 words mean.
The last part of your argument about your WWII history book is not a very suitable analogy because with the Bible we are reading 40 History books, each reflecting on the other. It's an amazing Hall of Mirrors, is the Bible, when you get down to actually reading it.

A brilliant observation you made was "perhaps your disciples are gullible and easily impressed". Exactly!!!!!!!!!!!! Look at your television. See how people get in a frenzy about a few cartoons, rampage through the streets, adopt the mob mentality, are prepared to commit suicide and take others with them, etc. It's the same people, the same place, a different time. It's not so different now as it was then. For the Romans you may substitute Americans. You observation (that I quoted) backfires on you - because the answer is YES! it's exactly how they are, were, will be!

Jesus said "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone!"
That's an important piece of advice (it also can be read in two ways)and it is what TRUE CHRISTIANITY is all about.

I think I don't need to continue this discussion further.

"A brilliant observation you made was "perhaps your disciples are gullible and easily impressed". Exactly!...... You [sic] observation (that I quoted) backfires on you - because the answer is YES! it's exactly how they are, were, will be!"

My observation most emphatically does not backfire. It is the essence of my point. It seems we are in agreement, then. The Bible is a true report of history... for the gullible and easily impressed.

I have nothing further.

SoRB

Son of Roj, I enjoyed it. I always knew we would AGREE!!!!

A blind, deaf, dumb, illiterate MUST be able to come to the answer IF the answer is RIGHT. Can a book of 1380 pages written by 40 authors and translated by 100 translators be the answer or might not the answer be found in the poet's grain of sand?

Son of Roj, from opposite directions we have arrived at the same place.

I congratulate you!

May your path always rise to meet you.

Lucky

"Son of Roj, if 10 people read the same history book they will get 10 different ideas of what happened; 10 different 'accounts of what took place' will unfold in their brains. You know yourself when you read a novel a film plays itself out in your head and when you go to the flicks what you see there is never half as good as what you experienced when you read the novel. The Bible is no different. When I read it I visualize a sequence of events. When you read the same text you might visualize a completely different sequence of events. It's only words.

If there had been a television crew on site we'd see all the rioting the streets, the soldiers, the brutality etc., much as we do today but since there wasn't a television crew there we only have the historical documents that turn up from time to time to go off. But even if there was a television crew an even if the miracles were actual physical events there would still be a difference of opinion. People would say this is a David Copperfield, or this is a Yuri Geller, and so on.
The plain truth of the matter is that everybody has to decide the these things for himself based on his own life experiences and his own spiritual experiences.
There is in reality no such thing as your >>objective observer<<. In my posting above when I tried to play the role I couldn't come to it. It is impossible."

I agree luckyLlarggub. Good points

Hi Karl

A late reply after a few years.

Your question on the magi being " honoured " by the Gospels needs some clarification.
The magi were an unknown group of supposedly wise men - there is no record in Scripture showing a definite number and Matthew is the only Gospel recording their visit to Bethlehem.
To say that they are honoured by the Bible is perhaps an incorrect assessment. Their story is but an inclusion of historical veracity. The fact that they may have been sages, soothsayers, occultists, astologers etc. has no bearing on whether or not they should be mentioned in Scripture.
People weren't given biblical mention just because they were virtuous. Sennacherib was perhaps the most wicked and ruthless king of antiquity, yet his story is included in connection with Judah's king, Hezekiah's receiving a miraculous deliverance from Sennacherib's Assyrian forces.

Also, Mary Magdelene is not in any way disrespected for her pre-conversion iniquities. She is testimony to the forgiveness in Jesus Christ for every sinner who comes brokenhearted to the throne of grace and whose guilty records have been fully expunged by the blood of the Saviour.