Reply to Why do you not believe that the Bible is divinely inspired?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=FruminousBandersnatch][quote]A better example is saying, my cat was out last night and I found a dead bird on the porch this morning. I don't know for sure what happened. There are (1) the facts, the dead bird, and some of these facts may have different historical roots (or was it a mouse, maybe it's hard to tell). And then there are (2) the interpretations/beliefs. Two different things. So I can believe my cat was the killer, but you're free to believe it was the neighbor's cat. [/quote]

The difference, though, is that in either case it was a cat that really exists and a member of a species that is known to hunt and has the capability to do the historical action. You might believe your cat did it, you might believe another cat did it - both are reasonable.

However, what religion adds is the supernatural element that says, "No, it wasn't any of your cats, a divine entity that you cannot detect or explain struck down the mouse because of the divine entity's ineffable plan, but trust me it's for the best because the divine entity loves you."[/quote]

No, actually. It's not a good analogy to compare this with a cat coming down from the skies, [i]cat ex machina[/i], and killing the bird/mouse.

In both cases, we start with actual facts, actual evidence, but we use the evidence to come to different conclusions. We start with an agreed set of facts.  We know that we and the neighbors own cats. Similarly, there is historical evidence for many of the OT figures and Jesus. There is an independent Roman source for Jesus and many (not all, obviously) also are convinced that the Gospels are accounts written down by people who talked to eye witnesses. Same goes for various OT books.

The difference is what we do with this starting set of facts--  the facts are incomplete, and we interpret them differently. I think our cat killed the bird and left it on our stoop, you think the our cat is too much of a pussy and instead the neighbor's cat killed the bird and got chased off  (by some third neighbor?) before it could leave.  Similarly, you look at the Roman account of Jesus and think, meh, just a man. I look at the Roman account and also at the gospels, which I have no reason to believe are not accounts written down by people who talked to witnesses, and I think there is something miraculous going on.   [/quote]

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