Posted by David Stephens on July 16, 1998 at 12:45:53:
In Reply to: Two points of clarification. . . posted by blue on July 15, 1998 at 20:36:15:
So your idea of the "more sensible" answer is: he fell headlong to be impaled on a rock where he hung to death with his guts coming out. Again I see this as a stretch coming from your imagination rather than being written anywhere in the bible. I think it's pretty obvious you're letting your apriori assumption of the bible's infallibility color your judgement here.
You perhaps won’t agree, but I think you could find ANY mythical writing to be infallible simply by believing with a passion that it's was. Afterall, there are "Blue" people in every religion :-) I bet if you put your heart to it (or were raised with it), you could convince yourself that the Koran, or even "Moby Dick" was the Word of God ;-)
If the bible were the Word of the God of Creation, that would be an incredibly striking attribute of a book! Imagine for a moment... what extraordinary things would the God that created the Universe have to say to us? It boggles the mind with possibility! Unfortunately in my readings of the bible I found there is no striking attribute, only the mundane, often violent and twisted writings of ancient, ignorant and frightened men. There are a few redeeming verses of equity, intelligence and beauty, but they are lost in a massive mire of bigotry, loathing, fanaticism, intolerance, dogmatism, ignorance and fear. If a God of Creation does exist, you’re seriously belittling him by placing his name on such a ludicrous book of legends.