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[Dan Kind]

I just see no reason to treat the bible as anything more than fiction. We have nothing to suggest any of the supernatural stuff is accurate. We have no good reason to accept any of it as true.

[jimwalton]

> None of the supernatural stuff can be confirmed.

Of course not. Supernatural stuff can't be confirmed. Let's just suppose, for the sake of argument, that you are in your room when God appears to you—for real. All the glowing and stuff you'd expect. Just supposing. You wonder if you're dreaming, but he confirms it's real. He levitates the bed at your request, turns your hand into a lizard hand as you ask, etc. He proves himself to you. He talks to you, and the two of you converse. Let's say he even leaves a sign: he puts a lightning bolt scar on the back of your hand. And then He's gone.

OK, you are just dumbstruck and beside yourself. You run out and tell your friends. They say, "Bah, humbug. Prove it." But you can't. There's no way to prove supernatural stuff.

Or suppose you are praying for something, say a person to not die when his or death is inevitable. And say that person recovers, just as you prayed and exactly when you prayed. Will your friends now believe in prayer, or will they say there was some other cause?
Let's just suppose you were in the boat when Jesus walked on the water. You saw it with your eyes. Jesus got in the boat with wet feet. You saw Peter walk on the water, and he got in the boat with wet clothes after Jesus saved him from sinking. You got to shore and your buddy Evan was there and you told him what happened. He says, "Prove it." What do you have?

> We have no good reason to accept any of what the bible writers claim as true

Of course we do. Our experiences count, or science is pretty worthless. I saw a ball drop and I timed it. I create a chart as I repeat the experiment 100 times to create a graph. Are my experiences valid, or do we throw it all away? If so, we throw away all science, all news reporting, and most of what our friends tell us.

I saw a rainbow last week. I couldn't begin to prove it to you. Even if others saw it, there's still no proof. I had a stomach ache this morning. Can't prove that either.

Once when I was traveling abroad, I was on a walk in a rainforest and saw an agouti cross the road. It was there and gone so fast I didn't have time to pull out my phone to take a picture. I have no proof, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

> I just see no reason to treat the bible as anything more than fiction.

Well, I guess that's what we need to talk about. Since the Bible has historical, archaeological, geographical, political, religious culture, and cultural practices credibility, I can somewhat assume that the authors aren't writing fiction. And since historical fiction was virtually unknown in the ancient world (except for a few works like the Iliad and the Odyssey, and 1 or 2 more), it's not reasonable to assume ALL of the biblical books were written as historical fiction. And since an assessment of the author's style and tone doesn't lead us to the conclusion that they intended to write anything but historiography, and since the Bible has such deep and profound moral and behavior credibility in what it teaches, it deserves more than a brush off for its theological claims.