The Counter Scripture Project

[Bucky Ball]

From time to time a devout religionist tosses scripture into these threads, often like a grenade, with the expectation that it will strike atheists as an explosive revelation, changing our minds, knocking us into kneeling worship, and otherwise shaking our world into submission.

It never works as expected, but the religionists never tire of it.

What's needed is a Counter Scripture.  Every verse or passage flung into these threads should be immediately met with a devastating counter scripture that doesn't merely rebut it, but wholly eclipses it in every dimension of its meaning, with poetry, pith, essay, literature, film and theater from sources from across history.  If the scriptural intent is in fact positive, the Counter Scripture makes the point with superior art, form, science and arresting exposition, making the scripture pale and listless by comparison.

If the scriptural intent is incorrect, inhumane, dishonest or ignorant to the point of being wrong, the Counter Scripture displaces it with citations from literature, science and the arts.

The Compendium of Counter Scripture need not respond to every verse in classic scripture.  The KJV is not quite 800,000 words and 31,000 verses, but the verses cited 98% of the time amount to only a few hundred.  Nobody cites "And Jeohasius begat Aileena".  There're multiple web sites that rank verses by frequency of citation, so building Counter Scripture to them need not consume 100 lifetimes.

I think a Counter Scripture is long overdue, given the frequency of scriptural citation in many contexts of school, entertainment, politics and portions of law enforcement.

Any interest out there in joining me in putting a project like this into being?

Half of the Book of Daniel is historically wrong.  Is this what you mean?

So in the Book of Daniel the writer claims that that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar, but the Nabonidus Cylinder found in Ur names Nabonidus as Belshazzar’s actual father.



There are so many historical problems with the Book of Daniel, it's unreal.

Sorry DF2, I totally completely disagree with you about Daniel.
"Half" of Daniel is not historically wrong. The ENTIRE thing is wrong.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/18242

BTW, I discovered a delightful scholar, Dr. Jennifer Bird. She actually says that Paul was not (even) a Christian, whoever wrote the letters.



This is a fun watch ... she is careful not to be dogmatic, which is refreshing. And they laugh and have fun.
I disagree on some things, but she was ordained, and obviously rejected what she learned in her seminary program.
Check out her website. She concludes Christianity doesn't matter as many of us have concluded.

[Dancefortwo]

Half of the Book of Daniel is historically wrong.  Is this what you mean?

So in the Book of Daniel the writer claims that that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar, but the Nabonidus Cylinder found in Ur names Nabonidus as Belshazzar’s actual father.



There are so many historical problems with the Book of Daniel, it's unreal.

Sorry DF2, I totally completely disagree with you about Daniel.
"Half" of Daniel is not historically wrong. The ENTIRE thing is wrong.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/18242

BTW, I discovered a delightful scholar, Dr. Jennifer Bird. She actually says that Paul was not (even) a Christian, whoever wrote the letters.



This is a fun watch ... she is careful not to be dogmatic, which is refreshing. And they laugh and have fun.
I disagree on some things, but she was ordained, and obviously rejected what she learned in her seminary program.
Check out her website. She concludes Christianity doesn't matter as many of us have concluded.

 

  "Sorry DF2, I totally completely disagree with you about Daniel.....The ENTIRE thing is wrong" 

  

 LOL.       Well, that's true.   And then the stupid fucking 7 weeks messiah prophecy thing is totally nuts.  It's always based on how you interprate the text.  I can do one better. The ancient Egyptians  prophecised the ariplane!    It's that thing on the right in the bas relief.    Looks like a plane or something from George Jetson, doesn't it?  So the Egyptians were forseeing 3000 years into the future.  


 

Or were they?????   

Here's what happened.  It turned out to be a botched attempt by a son to appropriate the temple of his father. The original glyphs are an alternative name for Seti I:




It went from this:

  

Which reads...
 
"He who repulses the nine enemies of Egypt. " 

To this: 



Which reads...

"He who protects Egypt and overthrows the foreign countries" 

In the process of resculpting the bas relief some of the plaster fell off so it looks like an airplane.    

I can't take credit for this. I googled it when someone made this claim.   I figured something fishy was going on.  The Egyptians did not predict George Jetson flying machines.

[Cavebear]

Too much work. I'm not here to contend against theists (though I do when they post). And my internet sources are not oriented to arts&science sites that specifically provide evidence against the christian text. Indeed, I have no more concern with the christian text than I do jewish, moslem, hindu, or others.

The idea is interesting though. But so many science texts already refute most of the christian bible. We can't quote all of them.

It might be interesting to take the christian text "chapter and verse" and refute each one by reference. But many simply state things that humans learned on their own and are actually true. It is hard to argue against "You shall not steal", for example.

I think I will simply continue to refute some particular claims of theists of any type when they are presented as proof of some current social claim. And mostly just discuss items of more general interest with fellow atheists.

[pythagorean]

It is hard to argue against "You shall not steal", for example.

It's only hard to argue because of your culture.

Certainly, the colonial authorities considered cattle rustling a crime back in the 1700s and early 1800s.

But that doesn't mean the laws cannot be challenged.

You should see Juan Tumba's rap sheet.

"Una diabla con tres diablos, y el mismito Lucifer"

[Cavebear]

It is hard to argue against "You shall not steal", for example.

It's only hard to argue because of your culture.

Certainly, the colonial authorities considered cattle rustling a crime back in the 1700s and early 1800s.

But that doesn't mean the laws cannot be challenged.

You should see Juan Tumba's rap sheet.

You underlined a part of my quote that I did not.  Altering quotes is not good.

The rest of your post makes absolutely no sense.

Bye, bye...

[pythagorean]

It's only hard to argue because of your culture.

Certainly, the colonial authorities considered cattle rustling a crime back in the 1700s and early 1800s.

But that doesn't mean the laws cannot be challenged.

You should see Juan Tumba's rap sheet.

You underlined a part of my quote that I did not.  Altering quotes is not good.

The rest of your post makes absolutely no sense.

Bye, bye...

I'm posting with my fingers. But whatever.

You can't defend your Bible quote, so you run away, and conceded.

I was expecting it to be harder.

I haven't even put any effort into defending cattle rustling, because you just gave up.

This is a huge disappointment.

I was hoping for more of a challenge. 

I guess you're not cut out for the Counter Scripture Project.

You aren't the only one losing interest, here.

[Dave Armstrong]

What's needed is a Counter Scripture.  Every verse or passage flung into these threads should be immediately met with a devastating counter scripture that doesn't merely rebut it, but wholly eclipses it in every dimension of its meaning, with poetry, pith, essay, literature, film and theater from sources from across history.  If the scriptural intent is in fact positive, the Counter Scripture makes the point with superior art, form, science and arresting exposition, making the scripture pale and listless by comparison.

If the scriptural intent is incorrect, inhumane, dishonest or ignorant to the point of being wrong, the Counter Scripture displaces it with citations from literature, science and the arts.

The Compendium of Counter Scripture need not respond to every verse in classic scripture.  The KJV is not quite 800,000 words and 31,000 verses, but the verses cited 98% of the time amount to only a few hundred.  Nobody cites "And Jeohasius begat Aileena".  There're multiple web sites that rank verses by frequency of citation, so building Counter Scripture to them need not consume 100 lifetimes.

I think a Counter Scripture is long overdue, given the frequency of scriptural citation in many contexts of school, entertainment, politics and portions of law enforcement.

Any interest out there in joining me in putting a project like this into being?

There are several projects similar to this in one respect: devoted to showing how the Bible is supposedly massively contradictory. I tired of seeing this and decided to do my own book -- offered for free -- refuting these efforts in the case of 191 alleged Bible contradictions.

What was remarkable about doing this work was my discovery that 90% of these were very easily overcome: usually with simple logic; other times with counter-factuals or explanations of the many different biblical idioms, which most atheists are either unaquainted with or only dimly aware of.

[no one]

I just find some excerpts from works of fiction and post them, then claim that the post makes the post legitimate.